Revered and Reviled

by L A Vocelle

  Figure 7.26. Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga, Franciso Goya, 1787- 1788, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

  Europeans were not the only ones painting our famous beast. Japanese and Chinese painters also included the cat in many of their paintings of the 18th century. Children with a Cat and Mouse, 1768-69, by the Japanese painter Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770), shows a young boy holding a rather large white cat while his mother and sister look on (figure 7.27).

  Figure 7.27. Children with Cat and Mouse, Suzuki Harunobu, Japanese Edo Period, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

  In another painting, Harunobu captures the princess Nyosan-no-Miya with her cat at her feet, a typical pose for the time. Gan Ku, influenced by the Chinese Nagasaki style, created a rather ornate realistic scroll painting where a black and white cat has just killed a bird (1782). In another work from the Edo period, again a black and white cat sits up to smell some peonies; it is appropriately entitled Cat and Peonies. Another attributed to Isoda Koryûsai, and also of the Edo period, is Cat Looking at Three Butterflies. The oblong representation shows a calico cat looking up at three pinkish butterflies. In Cat and a Goldfish Bowl, 1765-1780 also by Koryûsai, a black and white cat stealthily balances on the rim of the bowl to look down at his hapless victims. In Woman Holding a Cat a woman holds a black and white cat at arm’s length above her head as if it were a child with whom she were playing or admiring.

  The colors black and white have similar meanings in both Japanese and Western cultures. Black represents foreboding, doom, and death and white purity and goodness. The symbolism of the cats being black and white might represent the duality between good and evil, or the balance of good and evil, or perhaps the Chinese concept of yin and yang.

  Moving away from the peaceful coexistence with nature that the Japanese prints depict, the 18th century Indian painting, A Lady Chases a Cat with a Stick, reveals a rude violence that sharply contrasts with Japanese paintings and prints (figure 7.28).

  Figure 7.28. Indian Lady Chasing a Cat with a Stick, 18th Century, Artist Unknown

  Painters in Korea and China also found the cat to be an irresistible subject. In Cats and Sparrows by Byeon Sang-byeok, a black and white cat and a tabby and white cat look at each other as one climbs a tree filled with birds (figure 7.29). Both Korean and Chinese paintings captured the cat in natural settings, usually highlighting its innate hunting abilities.

  The 18th century had brought about a new vision, and the cat had become even more ubiquitous than ever before. With dozens of poems penned in grief of its death, the cat lived on in minds as an icon to the beginnings of an advancement in man’s humanity to his fellow creatures. The next century would bring the cat even closer to the pinnacle of a goddess risen.

  Figure 7.29. Myojakdo (Cats and Sparrows), Byeon Sang-byeok, Joseon Dynasty, National Museum of Korea, Seoul

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE VICTORIAN CAT

  IN THE 19TH CENTURY

  The gradual shift towards the humane treatment of animals that had started in the 17th and 18th centuries among the upper and middle classes became even more widespread in the 19th century. Urban planners concerned with the issues of cleanliness and sanitation now, in the 19th century, outwardly proclaimed the cat to be the primary mascot for their advertising campaigns. Advertisements for soap with neatly dressed little girls and boys accompanied by a cute kitty became the most frequently seen (figure 8.1).

  Figure 8.1. Baby’s Own Soap Trade Card, Albert Toilet Soap Makers, Early 20th Century

  Cats, finally prized for their cleanliness and neatness, were also honored for their godly past. Napoleon’s scientific expedition to Egypt 1798-1801, and the eventual publication of the monumental 23 volume series, Le Description de L’Égypte, from 1809-1828, as well as the discovery of over 80,000 mummified cats in the Egyptian town of Beni Hasan, opened up the world of Egyptian magic and mysticism, and at last documented the cat’s past as the cat goddess Bast.

