Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-12
GERMAN CATS WELL
PROTECTED BY LAW
Special Correspondence of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The STAR
BERLIN, December %, 1912.
= ERMANY Is the paradise of eats. In
no other country, except, perhaps.
ancient Egypt, where the cat used to be
regarded as sacred. has pussy's wellbeing
ever been studied more carefully than it
is in the fatherland today. Good Ameri-
cans. so tbs said. go to Paris when they
die. but American cats can desire no more
blissful future state than to be transport
ed to Germany after nine well spent lives
under the Stars and Stripes.
Jerome K. Jerome. you may remember,
discovered how carefully cats are looked
after in the fatherland. In Three Men
on the BummeI' he tells how he hurled
the usual bootjacl and other missiles at
some Berlin cats whose yow1s were dis
turbing his slumbers. and how he was
promptly waited on by German police
man. who had carefully collected all his
ammunition and demanded to know why
the articles had been thrown. When told
that they had been flung at cats, he de-
manded What cats?' evidently expect
ing Jerome to be able to furnish the name
and address of each particular feline.
Then he informed the novelist that i'm
Germany people are not permitted to
throw things at cats, even when the All
mails are preventing them from sleeping.
lie said the proper course to pursue was
to pursue the cat, i'm other words follow
ii home, and, thus having ascertained
who the serenader belonged. to, to make
a complaint, which, if UNDECIDED, could he
followed by legal proceedings.
Now German law has solemnly laid
down the circumstances-and the only
ones-under which a cat may be shot. A
lieutenant i'm the army who lives i'm Ber-
lin shot two. and dire is the penalty that
has befallen him for thus destroying
eighteen lives. He has been mulcted as
the legal phrase has it. in damages
amounting to $50 or SO per cat. besides
having to pay all costs.
This lieutenant. whose name is klotz.
has tame raven, which spends most of
it's time I'm strutting about his garden.
The lieutenant believed that two cats
which kept prowling in the vicinity had
designs OH the raven. and, after scat
ting them a few times. he shot first ono
and then the other, the latter when il
was sneaking along the garden path in
the direction which the raven had taken
on its morning promenade. Now, Ii seems
that lie acted precipitately. Teuton
judge has decreed that the owner of birds
or any bird-lOver i'm Germany who siIs-
poets cat Of having marked a certain
bird for It's own must wait until he
catches the feline i'm the very act of
bouncing on its prey Then he may shoot
it. but not otherwise. even though the
yard may be strewn with the pIumage Of
previous feathered victims of the as
sassin.
A cat may not be molested even If ii is
seen sinking away with your canary in
its mouth. That is not conclusive evil
dence according to the recent judicial de-
cision. The thing to lie done is to arm
yourself with gun. lay in "A good stock
of patience and lie I'm wait for the cat. If
you actually see 1t about To spring on
bird then shoot. and a good aim To you.
but if all these conditions are not ful-
filled the cat may walk past you with
peace i'm its heart and a hooking smile
on its face secure in it's legal rights.
In deciding the Berlin case the judge
severely condemned Lieut.. klotZs action
i'm massacring the cats without positive
proof that they meditated the destruction
Of his raven. The learned magistrate
held that the 'cats, having been seated
once could have been seated" again.
without recourse to bloodshed. and he in
cidentally laid down the law for cat kill
ing as set forth above. Whether the eats
of Berlin laughed not when they heard
the verdict Is not known, but il certainly
Inh tn a 10 hon