305 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
township of homeless cats, red squirrels, and English 
Sparrows— yes, I would, ma’am! 
“T have eyes and I use them, and I know eats are worse 
enemies to birds, counting wild birds and poultry together, 
than everything else that walks or flies humped together. 
Tame house cats are bad enough, for they’ll kill for pleas- 
ure when they’re not hungry. My sister over at Hill’s farm 
says she’s taken over fifty dead or half-dead birds away 
from her pet cat this summer, until it sickened her of the 
idea of keeping cats. 
“But when it comes to the half-breeds that some folks 
let grow up because they’re too slack to kill ’em, it’s just 
acrime! Look at this piece of work here; the cat that 
has done all this is one of the outcasts of the lot down at 
the grist-mill. Cats are only half tamed at best; let them 
get a taste of hunting and back they go and are savages. 
“They don’t belong to this country; we folks brought 
em, like we did English Sparrows, and we made a mis- 
take, and we ought to undoit when wecan. Transplanted 
animals, like pauper foreigners, always get the upper hand. 
Traps can catch up the rats and mice, only we’re too lazy 
to set them. Cats are no good, even for pets, for they’re 
tricky, and they aren’t healthy for children to have 
because they carry skin diseases and such in their fur. 
They claim that Jessie Lyons that died in Bridgeton ’long 
in the fall got the diphtheria from her cat’s trampin’ all 
over creation, and then her huggin’ it. 
“Tf it’s right and proper to license dogs, and if one kills 
fowls or sheep, for the town to pay damages, then, say 
I, the least we can do is to license cats and hold the owners 
for their mischief. 
