Revered and Reviled

by L A Vocelle

  THE CATS COME TO THE COUNTESS.

  “I have now only five of my own left. I have eight or ten stray ones, three dogs, and a few puppies. Do not think that I go to look for them. No, no. They come to me. There is a poor little kitten who came mewing to my door last night. I must give it shelter. Sometimes I have more, sometimes less. It is all the same to me. Letters often come asking me to take charge of a cat whose mistress is going to India, or to some far-off country. “Will you take my cat, Countess, and care for it? they write. I take it, of course, and when my house gets too full I try to provide homes elsewhere for the poor creatures. Look at Bijou,” stroking a pretty cat sitting beside me purring most contentedly. “He was brought to me a few weeks ago by a poor girl, a seamstress, whose garret full of furniture had been sold for a debt. She came to me sobbing as if her heart would break, and beseeched me to take the poor fellow. Bijou came, and you ask about the existence of affection in a cat. Why for many hours he never moved from one position, and refused all food. At last he settled down, but the other day his mistress came here, and the cat made a great spring to her lap, kissing her face, and evincing the greatest joy at her appearance. Some day she will take him away again, poor girl! There is a cat which a lady who has sailed for India sent to me. I had to pay three shillings for its carriage from Brighton,” added the Countess with an odd smile. “When a stray cat first joins the circle, starving and wretched, I put her down in the middle of the room before a basin of milk or soup. The others, who have probably gone through the same experience and know quite well how the case is, watch their new comrade from a distance, eyeing her with vigilance taking her food. One by one they approach nearer, looking at me and then at the cat. Gradually they form a circle, and sitting each on her haunches, they regard the new-comer with complacency, never thinking of helping themselves.” “Cats,” mused the Countess, sadly, “have a prescience of coming death. My dear ones who have just gone hovered round me for the last week closer than ever, clinging to my skirts, and looking up at me with forbodings of evil omen in their eyes. I watched them with all the greater care and tenderness. But I have always noticed this in the cats. Ruby gave two great bounds and jumped to my bosom. She died there, and her last look said, ‘Mother, they have poisoned me.’”

  THE HABITS OF THE CATS.

  “I never allow anyone to feed my cats but myself; no other hand touches their food.

  They have bread and milk at times, but I find that soup with biscuit is the best diet. I take a sheep’s head, and make a good stock. I then break the biscuit up into it. The food costs me about a penny a day. You see how beautifully clean my cats are; that is by the constant use of the brush. It is most cruel to wash a cat, which abhors water. The greatest insult you can offer to a cat is to throw water at it. If a strange cat comes into a house, and you wish to get rid of it, do not drive it away with a stone or a stick; throw a glass of water over it. You will then see the cat retreat indignantly, and with a haughty indifference to the consequences of a retreat, as much as to say, ‘You dare to throw water at me. I leave you. I shake the dust of your house from my paws. Nevermore shall you see me.’ It is like pork to a Jew. Of all cats the tortoise-shell is the most intelligent. They are almost human. Prince Krapotkin’s experiments, of which I read the other day, I have repeatedly tried myself. I have seen cats look into the mirror, paw it gently, walk right round it, over and over again, puzzled, and eventually beat a retreat, completely at a loss to understand the phenomenon. Now that we are discussing the cat, it is worth noticing that during the whole of one year, with all my cats of both sexes, I have only had one litter of kittens, of which the father and mother have been my own cats. They prefer fresh faces like human beings.” The Countess at this moment rose from her chair and called in a soft voice for some of her familiars. They came in from every corner. Upstairs I heard the patter of feet, as they had evidently jumped up from their sleep, and then the sound of their footsteps coming down the steps. (Is the instinct of locality very strong in the cat? Do the cats that are placed in your charge never find their way back to their former homes? “No. I find that cats that have been petted very much and have never been allowed to roam soon settle down.” “Surely in your large family it is a little difficult to preserve order”—a question suggested by a very severe lick in the face administered by a sedate-looking black-and-white cat to a too playful kitten. “ I call the black-and-white there the Policeman. He settles all quarrels. He is exclusive in his friendships, and keeps order in my house. He is my oldest friend, and is rewarded with an odd mixture of fear and respect.” “If I had seventy cats in my house, do you think that they would have the same dispositions?” “No. Cats are as human beings. ‘One is sulky, another affectionate, one is spiteful, another combative, one sentimental, another may have a sweet disposition, be soft and gentle, one may be fond of wandering, another prefers the fireside. When a strange cat comes into the house it shows much concern as to its surroundings. It refuses food perhaps, and sits on a box or a chair for hours together, looking intently at me as I sit here. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Are you going to be kind to me!’