  With the beginning of the Victorian era, cats, and animals in general, gained even more popularity and status in society. The Victorian home would not be complete without plants, animals, and eventually even fish. Pet keeping became a symbol of the modern household, and represented the ability to control what seemed uncontrollable. Compensating for their inability to control the dangerous lower working classes, the upper and middle classes asserted their power over nature and domestic pets. In an effort to establish and perpetuate their own values, they projected them onto pets so that “…cleanliness, order and rationality marked bourgeoisie pet keeping” (Kete, 1994, p. 138).

  As a result of this new-found acceptance of pets, there came a movement to establish their rights as living, feeling beings. In 1850, The Grammont Law prohibited the public abuse of all animals in France. Even so, the private torture of vivisection for supposed medical advancement continued unabated. An unnecessary process that tortured primarily dogs because of their docility and ability to be easily caught, luckily enough, did not often affect cats because of their aloofness and feral viciousness. Artists and writers such as Victor Hugo (1802-1885) spoke out against vivisection as a malevolent treatment of animals calling it “—a crime”(Kete, 1994, p. 138). However, it was the women of the age that took the lead in setting up sanctuaries for these maltreated animals. “The ladies occupied themselves with rescuing dogs and cats, spending all their small resources on the creation of animal shelters” (Besse, 1895, pp. 239-256).

  The bond between women and cats became even more pronounced during the 19th century. Many attributed the new-found care that women lavished upon needy animals, in particular cats, as a refuge from “…the brutality they endured from men” (Zeldin, 1981, p. 156). But many men saw the situation differently and equated women with cats in a profoundly negative manner, often referring to the two as having the disposition of prostitutes. Alphonse Toussenel wrote in Passional Zoology (1852), “An animal so keen on maintaining her appearance, so silky, so tiny, so eager for caresses, so ardent and responsive, so graceful and supple….; an animal that makes the night her day, and who shocks decent people with the noise of her orgies, can have only one single analogy in this world, and that analogy is of the feminine kind.” He went on to add, “Lazy and frivolous and spending entire days in contemplation and sleep, while pretending to be hunting mice….incapable of the least effort when it comes to anything repugnant, but indefatigable when it is a matter of pleasure, of play, of sex, love of the night. Of whom are we writing, of the (female) cat or of the other?” (Kete, 1994, p. 120) The other here of course is woman. Continuing, Toussenel wrote, “The female cat attaches herself to the dwelling and not to the people who live there, proof of her ingratitude and aridity of her heart” (Kete, 1994, p. 127). Similar negative views about cats that eventually came to be equated with women can be traced all the way back to Aristotle who wrote in his History of Animals that “the females are very lascivious, and invite the male, and make a noise during intercourse” (Aristotle, trans. 1897, p. 103) (figure 8.2).

  Figure 8.2. Tintype portrait of 4 women with a cat, 1865, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.

  Society as a whole began to change because of the taming and acceptance of domestic pets, and with this change came many firsts. The first public aquarium opened in London in 1875. And due to the fruition of an idea of the cat loving Harrison Weir, the first cat show was held in London’s Crystal Palace in 1871 (figures 8.3 and 8.4), and in 1895, New York’s Madison Square Garden welcomed the first cat show in the United States.

  Figure 8.3. First cat show at The Crystal Palace, 1871, London

  Figure 8.4. Prize-winners, The Crystal Palace, 1871, London

  The first pet cemetery, Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques, in the small city of Asnières-sur-Seine just outside Paris, was founded in 1899 (figure 8.5). And to accommodate this widespread love of household pets in the middle of the 19th century, veterinarians began to care for the welfare of cats and other domestic animals.

 
; Figure 8.5. Asnières cimetière chiens, Antique Postcard

  The first pet vendors appeared in London, and a lucrative trade in domesticated pets blossomed to a record 20,000 sellers (Ritvo, 1987). With this rise in pet ownership, a new product, canned dog food, soon followed (figure 8.6).

