Morning journal and courier., 1886-08-04

HOW Birds and Beasts are Cared for
While Their Owners are Summer.
ing.
In upper Broadway is large, airy store
for the sale of bird and beast pets. Just at
present its stock is pretty low, for birIs are
not imported to any considerable extent in
summer, but another department of its bus
mess is quite brisk. In addition to being a
owners put them out to board during the hot
weather. just as soon as the days grow
long and warm, and the fashionable world
begins fitting away to seashore, lake
side and mountain, the Pet Hotel begins to
fill up. Cruel and unreasonable prejudice
forbids even the most beautiful, intelligent
and exemplary dogs accompanying their
masters and mattresses. Birds are such a
nuisance to travel with that few persons at
tempt to take them along, except tough old
maids, who have strange ways of their own.
And as for monkeys, no hotel with sane
proprietor would open it's doors to them of
course. So the best arrangement that can
be made, for both owners and pets, is to
leave the latter in the care of an expert per-
son during the summer. That is where the
proprietor of the Pet Hotel comes to the
front-as the expert person. He sees to it
that the birds and beasts are properly fed,
that their cages and kennels are carefully
cleaned daily, that any sick among them are
promptly isolated and doctored until they
get well, and for all this makes quite reason
able charges.
For boarding big mastiff, St. Bernard or
Dachshund, with an appetite like hired
man, he will charge four or five dollars
week, but reasonably sized dogs, such as fox
terriers, pugs, Yorkshire terriers black and
and a5 for pr11u
two dollars and fifty cents week. There
are generally fifteen or twenty dogs here as
temporary residents at this season. Their
kennels are In a large, light, high ceiled and
we'll ventilated basement, where dog would
doubtless deem himself very comfortable for
a time, but would eventually find existence
rather monotonous. The hospital kennels
for sick dogs are out in the yard at the back
of the building, where they will be COM
pletely isolated from the other animals. The
food of the dogs consists of bread, water and
the meat saved from the tables of a large
restaurant.
Cats also boarded for two dollars and
fifty cents week. They are kept in large
wire cage where a glance in any direction
satisfies them of the utter uselessness Of
yowling for "M'rier," and consequently they
are very quiet and unobjectionable boarders.
The bird guests in the Pet Hotel outnum
Der the beasts always. There are about sew
enty-fve now in their cages in a rear part of
the store that has been partitioned out for
their accommodation. Canaries and finches
cared for at twenty-five cents week;
parrots, macaws and mocking birds fifty
cents week. The only big birds boarding
here now are a sulphur-crested cockatoo be-
longing to Polish count who is temporarily
in Europe, and a huge macaw, as gay in col
ors as new barber pole, belonging to Theo-
dore Moss. The macaw is not simply
boarder, but a patient. Its feet para
lyzed, and if it does not get better on treat
ment they are going to astonish it with some
electricity.
The price for boarding monkeys is seventy
five cents a week, which barely covers the
bananas, milk and eggs that the quadru-
manous pets require. Not many of them
are brought to the Pet Hotel, and the pro-
prietor thereof is rather glad of it, No good
reason seems to exist for putting monkeys to
board here in idleness when their aristocrat-.
ic owners might be drawing revenue from
them by hiring them out to Italian dukes for
the rural hand organ season. Perhaps the
prevalence of some such arrangement pre-
vents the number of monkey boarders being
greater.
In conversation with ths proprietor the
fact was developed that our people care very
little for our most charming native birds,
preferring those imported from other coun-
tries; but there is a great and steady de-
mand in Europe for any sweet-voiced little
''indigo" beauties, American goldfnches,
Virginia nightingales, Baltimore orioles and
other choice birds from the United States.