  'Why do you go out of your way to show me all this kindness ?’ That is what the strange cat says to me. Having made up its mind quite suddenly that I am its friend, she makes a great jump at me, and clings to me, purring and caressing me.”

  CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

  “Countess, have you taught your doctrine of kindness to your cats ? Suppose Bijou there spied a mouse, would she sit contentedly then on the box?” “No, alas! Bijou and Bob, Jumbo and Bella, soft and gentle as they are, are but cats. When the millennium comes then they will play with a mouse no longer. But can you explain the horrible cowardice which shall make a man able to abuse an animal. Now I feed the sparrows in the square with a few handfuls of crumbs, but when they come fluttering to me — for they have learned to know me well— why the boys, urged on by bribes, or by their own innate cruelty, stone them to death. Only the other day they killed one before my eyes with a catapult ; another I rescued, and gave the poor bruised thing a shelter. I put it in the sun, and in two or three hours it revived and took wing. When I hear a woman say, ‘Oh ! I hate cats,’ I look upon her with contempt. The heart of a woman should be open to the sufferings of animals and all dumb things. A woman who is cruel to an animal would be cruel to a child. A hard hearted woman is an error of nature. Why, I could tell you of many great men and women who have cherished the cat. Mahommed himself when his cat fell asleep on his sleeve, it being time to go to prayers at the mosque, rather than disturb the slumbers of the cat, cut off his sleeve. Richelieu had his portrait painted with cats in his arm; then take Chateaubriand, George Sand, or Victor Hugo. The Princess of Wales once said at a meeting of the Society for the Protection of Animals: ‘ If I have saved one cat from misery, I shall feel that I have done something.’ What a charming answer !” But all animals are fond of the Countess. She has even cherished spiders more for their delicate beauty of their workmanship than for themselves. “I used to bring them to me by a peculiar low hiss.”

  A LETTER OF SYMPATHY.

  Letters of sympathy came pouring in upon this unfortunate lady. Some are genuine enough. Others may be judged of by what follows : “My lady, — I am sorry for the magistrate's decision against you on Saturday, and in case you should wish to find sympathy with the human race, instead of the feline,” etc. Certainly neat. The writer then goes on to tell a sad enough story, and winds up by proposing that the Countess shall purchase the pawn-tickets for what follows :” Girls’ button boots (nines), 3s. ; flannel petticoat, 4s. 6d. ; black overcoat, 12s. ; light trousers, 6s. ; half-dozen table knives, Gs. ; half-dozen cheese knives, 5s; best plate half dozen table forks, 7s. ; ditto half dozen desert, 6s. ; ivory carver and fork, 7s. ; ditto poultry ditto, 6s. ; silver watch, 15s. ; metal ditto, 7 ; “ etc. There is a touch of humour in the postcript, “All warranted good as new and carriage paid. Cash with order, as they have to be redeemed from the pawnbrokers�
� — suitable for presents {sic).” “Self and wife are members of the Church of England” damns the fellow at once. Then I bade the Countess good-bye, thinking of some of the grim stories which she had poured out, half sadly, half fiercely, of women who had lain in amid those sad surroundings, of families she had succoured within those bare walls; and but over these it is best to draw the veil of oblivion. Her whole life affords another proof of the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. So ends the story of the Countess and her cats. I met the cat's-meat man with his armful of skewers on the door step. The door closed upon him, but I heard the cats chorusing a devouring welcome. Some day they may devour the Countess. There may be no gratitude either in man or beast. It would be a sublime ending” (as cited in Hartwell, 2014).

