The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-06-26
STRAY CATS A PUBLIC
MENACE SAY EXPERTS.


Two years ago a bill introduced by
bird-protection societies to tax cats
was laughed out of the New Jersey
Legislature. Recent reports from
several parts of the state indicate
that the smiles have given way to a
serious consideration of the cat prob
lem that leaves the subject entirely
bereft of mirth. The Audubon socie-
ties, undiscouraged by their first de-
feat in New Jersey, have %broadened
their fight for cat-taxing laws to sew
eral adjacent states and are renewing
the agitation in New Jersey, reinforc-
ed by other organizations that have
come to regard the cat, in the light
of modern research, as a real menace
to humanity.
New Jersey Changers and other
farmers organizations are today
practically unanimous in condemning
the cat as a farm animal. Since the
matter has been extensively debated
at their Grange meetings, many far
mers have personally studied the con-
ditions on their own farms and have
found that cats kept to rid the barn
of rats are actually Kidding the farm
of its most valuable crop-protecting
birds. Many an agriculturist spend
ing several hundred dollars a season
in fighting injurious insects, which
increase in proportion as the birds de-
crease, has become a rabid anti-cat
crusader when, during the last spring,
he has watched the activities of his
feline ratters among the fedgling
birds about the farm. The efficient
farmer appreciates the value of pro-
tecting birds when the United States
Department of Agriculture, seeking
his cooperation in this work, shows
that insects r causing annual dam
age to farm crops in the nation of
more than $1,000, 000,0 900 a year. Am
erican farmers are spending $8,000,-
900 a year in spraying against in
sects, yet officials declare that a hun
dred times this amount would not
save their crops if bird-life were to
be destroyed.
State health officials say there is
good ground for believing that the
cat has been an active carrier of the
foot and mouth disease in the various
epidemics of this cattle plague that
have swept over parts of New Jersey.
Stray cats, foraging in the pastures
of infected herds, carry the germs of
the disease to the next COW barn or
sheep pen visited in their wanderings.
On all the big dairy farms, as a pro-
lection against infection of the herds,
cats have been exterminated, and
stray cats are shot as soon as they
are discovered on the premises.
Every sportsmen's organization in
New Jersey has blacklisted the home
less cat. The propensity of the cat
for catching game birds, young rab-
bits and squirrels has made it a rec
ognized enemy of game conservation.
"Why put a man in Jail for killing
a song-bird and let a cat go free that
destroys a dozen such birds a week.
is an argument raised by gunners
who, in some central sectionsf of the
state, have agreed with farmers to
kill all the stray cats found in the
woods and fields when hunting.
In the campaigns in several states
for a cat-licensing law, emphasis is
being laid on the menace the cat Of
bird life. An article by DR.. Caroline
"The Cat and Transmission of Dis
ease," is receiving wide attention. DR.,
Osborne cites convincing testimony
from physicians tending to prove that
certain epidemics of scarlet fever,
diphtheria and the more dreaded GER
ebro meningitis have been caused by
pet cats, which, in their characters
tic %wanderings from place to place,
and the welcome that is almost in
variably accorded them by children,
have an unusual opportunity for
spreading epidemic diseases. 1t is
now the first move of the efficient
health officer, when a contagious dis
ease occurs in a house, to ascertain
if there is a pet cat about the prem
Uses, and if he finds one, to either
quarantine or destroy it in order to
protect the neighborhood against
spread of the disease. DR.. Osborne
points out that not infrequently the
cat, with a mouth reeking with germs
from its raids upon garbage cans and