The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-03-09
KILLING THROUGH PITY.
Even the Meanest of Things Love to Pro
long Their Lives.

long Their Lives.
IAN old NANCY cat, hunted out of its
abode no doubt by its owner, had es-
tablished itself in our street, on the
footpath of our house, where little
November sun once more warmed its
body" says Pierre Lott in "a Book OF
Pity and of Death" ut is the custom
with certain people whose pity is self
ish pity thus to send off as far away as
possible and lose the poor animals
they care neither to tend nor to see
suffer.
"All day long it would sit piteously
in the corner of a window sill, looking
Oh so unhappy and 80 hnmble, an OBJ
ject of disgust to those who passed,
menaced by children and by dogs, in
continual danger, and sickening from
hour to hour Its poor head was eaten
up with disease, covered with sores and
almost without fur, but its eyes, which
remained bright, seemed to reflect pro-
foundly.
1T must have fslt in its frightful
bitterness the worst of all sufferings for
a cat-that of not being able to make
its toilet, to lick its fur, and to comb
itself with the care cats always bestow
on this operation.
ITO make its toilet! believe that to
n beast, as to a man, this is one of the
most necessary distractions of .ife The
poorest, the most diseased, and the most
decrepit animals at certain hours dress
themselves up, and as long as they arc
able to do that have not lost every
thing in life. But to be no longer able
70 care for their appearance because
nothing can be done before the final
moldering away, that has always APP
peared to me the lowest depths of all
the supreme agony. Alas for those
poor old beggars who before death have
mud and filth on their faces, their
bodies SCARED with wounds that no
longer can be dressed, the poor dis
eased animals for whom there is no
longer even pity.
Il ended it's life with narcotized cup.
1.-THE humiliation of thinking ami
NAL, even though it be not human
being, has in it something to dumbfound
us when one thinks of it. 1t is always
the same revolving mystery, and death
besides carries with it SO much majesty
that it has the power of giving sublim-
ity in an unexpected exaggerated form
to the most infinitesimal scene from the
instant its shadow appears. At this
moment appeared to myself like some
black magician arrogating to myself
the right of bringing to the suffering
what believed to be supreme peace,
Al IL to yhr hnd
not demanded it the gates of the great
night.
cats, as the poor people say, have
their souls pinned to their bodies. In a
last spasm of life it looked at me across
the half sleep of death. 1t seemed even
all at once to comprehend everything.
'Ah, then it was to kill me and not as
sist me. l allow it to be done. 1t is
too late. am falling asleep
'In fact, was afraid that had done
wrong. In this world, in which we
know nothing of anything, men are not
allowed to even pity intelligently.
Thus NANCY tabby's look, infinitely
sad even while it descended into the
putrefaction of death, continued to pur-
sue me as with IA reproach. Why did
you interfere with my destiny? L
might have been able to drag along for
a time-to have had still some little
thoughts for another week. There re-
manned to me sufficient strength to leap
on the window sill, where the dogs
could no more torment me, where
was not cold. In the morning when
| the sun came there | had some mo-
ments which were not unbearable,
looking at the movements of life around
me, interested in the coming and going
Of other cats, conscious at least of
something; while now | am about to
decompose and be transformed into |
know what not, that will not remem-
Der. Soon shall no longer be-
81 should have recollected, in fact,
that even the meanest of things love to
prolong their lives by every means,
! even to its utmost limits of misery,
preferring anything to the terror of
being nothing, of no longer being
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