  The news of the Countess’ odd behavior was even reported in The New York Times, dated January 22, 1885, and picked up from The London Daily News outlining her bad reputation for caring for cats. In addition, there seems to be some outrage at her audacity to put up placards soliciting the prevention of cruelty to animals.

  Cat ladies did not just exist in London, but in other cities as well. New York City was to have its own notorious cat hoarder too. Rosalie Waare (nicknamed Catty Goodman-her married name), a Prussian immigrant, purchased a 17th century house in 1871 which came to be called “one of the greatest curiosities in New York”. In 1875, a reporter from the New York Sun visited Rosalie’s house upon rumors that she was a crazy cat lady. When he arrived, he found dozens of cats near the house and even sitting on the eaves and window sills. He also found cats in the courtyard drinking soup and milk out of earthenware dishes. The reporter vividly describes the house as follows:

  “As the visitor clambers up the dark, cobwebbed staircases, evidence of cats are perceptible on every hand; cats yellow, cats black, golden and dingy; cats tawny, white, and dubious; cats ringtailed, dovetailed, and notailed; cats with eyes, without eyes, earless, and cats of every description skulk in the black nooks or rush out and disappear in sudden panic. And all the time, from sunrise to sunrise, an aromatic and voluminous cloud of feline exhalation is rafted down the stairs into the street.”

  Oddly enough, Rosalie was initially afraid of cats until one day she came across “a wee little kitten, a homeless street Arab which she nursed and Christianized. Tiger informed the rest of the neighborhood cats that there was a cat lover nearby and thus started poor Rosalie’s reputation as a cat lady. It was only when Tiger was stolen and kept in a basement where he eventually starved to death that Rosalie decided to provide food and homes for the other needy animals.

  “I found nothing but his bones, and I buried him, and then I made up my mind that I’d take care of all the cats I could when people turned them out in the cold to starve. It’s only people without sense or heart that would turn a helpless animal out in the cold. There ought to be some asylum for such abandoned animals in this country, as there is in England, but there is none, and somebody must look out for them. I don’t love the cats yet, but I pity them, and I think when I’m dead they’ll have no one to take care of them” (Gavan, n.d.).

  Figure 8.8. Rosalie Goodman, Cat Hoarder, 1871

  The New York Sun published Rosalie Goodman’s story on the front page, and soon after other newspapers and their reporters became interested in her strange story. In August 1877, The New York Tribune sent a reporter to her house who found her stirring a pot on the stove surrounded by about 50 cats. Rosalie told the reporter that she spent about $1.50 a day feeding her cats the best cakes, sausages, and beefsteaks. As she spoke, she served the cats their dinner from the pot she had been stirring. “The cats ate daintily, as though used to a good living” (The Iola Register, 1877).

  Reporters continued to try to get stories about her, but she got tired of being interviewed, and by the summer of 1878, Rosalie was totally fed up with the intrusions and threatened the reporters so that they would leave her and her cats alone. In the end, Rosalie was able to keep her cats, as even though the neighbors continued to complain, the Board of Health found nothing illegal about her trying to help cats. This was a much kinder resolution to the problem than poor Countess de la Torre had to endure (figure 8.8).

  FAMOUS CAT OWNERS

  Even though bourgeois society tried to claim the ownership of the cat, by its very nature it was never truly an integral part of bourgeois culture. Instead, the 19th century cat became a constant companion and a symbol of those in the bohemian literary life. Associating with intellectuals, elitists, writers and artists, “The excessively independent cat lived rather as the intellectual did, an existence of bourgeois individualism freed from the constraints of modern life. In the fictional world of creativity, both set themselves outside of family, society, and state, refusing to be dishonored—” (Kete, 1994, p. 126). Unsurprisingly, the cat’s truculent amoral attitude fit that of its companion artists and intellectuals.

