The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1893-03-11
KILLING THROUGH PITY.
Even the Meaneet of Things Love to Fro
long Their Lives.

Even the Meanest of Things Love tn Pro
long Their Lives.
An old NANCY cat, hunted out OF III
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 It's
body" says Pierre Lott In "a Book OF
Pity and of Death" "It 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 window sill, looking
oh, so unhappy and so 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 felt in its frightful
bitterness the worst of all sufferings for
a cat-that of not being able to make
its toilet, to lick it's fur, and to comb
itself with the care cats always bestow
on this operation.
TO make its toilet / believe that to
a beast as to man, this is one of the
most necessary distractions of life. The
poorest, the most diseased, and the most
decrepit animals at certain hours dress
themselves up, and as long as they are
able to do that have not lost every
thing in life. But to be no longer able
20 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. Alasl 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.
II ended its life with a narcotized cup.
The annihilation of thinking ami |
NAL, even though it be not a 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 intinitesimal 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,
the right of opening to those who had
not demanded it the gates of the great
night.
Cats, as the poor people say, have
their souls pinned to their bodies. In a
asst spasm of life it looked at me across
The half sleep of death. 1t seemed even
Ill at once to comprehend everything
All, then it was to kill me and not as
'ist me. allow it to be DONE 1t is
90 late. am falling asleep
I'm fact, was afraid that had done
wrong. In this world, in which we
NOW nothing of anything, men are not
flowed to even pity intelligently.
thus, NANCY tabby's look, infinitely
ad even while it descended into the
of death, continued to pur-
ue me as with a reproach. why did ,
Oi ilICIlCIc WIFI my ueSJlnV? / I
light have been able to drag along for =
time-to have had still some little =
houghts for another week. There re- !
named to me sufficient strength to leap .
n the window sill, where the dogs
ould no more torment me, where l :
'as not cold. In the morning when :
ne sun came there l had some mo- l.
tents which We're not unbearable, -
'o1ing at the movements of life around >
lie, interested in the coming and going 4
other cats, conscious at least of =
omething; while now 1 am about to :.
compose and be transformed into | =
now what not, that will not remem-
or. Soon l shall no longer be-
81 should have recollected, in fact, n
1at even the meanest of things love to II
rolong their lives by every means, 0
ven to its utmost limits of misery, "
referring anything to the terror of II
eing nothing, of no longer being."- u
hicago Tribune.