THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
127 
1908. 
Hope Farm Notes 
The Cat. —When I described our cats 
looking in through the window at me 
I had no idea that kitty was such a great 
family issue. I have received a deluge 
of letters from various parts of the 
country. I believe in giving all sides a 
fair hearing, so first we will give the 
anti-cat men representation. This Mass¬ 
achusetts man certainly puts his claws 
out through the velvet: 
I was awfully pleased with that article 
of the Hope Farm man when speaking of 
the cats looking in the window. The place 
for cats is outside the house. There never 
was a more despicable or meaner animal that 
ever infested God’s footstool than the com¬ 
mon house cat. They make no pretensions 
to kill or catch rats and mice. All they 
want is to get birds, and they wouldn't catch 
them if there was anyone to catch them 
for them. I make it a rule when I am out 
gunning to shoot every one of them I see on 
sight as they are never in the woods only 
on some mischief apparent. If folks want 
to keep the mice cut down they can buy 
the “out-of-sight” mouse trap; that will 
catch them without any bait and not anni¬ 
hilate pet cage birds. If I had my way 
there wouldn’t be a treacherous cat left in 
this whole universe. If women want pets 
why don’t they get a dog that has got in¬ 
telligence and not a cat? J. s. 
That man would never receive any 
votes from our little girls, and I think 
his argument has driven the boys over 
to the side of the cats. I am sure that 
several of our cats are natural hunters, 
and they have done good work in keep¬ 
ing vermin down at the barn. We have, 
however, lost many chickens, and I know 
the cats kill many young birds. It will 
not do, however, to say that cats have 
no intelligence. They are easily taught 
to do tricks, and I have observed cases 
where they seemed, without doubt, to be 
able to reason. 
But here is a New York man on the 
other side—our girls claim that he is 
“all right”: 
I wish to thank the person whose letter 
appears on page 45. The Idea of permitting 
a useless (I might also add flea-bitten and 
ill-smelling, but will refrain), dog to lie in 
the house while poor Tabby must be content 
to look in through the window ! Of course, 
Grandmother’s bird may follow our boy’s 
gold fish, but then how much nicer pets 
are big, plump, purry Frosty or little soft, 
silky Topsy than any bird or gold fish ! We 
have an old-fashioned, rambling, loosely con¬ 
structed house, but can lie in our beds at 
night and hear no mice running up and down 
the partitions or over the ceiling: the cel¬ 
lar is free from their depredations and 
short is the visit that any rat pays to the 
barn. Hoping you will learn to have more 
respect for the cats and that the bird will 
remain unharmed I am v. u. w. 
Here is another from a Connecticut 
woman : 
I was greatly interested in the fact which 
I learned some time ago that the Maine Leg¬ 
islature had considered the feasibility of 
licensing the ownership of cats, to avoid the 
many cases where cats which are petted and 
cared for all Summer are left to die of cold 
and starvation in the Winter as their 
“owners” return to the city. When in 
Maine late one cold November I found such 
a cat reduced almost to a shadow. She 
had suckled a litter of kittens, but they had 
starved Jo death, and she was starving. I 
could not provide for her, so I put her in a 
basket, which was just large enough, fastened 
the basket securely, set it in the bottom of 
a large pail and weighted it with six or 
eight bricks. Then I filled the pall to the 
brim with nice warm water. M’y husband 
laughed at me, but who will say I was not 
merciful? e. o. g. 
I certainly will not, and our friend 
from Massachusetts will probably join 
me. If New Jersey ever compels peo¬ 
ple to pay a license for keeping cats our 
children say they are willing to work 
and earn the money to pay it. In this 
country nearly everyone keeps a dog 
and one or more cats. If you ask them 
why they keep a dog they would have a 
job to tell you, except that they \alue his 
hark and his society. They would all 
be sure that the cat more than pays 
her way in killing rats and mice. 
The World Grows. —While we are on 
this pet problem I will give a story re¬ 
ported to me. I believe it is true—at 
least it is probable. Some 60 years ago 
there lived on a poor hill farm in New 
England one of those close, narrow-eyed 
Yankees for whose sins of meanness 
many of us must suffer in reputation. 
This man was so close that he got up one 
morning and killed the little girl’s cat 
and the boy’s little dog because the food 
they ate “might feed a pig.” Of course 
that man accumulated some money and 
invested it where it would earn more. 
