Arizona republican., 1893-03-03
UNCLE SANS CATS.
Their Usefulness in the Govern
mont 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
tanned by the United States govern
ment, the cost of their support being
carried as q regular item on the ac-
counts of the post Office department.
They are distributed among about fifty
post offices, and their duty is to keep
rats and mice from eating postal matter
and mail sacks. Their work is of the
utmost Importance wherever large
quantities 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 a
year for the keep of his feline staff,
sending his estimate for 'cat meat 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. 1t
is laid down as a 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
guard against fire. Twice the war de-
partment has been set afire by rats
gnawing matchcs--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 Sans paper cash, which is kept
in rooms with iron walls that defy their
teeth. Rats occrried the pension office
in great numbers while !. was in proc
ess of building taking up their resi-
dcnce in ,hc walls and floors as fast as
they We're 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-liller 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 house has two cats,
one a blacl, and white female, kept in
the kitchen, and the other a 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 Migrants
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
ridors, which are made TO resound
with their cries. The acoustic effects
produced are astonishing. Let a single
grimalkin 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 magnifed into roar.