West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1903-02-19
A PLEA FOR THE POlE-CAT.
From The wheeling Register

Let him tune his harp To that,
But we will tune our harps in praise
To our native oderous cat.
The patriotic souls of this Virginia
State were inexpressably thrilled,
shocked and amazed, at the an
nounceinent that member of the
great Sanhedrim of West Virginia.
had introduced a resolution asking
that several of his constituents be
allowed TO wage war upon the
aromatic pole cat.
| The pole cat is our National
bird,-,hat is, the emblem of-our
state. The government at large has
the vorscions and disreputable
eagle, but we free mountaineers
cling to the pole cat, protected by
wise and just laws he roams from
the fertile plains of the Ohio Valley
to the rugged SUBMITS of the grand
old Alleghenies, hypnotizing the air
with the majesty of his delicate odor
and oriental fragrance. Who so
base as TO ask the destruction Of
this mild eyed gentle animal, who if
opportunity presented would throw
a charm of fragrance about us that
would knock all poisonous toilet
articles into the blacklist depths of
oblivion.
A Virginian kill pole cail kill a
putorius foetidusl if we may be
permitted to use his Sunday name
It would seem like fratricide. He
is one of our most glorious institu-
tions-at all hazards we must have
at least some reveration for our
fixed institutions and emblems, the
laurel our flower, the pole cat and
the West Virginia Legislature. We
must love these three institutions.
The first lines of the beautiful
poem by the author of 80 wood.
men, spare that tree" should be
committed to memory by every
citizen of our State and the members
of our Legislature.
ooh, Legislator, spare that cat.
In youth it once spared me.
1t made my brother smell awful bad
But | climbed up tree"
what could be more touching than
this, especially If you were in the
neighborhood? Let us compare this
national bird of ours with the
emblem of America-the eagle, the
twin brother of the buzzard. The
eagle is rank politician never
got an honest meal in his life, he
is a cowardly boucher. who has
committed more crimes against the
human race than any other bird in
existence, he robs others of their
fruits of toiI--and his filthy half
made nest has been feathered with
the bones Of infants-once by the
bones of prince of Tuscany,-yet
this pirate, thief, robber and scaven-
ger is emblazoned on the arms of
four great partially civilized nations,
the Uaited States, Russia, Germany
and Austria, but he is not in it with
our dear old honest West Virginia
pole cat, the pole cat can out smell
him every time.
WHAT West Virginia but can re-
call with pleasure those toucing
lines in McGuffy's First Reader that
says:
al love to see little pole cat,
And pat him ON the head,
But when he wagged his little tail
wished that he were dead"
What would our blessed State be
without the pole-ca,? Even il the
most inhnitessimal cog is missing,
the grand harmony of nature will
produce discord, all is mighty
and sublime hymn, that rolls in
eternal grandeur down the countless
and unfathom able age Of eternity
even the premature falling Of leaf
before its time-might cause
discordant vibration in "the music
of the Spheres" that Pyhagorus
told us Offence, when we gaze
upon this scanned and rugged state
--ridged with mountains that battle
IN the virgin rays of the new born
sun and wreathe their brows in
clouds of gold and silver, we would
look from them, from their lofty
5 immits, where the fringed pines
and mighty forests of thousand
years vet where they have
listened through ages-silent and
alone, to the tempestcus and awful
music Of nature, with the thunders
Of heaven and the bursts OF lightn.
| ing playing about them, we would
look amid this sublime and serapbic