300 BIIWS IN LONDON 



ISTow this veiy painful condition of things 

 ought not to continue, and my onl}^ reason for 

 going into the subject is to suggest a remedy. 

 This is that the metropoHtan pohce be instructed 

 to remove all stray cats and send them to a 

 lethal chamber provided for the purpose. The 

 ownerless cats, vve have seen, do not roam about 

 the town, but have a home, or at all events a 

 house, to which the}^ attach themselves, and which 

 the}^ refuse to leave, however inhospitably or even 

 cruelly they may be treated. On making some in- 

 quiries at houses in my own neighbourhood on the 

 subject, I find that most ]3eople are anxious to 

 get rid of the stray cats they may happen to have 

 about the place, but are at a loss to know how 

 to do it. In some instances they succeed in 

 straying them again, but the cats are no better off 

 than before, and the starving population is not 

 diminished. But it would be a simple way out 

 of the difficulty if they could have them removed 

 by reporting them to the nearest policeman. We 

 have seen, as a result of the muzzling order 

 imposed by the County Council, that upwards 

 of forty thousand unclaimed dogs have been 

 destroyed in the coin-se of a year (ISOG), and 

 tlie presumi)ti()U is that these dogs wci'e little 