  On the other hand, even sensible Victorians prized the cat because of its ancient symbolic association with motherhood and domesticity, using it to reinforce and model those ideals in women. “Cats were touted as great role models for young girls because of their cleanliness, grace, poise and mothering skills. It was suggested that each girl be given a small female kitten and when it grew up the the girl would learn about being a devoted mother”†(Milani, 1993, p. 30)(figure 8.9). The once wild, untamable feline became a loyal and most importantly clean, well-behaved companion. Gone were the representations in paintings of cats stealing food and fighting seen in earlier centuries. Now they were mostly depicted in peaceful, loving scenes as mother cats and kittens as well as loyal docile companions to children, mainly girls.

  Figure 8.9. Three Girls, Cats, and a Trike, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

  Inevitably the cat became a subject fawned over by writers and artists, but many statesmen, politicians, and other famous personages came to be known as cat lovers as well. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, agreed to let his son Tad bring his Tabby cat to the White house as its first feline resident. Lincoln himself held a soft spot for cats. When on a trip to visit General Grant’s troops, he came across a litter of kittens and took them back to the White House. Even the Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee often referred to his cats in letters to his family, and noted his dog’s jealousy of them. In 1878, the first Siamese landed in America as a gift to the wife of the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. “Siam” as she was called became a cherished pet, but died only nine months after her arrival. Other notable people of the time loved cats such as Hiram Bingham (1789-1869), who was an American missionary who translated the Bible into Hawaiian while accompanied by his cat Barnabus.

  The famous British nurse and humanitarian Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) owned more than 60 cats during her lifetime, mostly Persians; some even ventured with her on her many journeys. One of the more memorable of her pets was named Mr. Bismarck. Mr. Bismarck was just one of the reputed 17 cats that shared their lives with Florence Nightingale after she returned to London from the Crimean War. She described him as “the most sensitive of cats” and his paw prints frequently marched across her correspondence. Other members of her feline family included Big Pussie, Tom, Topsy, Tib, Gladstone, Mrs Tit, Mr Muff, and Quiz. Nightingale was chronically ill in later years and took refuge in her cats who, she said, possessed much more sympathy and feeling than human beings. When she died in 1910, it was no surprise to learn that she had made provision for her remaining cats in her will (Bostridge, 2008).

  Pope Leo XII (1823-29), loved his cat Micetto. As a kitten, Micetto hid in the Pope’s papal sleeve peering out at those being given audiences. Even Queen Victoria (1837-1901), loved cats, especially one named White Heather, a fluffy white Persian or Angora. Queen Victoria is usually portrayed as having been an austere woman and lacking in humor (“we are not amused”). However, she was a noted animal lover, and she and her dearly lamented deceased husband, Prince Alb
ert, offered a warm and loving home to many cats. She truly doted on her last cat, White Heather, who, on her orders, remained living in the lap of luxury at Buckingham Palace long after the queen herself had died.

  It was also Queen Victoria who demanded that a cat be included in the picture on the Queen’s Medal of Kindness, insisting that something must be done about the general aversion to cats, “which were generally misunderstood and grossly ill-treated” (Rogers, 2006, p. 48).

  CATS IN ART

  Over a 100 artists in the 19th century and through the turn of the 20th century chose to capture the cat not only on canvas but in a myriad of advertisements, greeting cards and sculptures. For the first time in history the cat would find itself as the primary subject of art with such artists as the prolific cat lovers Henriëtte Ronner-Knip, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and Louis Wain choosing almost exclusively to paint their feline friends, while the well-known photographer Harry Pointer photographed them in strange anthropomorphic poses (figure 8.10).

  Figure 8.10. Harry Pointer’s Pets, c 1880

  Cats would become human in dresses, bows and ribbons, wearing pants, and even fighting wars. Wain and Pointer’s anthropomorphic representations brought the cat closer to the human heart by depicting it as human. The cat’s natural viciousness was gone; instead, it sat primly clothed in dresses sipping tea, a living doll, an eternal child.