The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-12
TWO HUNDRED PET CATS.
Mrs. Robert JOhnSOn'S Big Family Of
PatriCial AnSOraS.
Aristocratic Toms and Tabbies-An-
CORA Beauties Who Have Nothing to
Do But Look Pretty and Eat-Serv-
ants to Look After Them.

CORA Beauties Who Have Nothing to
Do But Look Pretty and Eat-serv-
ants to Look After Them.
From the san Francisco Examiner.
Mrs. Robert Johnson has 200 cats, and
each one of them has a pedigree that ex-
tends back over many generations.
AS Mrs. johnson has several millions of
dollars her patrician cats live in style
BETTING their long peGigrees.
They live at Buena Vista, Mrs. John
sons country mansion near Sonoma, and
it takes three servants to care for the
pussies. Every one of these cats is a
real Angora, and the most exacting part
of the duties of the three japanese who
look after them is to see that no wander
ing nighthawl1 of q common fence-haunt-
ing, misunderstanding Tom or Tabby
shall gain entrance to this feline para
disc There are fences high and tight to
keep these out and to restrain any va
grant tendencies that may have descended
TO any Of these petted beauties from some
outCast ancestry. For, as with most peO-
pie of gentle blood, somewhere the fair
lines of ancestry runs into marauders,
product perhaps of the wild times in
which they lived.
There are about 1000 acres in the
grounds about Buena Vista. and the resi-
dence stands in the center OF ten acres of
flower pots and lawns. The house is
reached by winding avenue shaded with
ornamental trees and is seen to stand on
the crest of a sloping knoll. Seen from
the Yeranda the beds of flowers and vel
vety lawns vie with Golden Gate park on
a small scale. Here and there are built
short flights of stairs leading down to
tiny lakes, on which snowy swans and
ducks disport themselves in common
tenancy with myriads of fancy fish.
Rustic bridges span many little brooks,
and inviting seats abound beneath sturdy
oaks and towering eucalypti. There is
also pond Of warm mineral water,
fringcd with a thicket of bamboo, and
the fragrance from lemon and orange
trees abounds.
Such are the surroundings in which
these beautiful cats live in luxury.
Not for them is the predatory excur-
sion at midnight, with its dangers of
bOOt-jacks and shOtguns, and as for mice,
it is safe to say the gentle Tables would
faint at sight of one.
They are fed three times a day, not on
horse-fesh or neck-beef but on nicely
cooked meats, or fowl or fish or game,
with the richest of cream.
1t is not everybody who can get a
chance to see these pampered felnes
Ask one of the gardeners and he will refer
the questiOner to the head gardener, who
in turn sends him to the foreman of the
place. By slow stages the butler is seen,
and finally the housekeeper.
Madam is i'll and not allowed to see
any one,' says the housekeeper but |
will see if l can gain her consent for the
cats to be brought out and will you
please rest on the veranda until | return.
Strangers, you know, have never been al
lowed to see them. Only intimate friends
are given that privilege, as a rule; so if
you succeed you must feel highly cOmpli-
meuted."
Madam was gracious and tho visitor
was introduced to the favorites. For
though all these cats are of the very
highest, there is still among them a sort
of ultra-aristocracy Twenty-Five cats
are the particular care of their fond mis-
tress. They are all silky, hthesome
creatures, graceful and indolent. There
was once one, who is no longer of them
who was a veritable queen of cats. She was
the especial favorite of the mistress OF
Buena Vista, so one of the attendants
whispered. She had been specially inn
ported from Persia and her ancestors had
purred about the knees of emperors and
"
One day high up on the boundary fence
appeared a strange cat, just a common,
yellow cat, with one ear ripped and one
eye blind. He attracted attention by
yells of challenge to the sleek parlOr cats.
The servants SHE'D things at him, but
he always came back They even shot at
him, but he was spared, Every day he
was on the fence yOewing to the cats
within.
And the Persian puss heard him and
answered with soft meows
Maybe he told her of the wonderful
struggling world outside and of his COM
bats and triumphs, for certainly he did
not win her with his beauty. If that
was what he did, his Othello act was
great success. For one day the Persian
cat, with her tail big as any squirrels,
flew at the fence and up it and was off
with the yellow stranger. The elope-
ment was so sudden that there was no pre-
venting it, She has never been heard
of since.
They felt her desertion keenly. Prob
ably her picvure would have been turned
toward the wall, as customary in such
cases, according to the novelist, but her
picture happened to be on the same can
vas as half hundred more. Carl Kahler
painted the picture at Mrs. Johnson's
order. 1t is as big as the side of an or
binary room, ana it took the painter six
weeks to do it.
Mr. Kahler speaks feelingly of the Incl
dents which occurred during the weeks
in which he painted this happy family.
"Of course ! could not pose them all at
once" he said, but was compelled to
take them at different times. For this
purpose | would have two or three cats
in my room so that l might study their
ways. | remember there was one case
where / was studying the disposition of a
Tabby cat with a litter of five kittens.
The little snowballs would crawl about
her blindly, because their eyes were not
yet opened, but needed her magnificent
figure for a centerpiece in the picture.
Now there is in the collection q most yici-
GUS old tomcat possessed with the eyes of
a fiend and the lanky figure of a cat in
whom revenge has dwelt since infancy.
The second day after l had begun the
study of this beautiful Tabby her kittens
were devoured by the wicked and infam-
GUS tom cat. You should have seen the
melancholy expression on the Tabby cats
face forever after. l had 10 take her
away from the center position and put
her at the right of the picture. You can
see her there in the picture. with her
head bent over to one side and her eye
thrust into the air like a dying duck in
thunder storm.
1t is probable that this cat picture will
be sent TO the worlds fair with Mrs
Johnson's permission. At all events, it is
10 be reproduced ia the first art publ
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