Wairarapa Daily Times [Establishes Third of a Century.] WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1914. SHOW CATS AND A MORAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11936, 25 March 1914, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Establishes Third of a Century.] WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1914. SHOW CATS AND A MORAL.

''The Times," London, romments on the fact that a "woman recently staled that she wrapped her show cats in ilannel at night and gave tht'in hot-wate: , bottles in their beds. The London journal states that "we make a standard oi" •our own for pet animals, and do our best to attain to it, the animals themselves not being considered in the matter. "The show cat is precious to his owner; but lie must neem a poor creature to the ordinary, low-bred, poaching Tom, "who can make his own living, choose his own mate, and endure any extremes of hot and cold. For him the world is an infinite opportunity of adventure. Any garden is his huntingground, and any roof liis operatiu wtage. lie probably thinks meanly of man himself, and to him the show eat, fluffy, peevish, and helpless, must be no cat at all, but a mere parasite of that absurd creature, man. To him, however, he is a work of art, which has the further advantage of being alive and ..0 of being able to produce other works of art. You may forge old masters, but you cannot breed them; and the living artist, even if you do choose to patronize him, is wayward. But if you keep show cats you turn Nature herself into an artist; and she, though not utterly trustworthy, is as an artist less wayward than man. He, if ho is an artist at all, goes his own way, but she within limits will answer to your eugenic intentions; she will give yon the very fluffy, very delicate, and rather useless j show cat that you desire. But, now that we haVe so much the habit of talkabout Nature as if there really were such a being, it is strange that we are not afraid lest she should take some revenge upon the insolence of ours. We play with, life and make a toy of it, and never ask ourselves, while we do so, whether life may not all the time be playing with us; whether we may not be only a eugenic experiment which is not quite so successful as we think. Our own supremacy has lasted but a short time in the history of the planet. There have been, and there may again be, ages in which man is not the master

of it. That is a cold thought, but it is provoked by some frivolous materialism which makes us play these games with living creatures. If there is nothing serious in other lands of life for us, why should there be anything serious in our own? There are animals now that persist on the earth only as our pets. Some day perhaps men will persist only as the pets of their successors.

"It has been suggested, we believe, that these successors may be the -birds. What birds, wo do not know; but when we contrast the men and women on Waterloo Bridge with the seagulls every year more numerous in their airy dances above them, we may, if we like, imagine that they are filled with a dim exultant permoiiition of the future supremacy of their race. And when their race is supreme, when the last wild man lurking in the ruinous labyrinths round the Thames has been long extinct, then perhaps show men, remarkable for their bright blue eyes, crisp curly hair, and smooth pink faces, will retell very large prices among the birds, in spite of their extreme delicacy and utter uselessness. It does not please us tothink that these may be the last survivors of the race of Alexander, and Michelangelo, and Beethoven; but we ourselves have otarted on earth this practice-of breeding creatures for show; we have done what we will with other animals; and the nemesis of our insolence is that we see ourselves as animals with a. very doubtful future. We might count ourselves kings of infinite space, were it not that we, have bad dreams. But the bad dreams may be a wholesome discipline to us and teach us to behave more seriously so that we may be worthy of the future we desire."