Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1913 — CITY IS KIND TO CATS [ARTICLE]

CITY IS KIND TO CATS

Berlin Judge Fines Soldiers Who Shot Night Prowlers. Lieutenant Believed Felines Intended to Blay His Tame Raven—Residents Not Allowed to Molest Animals. Berlin.—Germany is the paradise of cats, a Berlin correspondent writes. In no other country, except, perhaps, ancient Egypt, where the cat used to be regarded as sacred, has Passey’s well-being eyer been studied more carefully than it is in the fatherland today. Good Americans, so ’tis said, go to Paris when they die, but American cats can desire no more blissful future state than to be transported to Germany after nine well spent lives under the stars and stripea Jerome K. Jerome, you may remember, discovered carefully cats are looked after in the fatherland. In “Three Men on the Bummer he tells how he hurled the usual bootjack and other missiles at some Berlin cats whose yowls were disturbing his Blumbers, and how he was promptly waited on by a German policeman, who had carefully collected all his ammunition, and demanded to know why the articles had been thrown. When told that they had been flung at cats he demanded “What cats?” evidently expecting Jerome to be able to fur nish the name and address of each particular, feline. Then he informed the novelist that in Germany people are not permitted to throw things at cats, even when the animals are preventing them from sleeping. He said the proper course to pursue was to pursue the cat, in other words, follow it home and, thus having ascertained who the serenader belonged to, to make a complaint, which, if unheeded, could be followed by legal proceedings. Now, German law has solemnly laid down the circumstances —and the only ones—under which a cat may be shot. A lieutenant in the army who Uvea in Berlin shot two and dire is the penalty that has befallen him for thus destroying eighteen lives. He has been mulcted, as the legal phrase has it. in damages amounting to S3O, or SIS per cat, besides having to pay all costs. This lieutenant, whose name was Klotz, has a tamq, raven which spends most of its time in strutting about his garden. The lieutenant believed that two cats who kept prowling in the vicinity had designs on the raven, and after scattlng them a few times he shot first one and then the other, the latter when it was sneaking along the garden path In the direction which

the raven had taken on its morning promanade. Now, it seems that he acted precipitately. A Teuton judge has decreed that the owner of birds or any bird-lover in Germany who suspects a cat of having marked a certain bird for its own must wait until he catches the feline in the very act of pouncing on its prey. Then he may shoot it, but not otherwise, even though the yard may be strewn with the plumage of precious feathered vlotlms of the assassin. A cat may not be molested even if it is seen slinking away with your canary in its mouth. That is not conclusive evidence, according to the recent judicial decision. The thing to be done is to armr yourself with a gun. lay in a good stock of patience, *and lie in wait for the cat If you actually see it about to spring on a bird then shoot, and a good aim to you, but if all these conditions are not fulfilled the cat may walk past you with peace in its heart and a mocking smile on its face, secure in its legal rights. In deciding the Berlin case the judge severely condemned Lieutenant Klotz’ action in massacring the cats

without positive proof that they meditated the destruction of his raven. The learned magistrate held that the cats having been “scatted” once, could have been scatted again without recourse of bloodshed, and he incidentally laid down the law for cat klUing as set forth above. Whether the cats of Berlin laughed or not when they heard the verdict is not known, bnt it certainly was enough to make them.