Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 113, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1912 — Cat’s Conduct is Up to City for Trial [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Cat’s Conduct is Up to City for Trial

NEW YORK.—Is Minnie, the feline favorite of the inmates of the Inasmuch Home for Aged Women, a roofripping, gravel-scratching, hole-ter -ing, diabolical example of what a cat should not be, or is Minnie a soft-pur-ring, affectionate, fire-loviiig and milkseeking animal, worthy of all the devotion that the women of the home and neighbors in the block can give her? This is the vital case which is being tried in the court of public opinion in the home, in every drawing-room, in the back yards and out the windows of Garfield place. Minnie is charged in the indictment brought by William A. Robbins in a complaint to the health department, with having felinely, feloniously and with malice aforethought, ripped, torn, scratched and otherwise made holes in a certain tin roof, situated just over the library of said complainant The charges, separately and ' collectively, Minnie indignantly denies through her friend, Mrs. Susan Dane, founder of the home. The indictment describes the roof as being an extension roof, covered with gravel, Minnie is accused of having scratched the gravel off and having torn the tin. The defense is not insanity. Minnie offers in evidence to 'refute the

charge, four sefs of perfectly blunt claws. The prosecution offers to. prove by numerous witnesses that Minnie and another cat, “to the deponent unknown" —a sort of Mary Doe cat —can be thoroughly identified as the leader in the band of feline vandals. The neighborhood is divided. The board of health has been drawn in and has Instructed Minnie, Mrs. Dane, acting as interpreter, that she must remain within the confines of her own home. If she does hot, the civil courts will take the case from the Court of Public Opinion of ,the Garfield place district. Minnie, upon being asked her opinion of her ancestors and the case in general, remarked “Meiouw!" She then turned her back on the interviewer, which is supposed to be an ex ' pression of disgust with the entire proceeding.