Official Cats in America.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 23, 7 December 1907, Page 48

Official Cats in America.

It is a curious fact that the Government of the United States maintains and provides for numerous cats. The army has its regular corps of them, kept at the commissary depots of the great cities, and each draws regular pay equal to eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents a year. It is customary for the officer in charge of each depot to submit to the War Department a request for an allowance for so many cats, and the regulations provide that meat shall be purchased for them at a price not greater than five cents a pound, to which a stated quantity of canned milk is added for variety. Experiment has shown that no matter how excellent a hunter a cat may be, nor how abundant the mice, no cat will thrive properly on a diet of the unmitigated mouse; nor does it neglect its duties when other food is provided. Bids for the cats’ meat are regularly posted, calling for “fresh beef suitable for feeding cats, bone to be excluded, to be delivered at the contractor’s place of business on such days as may be designated, and in such quantities as may lie required.” More than four hundred cats are in the employ of the Post Office Department, distributed among about fifty of the largest offices. The New I ork city office expends some sixty dollars annually in cats’ meat. Most of the other large Government buildings are supplied with cats. At the immense cold storage depot established a year or so ago at Manila, cats were found to be necessary, and so tabbies were sent from the famous cold storage breed of Pittsburg. This breed originated in the great warehouses of a cold storage company, and has developed special qualifications for enduring extreme cold. The cold storage cats are short tailed, chubby, with long and heavy fur. and their eyebrows and whiskers are extraordinarily long and strong. It is said that they do not thrive when transferred to an ordinary temperature.