Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1906-09-01
Fortune for a
Cat SQuaICher

"awaits the man who can invent some
simple, inexpensive and eftcacious
way Of keeping cats from bowling al
night, some elective anticat that any
man could bring into use, in any
neighborhood. on occasion
@In this advanced are throwing bot.
ties and bootjacks and old shoes az
the offending cats seems a crude and
unscientific method and then it is in.
effectual Why ! have known cat
TO be hit square in t.e midr.9 aad
actually knocked or a fence BIZ a large
and heavy and fairly thrown Hessian
-or it might have been a Wellington
boot and not only to escape being
annihilated or even silenced by the
same, but even to emit at the instant
of the boots impinging upon il
shrieks louder than any to which 1t
had given vent before Recovering
itself from the ground and scrambling
UP on the fence again, 1t gave forth
long waving, earpiercing, blood-cur-
ding, hair-raising screams, TO which
all previous screams seemed but as
the gentle murmuring of lutte
mo You see, the cats have got
so used to boots and bottles and boot
jacks and bricks singular sort of.
isn't it, that all the things we throw
at cats begin with the same letter, the
letter 'b?' Ever think of that?--have
got so used to them that they pay no
attention to them whatever unless
they are actually hit and how often
does that happen?
y forget how many tons of lead 1t
takes actually to kill a soldier in bat
tie, and the proportion of misses to
hits Is about the same--larger prob
ably, really-in throwing things at
cats. Think of the frightful waste of
ammunition in this warfare and then
consider that in this war on cats when
we do hit the mark it only makes the
cat scream the louder
"Oh, my, no. Bottles, bootiaeks,
boots and bricks are more than me-
die Al, they are positively ancient
and worse than useless as means of
warfare on bowling cats True, we
derive a certain satisfaction from
hurting these missiles, but that is the
only result; they do no good, and
what we really want now is some
thing effective.
There is the cat guard, composed
of strips of wood with long, sharp
spikes sticking up through which we
nail on the tops of fences TO keep cats
away, a good thing as far as 1t goes.
but there's the rub; it doesn't 60 far
live 70 IN
neighborhood where everybody
around puts cat guards on his fences
and where we hear no cats, but then
we may move to some other neighbor-
hood where nobody puts up cat guards
and the cats reign supreme
j won't attempt to describe to you
their wild wailings and sweeping
screams. / couldn't, for that matter.
If / tried. And why should / anyway,
when we--that is to say, the people
living in the block around this range
of back yards-are here to suffer?
When that midnght-or il may be l
or 1880 a. m.--concert begins, the
whole block wakes and shudders and
then gets mad and some dwellers
there are around that try to stop it,
4 hear window go up somewhere
and ! know that somebody is sticking
his head out and then | hear him
saying to the cats as fiercely as he
can between his clinched teeth: 'Ssst,
sssst! sssst!' but even in my anguish
this always makes me laugh, for you
might as we'll try to stop a comet by
sissing at it, and, in fact, | think it
makes the cats laugh, too
Then pretty soon, the cats keep
ing on bowling. we hear something
slam against the fence with an old
time, familiar clatter--it sounds like
a boot or a brush or a bottle, thrown
probably by some old man sticking
to old-time ways, but as far as pro
ducng results is concerned, it might
as well have been thrown up in the
air. And then
Gerzoom!'
"That sounded as If it might have
been a chair or a table or even a re-
frigerator or something like that. for
Il struck the fence with a mighty
crash and shook every cat off to the
EfOunu, anu AHGu Apl uAlti space
there was silence, but minute later
they were all up again, screaming
their weird wailing, waving scream
louder than ever.
"And then somewhere down the
hlock-bless you, my brother, I'd like
TO lnov YOU and shake you by the
hand-there is a man who fires a gun
lit may be only pistol, but it
sounds like a gun-to frighten the
cats
Its singular about the effect Of
that gun-sometlmes the cats only
howl the louder when they hear il,
/ hut sometimes at the report they stop
And that has suggested to my next
door neighbor, a somewhat sanguin-
sry man, that we might rig up a gat-
ling gun in the yard or a mltrailleuse