Of course that money was “tainted,” 
because there wasn’t any trace of kind¬ 
liness, sympathy or love in it. Of course 
it left a mark on those children. When 
they got their hands on it they went off 
to larger opportunities, where they could 
kill richer cats and dogs and feed the 
savings to larger hogs. To-day, I am 
told, the grown daughter of that old man 
who killed the children’s pets lives in the 
city, so rich and so starved of true 
womanly feeling that she keeps a dog 
costing over $600, and an Angora cat 
which cost about $500! These animals 
have a maid to care for them, and their 
food costs nearly as much as a farmer 
would pay out for his entire family! 
While these fat and idle pets eat tender¬ 
loin steak and lie on soft cushions, with¬ 
in rifle shot of them can be found little 
children cold and hungry—without care 
or hope! On the other hand, I have 
read of women on farms near the city 
who make a good living boarding such 
cats and dogs for the luxurious creatures 
who substitute them for children ! Dur¬ 
ing the season for going out of town 
these pets are sent to the farm, where 
they are cared for. The owners will¬ 
ingly pay $10 a month, I am told, for 
such care. What a curious turn of fate 
it would be if on the very farm where 
the old man killed the cat some enter¬ 
prising woman should make more than 
a living at boarding such pets. But just 
imagine our Massachusetts friend with 
his eye sighting along his gun barrel at 
that $500 cat! You can think out this 
little story along any line you like. Think 
how business and the distribution of 
money has developed. At one end of 60 
years a man kills a pet cat to save its 
food, unable to weigh the few cents of 
gain against the injustice and sense of 
wrong he put in the child’s character. 
At the other end is a woman who, out 
of the accumulation of the old man’s 
money, is able to invest in a cat and a 
dog about as much as the old farm was 
worth and spend as much to care for 
and feed these idle pets as the old man 
could earn in a year! You may be led 
by your thinking to a couple of things 
which are evident to me. As “civiliza¬ 
tion” has developed new and wonderful 
markets have been created by the 
luxurious tastes of the rich. The small 
farmer, gardener or fruit grower or 
breeder has a wonderful opportunity in 
producing just what these people want 
and developing the best that can be pro¬ 
vided. The other thing is that a man 
will surely hand down to posterity a bit¬ 
ter curse who robs his children of sym¬ 
pathy and sentiment, and lets them see 
him smear a dollar all over with mean¬ 
ness or dishonesty. 
Some weeks ago a Maryland man 
asked for names suitable for a girl baby. 
Now he comes again: 
As my request was too hard for you I 
will lot tile little motherless child grow up 
and name itself, hut I did think th'a't if 
the dear little child was named now when 
it was young the name would grow familiar 
as the child grew. 
But why in the world don’t you name 
the child after its mother? What more 
beautiful thing could there be than to 
have the little one grow up a constant 
reminder of the one who has gone be¬ 
fore? 
A friend in New York State sends me 
the following clipping: 
Two small children in New Jersey, Mil¬ 
dred and William Carter, lost their par¬ 
ents in a wreck, and a jury sitting in Cam¬ 
den has just awarded the orphans $23,000 
damages, $5,000 for Hie loss of their mother 
and $1.8,000 for the loss of their father. 
There was no insinuation that Mrs. Car¬ 
ter was not a good mother, hut being a 
woman, it was assumed that her value to 
her children was less than one-third that 
of the father. It will be remembered that 
another New Jersey jury, some months ago, 
in awarding damages to the parents of 
school children killed in a railroad acci¬ 
dent, decided that a son was worth vastly 
more than a daughter. 
I am not sure this case is fairly re¬ 
ported, but I regret to say that the usual 
idea is that the man is very much more 
valuable to society than the woman. I 
hav.e had people tell me that more chil¬ 
dren have been ruined by weak and in¬ 
dulgent mothers than ever were by bad 
fathers. I have no figures to disprove 
the statement, but I know that strong 
mothers have been able to save their 
children from inherited traits of their 
fathers. There are few things more 
dangerous to society than a so-called 
home headed by a weak, lazy, conceited 
and incompetent woman. Society would 
be better off if such characters were left 
to train cats and lap dogs rather than 
children. On the other hand, there has 
been no stronger force for good in all 
human history than the home influence 
of a strong, upright, fearless and self- 
sacrificing mother. Every man in this 
world who has ever amounted to any¬ 
thing knows what he owes to his mother. 
There are also more good and fearless 
women than there are men who size up 
to these qualities in their daily life. I 
don’t think that Jersey jury had any 
busness to attempt to itemize the value 
of parents. They may have had in mind 
the capacity of the man and woman to 
earn money. H. w. c. 
FOR 
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FOR 
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'orchard 
HARROW 
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In 
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