103 



writes as follows to j\Ir. William P. Wharton of Groton (trans- 

 lated from the German) : — 



The law for killing roaming cats varies according to whether it is carried 

 out by those empowered to do so or by owners without authorization. The 

 former may, without further ceremony, shoot any cat, whether roaming 

 wild or not, which they find on their beat, no matter whether the owner is 

 knowTi to them or not. But they [the shooters] must keep a certain distance 

 away from any inhabited building, this distance varying in different States 

 [usually it amounts to 200 metres]. In most domains, those having the legal 

 right to shoot may even demand a fee from the owner of the cat, which fee 

 the owner must pay. The owner of a garden or park who has suffered 

 damage on account of birdcatching cats need only refer to paragraph 228 

 of our code of civil law if he wishes to legally justify the kilhng of cats. "After 

 this any one who harms or destroys a foreign object in order to ward off 

 threatened danger from himself or from some other person does not commit 

 an illegal act, pro\ided the harm or destruction is necessary for warding off 

 the danger, and provided the damage is not out of proportion to the danger." 

 Apphed to the cat question that means: The owner of a garden in which 

 birds brood may kill cats appearing there if he is able to prove that these 

 cats prey upon the birds and their broods. To be sure, judicial decisions 

 unfavorable to owners of gardens, these owners having killed cats, are not 

 lacking. But in these cases there were culpable accessory circumstances, 

 such as the use of firearms without a permit, or inadmissible nearness to in- 

 habited buildings. 



Our laws are unquestionably inadequate, and for that reason the govern- 

 ment and the representatives of the people wiU verj'' soon be obhged to take 

 new measures for the protection of birds. 



The experiment of taxing cats has also been tried in order to reduce their 

 number, but this measure has been taken only by towns, and the result can- 

 not yet be seen. 



An important point of ^iew is given, in any event, by the fact that the 

 domestic cat — with you in America as well as here with us — cannot be 

 considered and esteemed a native animal belonging to the hneal fauna, but 

 that it is an imported stranger which one can justly return to the house of 

 its owner. There is no reason why the privilege of roaming about freely, 

 denied other domestic animals, should be given to the cat. 



According to Dr. Clifton F. Hodge this is practically the solu- 

 tion of the problem reached by Baron von Berlepsch in Ger- 

 many, and there cities provide traps which are continually kept 

 baited and set for stray cats. According to this wTiter Hamburg 

 has 300 such traps that during the three years previous to the 

 publication of his book had rid the city of 6,226 cats. He men- 

 tions Berlin, Hamburg, Elberield, Barmen, Frankfort, Liineburg, 

 Nuremberg, Pirna, Oels, Breslau, etc., as making official pro- 

 vision for the destruction of cats, and states that in jNIunster 

 there has existed for some years an "Anti-Cat Society" w^hich 

 has already destroyed several thousand of these "beasts of prey.'* 



In Europe the cat owner seems to have been defeated in the 



