CHAPTER XI 



CONCERNING CAT HOSPITALS AND REFUGES 



AT comparatively frequent intervals we read of 

 some woman, historic or modern, who has 

 left an annuity (as the Duchess of Richmond, " La 

 Belle Stewart") for the care of her pet cats; now 

 and then a man provides for them in his will, as 

 Lord Chesterfield, for instance, who left a permanent 

 pension for his cats and their descendants. But I 

 find only one who has endowed a home for them and 

 given it sufficient means to support the strays and 

 waifs who reach its shelter. 



Early in the eighties. Captain Nathan Appleton, of 

 Boston (a brother of the poet Longfellow's wife, and 

 of Thomas Appleton, the celebrated wit), returned 

 from a stay in London with a new idea, that of 

 founding some sort of a refuge, or hospital, for sick 

 or stray cats and dogs. He had visited Battersea, 

 and been deeply impressed with the need of a shelter 

 for small and friendless domestic animals. 



At Battersea there is an institution similar to the 

 one the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 

 in New York have at East 120th Street, where stray 

 animals may be sent and kept for a few days await- 



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