The Arizona sentinel., 1893-08-19
UNCLE SAM'S CATS.
Their Usefulness in the Govern
 ment Offices.
Hundreds of the Feliues Are Kept Among the Post Offices to Prevent the Depredations of Rats Upon
 Mail Matter.

Three hundred and odd cats are main- tained by the United States govern ment the cost of their support being carried as regular item on the ac- counts of the post office department. They are distributed among about hfty post offices, and their duty is to keep rats and mice from eating postal matter and mail sacks Their work IS ot the utmost importance wherever large suantities of mail are collected-as, for example, at the New York post office, where from two to three thousand bags of such material are commonly slowed away in the basement.
 Formerly, says the New York World. great damage was often done by mis- chievous rodents, which chewed holes in the sacks and thought nothing Of boring clear through bags of letters in a night. Troubles of this sort no longer occur, now that the official pussies keep watch. Each city postmaster is al- lowed from eight to forty dollars year for the keep of his feline staff, sending his estimate for ''cat neat to Washington at the beginning of each quarter. Care is taken not to feed the animals too "high," in order that their appetite for live game may be keen. It is laid down as rule that no meat shall be given when there is mouse or rat to be caught.
 Cats are kept in all the government buildings at Washington. In that of the state, war and navy departments they are employed not only to protect the priceless paper stored there but to c11ard against fire. Twice the war de- partment has been set afre by rats gnawing matches-on one of these occa- sions in the office of the secretary of war In the middle of the night. A year ago the treasury had nine cats, but they made themselves obnoxious and were all given away but two. These are as wild as possible, getting living by foraging for themselves. Mice are no- toriously fond of chewing up money, but they have no chance of getting at Uncle Sam's paper cash, which is kept in rooms with iron walls that defy their teeth. Rats occupied the pension office in great numbers while it was in proc
 
 dence in the walls and floors as fast as they were put up. Two years ago four cats were introduced there to guard the records of the old soldiers, and they have driven most of the vermin away. The best rat-killer of the quartette not long ago, being frightened at some thing, fell from the second gallery, fifty feet, to the tiled floor and was killed. The white honse has two cats, one a black and white female, kept in the kitchen, and the other black tom, kept in the stable. Mrs. Harrison had four handsome Maltese cats, but they disappeared.
 But the capitol is the greatest place in Washington for cats. The huge building swarms with them and at night they scamper about in troops. Nobody knows how many of them there are, but the watchmen reckon them by scores. They are all vagrants and wild as hawks. In summer they are scattered about the neighborhood to some extent, but in winter they gather within the building. At about ten o'clock every night they begin a mad racing through the empty cor riders, which are made to resound with their cries. The acoustic effects produced are astonishing. Let single grimallzin lift up his voice in statuary hall, famous for its echoes, and the silence of the night is broken by a yell as loud as a locomotive whistle. A favorite place for cat concerts is the whispering gallery down below, known as the crypt" where the feeblest sound is mapnifed into a roar.