Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1911 — LITTLE MEXICAN CAT [ARTICLE]

LITTLE MEXICAN CAT

Pretty Animal Makes New Yorkers Hold Noses. Mystic Zone of Wrath-Making Odor Around Central Park Sets Monkey House in (jproar—Somebody Vents Spite. New York. —If one happened to be passing early the other day in front of the row of mansions on Fifth avenue that qverlook Central park arsenal, and had a bad cold, one would have noticed butlers and footmen were acting strangely. A front door would open and a stately figure In yellow plush emerge to take bearings on the weather. The stately figures would suddenly assume a startled attitude, sniff, clap his fist on the offended nasal organ and leap backward into the house. A footman or two ventured down to the curb, sniffing all the time, then turned and bolted within. Bedroom window* facing the park Went banging down in a volley. Siugularly and impressive as all this was. if one had ventured nearer the arsenal there were yet stranger sights. Policemen patrolling their beats inarched swiftly along, their noses buried in handkerchiefs. Keeper Snyder could be seen making his rounds of the animal houses with one hand over his nose and the other bearing a burning Joss stick. Nurse maids who passed within the mystic zone suddenly clasped their aprons to their noses and pranced away. All the while theer was a terrific din in the lion house. Lions roared and tigers.spit and hissed; panthers snarled and leopards bowled. The prairie dogs were digging furiously in the frozen ground with an evident desire to escape from something that made them snarl peevishly. P&sslrg Into the lion house attention would be drawn instantly to a cage in which a pretty spotted cat was curled up purring contentedOpposite the cage in which the pretty feline reclined In such demure

contentment, two Bengal tigers and one Nyanza leopard were engaged in frenzied efforts to beat down their bars. In the cages at either side two families of llonß seemed utterly bereft Every few minutes a keeper would burst out of a door, rush down in front of the little cat’s cage and shake his fist frantically; that is one fist, the other being clapped across his face. “What has the handsome little animal done?" one visitor with a horribly bad cold asked Head Keeper “Bill” Snyder, after Snyder had conducted himself like a maniac. "Done!” roared Snyder. “Don’t you get it? He’s a Mexican tom cat oscelot. Come up back of the bear dens where the wind’s blowing, and I’ll tell you about it.” Having arrived back of the bear dens. Snyder said; “If you didn’t happen to have that cold, which has caused the suspension of your olfactory sense, you would have back-somersaulted out of that lion house the minute you got your nose in the door. The Mexican Oscelot is to a skunk what a glue factory is to a rosebud." "Why don't you get rid of him?” was asked. "Can’t,” replied Snyder, “till we get orders through regular channels. Somebody down in Mexico who hates the United States, sent that thing to a woman in Yonkers. When it came the customs people refused to pass it The woman notified Commissioner ptover that we could have It The commissioner had me to go and get it. “We went with a dray and cage and .found the thing in the bold. All the rats had died. We got it into the cage all right, but hated ourselves when we'd finished the job. But It did not begin to do it* best work until we got it in the lion house. We sprayed it with gasoline, which only made it worse. We burned feathers, but that proved no antidote. "If I don't get it out of Central park tomorow there’s going to be rioting. We started to put It in the

monkey house, but we no sooner got it in the door than the monkeys began to faint.”