WHO SAID RATS?
If every rat costs the public one dollar per year, what do you suppose a kitten is worth?
Cats are nature’s destroyers of rats. Rats devour much good food and carry dreadful diseases.
No trap or poison bait can do pussy’s work, because rats are very wise and cunning, and after a few are caught they avoid coming near a trap. As for poisons, it isn’t very pleasant to have a poisoned rat die in or near a house.
Rats have very large families and become great-grandfathers in a short time; so you see the cats have plenty of work.
It is foolish to think, though, that cats can live upon mice and rats. They need other food, and the better fed cats are generally the best “mousers.”
Cats are kept in large postoffices to protect the mail from the rats and mice. They are so valuable for this purpose that Uncle Sam sets money aside to be used in feeding them.
In a large city in China there is a law which says that in every house one or more cats must be kept; for there the rats carry a dreadful disease or plague, and the cats kill the rats.—H. H. Jacobs.
The idea that cats should be poorly fed, in order that they may be good mousers and ratters, is a very cruel and ignorant one. A cat catches rats and mice because instinct tells him to do so, and he will do his work better if strong and well fed.—Mary Craige Yarrow.