A PRIMA DONNA’S QUEER PET.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XII, 24 March 1894, Page 287

A PRIMA DONNA’S QUEER PET.

My pet, writes Laura Schirmer Mapleson, is a white rat, and his name is Dick. There ! In imagination I can already see scores of feminine noses tilting skyward, while scornful disdain is depicted all over their pretty faces. But I beseech them to control their feelings and compose their features while we endeavour to reason together on the subject. It will be conceded that the three essential qualifications in a pet are intelligence, docility and amiability. Dick possesses all these requisites in an eminent degree. He knows more in five minutes than most animals ten times his size know in twelve months. He knows enough to do what he is told. He knows what to eat and what to drink, and, above all, he knows when be has had enough, and never stuffs himself sick, like some pampered quadrupeds I could name. He is piously clean. Cleanliness is next to godliness and certainly represents the nearest approach to piety of which an animal is capable. Dick is always scrupulously clean. He cleans himself and doesit thoroughly. He doesn’t require to be frequently scrubbed and fumigated, like some species of pets which are supposed to be legitimate objects of feminine affection. Dick accompanies me on all my travels. I don’t know of any other sort of pet who could do that without making himself a nuisance occasionally. But I am a woman’s rights woman to the extent, at least, of believing that every woman has the right to choose her own pets. And I never intend to apologize for Dick.