  THE FIRST CAT LADIES

  Not long after this increasing interest in pet ownership began, the first cat ladies became known. Appearing in children’s literature in such stories as, Dame Wiggins of Lee and Dame Trot and her Cat, (figure 8.7) cat ladies seemed acceptable and taught children moral and ethical lessons.

  Figure 8.6. Cats’ Meat Man, 1920, London

  However, in reality cat ladies were punished for their excesses. In 1887, one of the first cat ladies, the Countess de la Torre, was charged with having too many cats in her rooms in Lille-road, Fulham. A well-known cat lover, to the utter consternation of her neighbors, by 1885 she had acquired twenty-one cats. Newspapers were filled with lengthy articles regarding her odd behavior such as one published in the Te Aroha News of 1884 documenting the subsequent turn of events.

  Figure 8.7. Dame Trot and her Comical Cat, 1880

  THE COUNTESS AND HER CATS

  One day recently the Countess de la Torre, who is famous in London as the owner of a large number of cats, was summoned in a Police Court and ordered to destroy her pets, as they had become a nuisance to her neighbours. On this the “Pall Mall Gazette” sent their enterprising interviewer to see the Countess, with the following result:

  CURIOUS INTERIOR. I pulled the bell at 35, Pembroke Square, but it offered no resistance and made no sound. I knocked with my knuckles, but there was no answer. The lower sitting room seemed to be empty, and the house, above and below, gave no sign of life. The door was evidently new, and had received a first coat of red paint. It was without a knocker, or a handle, or a number. I was beginning to think that I had come to the wrong house when a boy who was playing in the square cried out, “Look out! She’s coming!” and I heard steps, and, after some unbarring of bolts, the door was cautiously opened.“The Countess de la Torre?” “I am the Countess. Come in.” The door was carefully closed behind me, and I found myself in the narrow passage which would be called a hall by courtesy, half lighted by a long window opening on to the staircase. What little space there was was blocked with dishes, bottles, and bundles of newspapers. I followed the Countess into the sitting-room. She seated herself in a low chair near the window, guarded by wooden shutters drawn close together for protection from stray stones and iron, which sometimes came crashing through. She motioned me to a low oak chair, the only remnant of luxury in the room. The floor was carpetless. In one corner was a small heap of blankets; at my feet was a small open hamper half filled with straw, the bed of one of her cats. Between us stood a deal box, which might be used as a table, but was occupied by various cats during my sitting of two hours. By her side was another box filled to overflowing with letters and papers, to which she constantly referred. The wall was papered. The mantel-piece was littered with an undiscribable(sic) mass of odds and ends; a few empty shelves were fixed in one corner, and that was all. Through the open folding-doors I saw another room, containing a plain iron bed with a few bed clothes, the only piece of furniture, unless one counted boxes and jugs, and plates of rod disinfecting powder. That, I presume, was the bedroom.

  THE COUNTESS'S BIOGRAPHY

  In her chair by the window, in that bare room, surrounded by her cats in council, sat the Countess, her face in the shade. She is apparently about forty-five years old, with a pale, intellectual face, furrowed by much trouble, a broad high forehead, from which her dark grey hair is brushed away. Her face lightens up when excited, and the wildness of her brown eyes softens when her cats jump up on her lap. A grey knitted shawl was fastened round her neck and fell to her waist, where it was joined by a well-worn cotton dress. “Perhaps,” she began, “I inherited my fondness for animals from my father. He had a passion for cats. Whenever I take a poor starved creature in I think of my father, and fancy that I am paying a tribute to his memory. I have no other tie in the world but my cats, no one to care for, no one to care for me.” The Countess was born in the purple. Her father was Italian and her mother a Scotchwoman, but she herself is cosmopolitan, and speaks fluently English, German, Italian, and French. The united fortunes of herself and her husband made a most handsome income, but much of it was gambled away, and the Countess has lavished her own share with a free hand. Garibaldi was indebted to her for large sums of money, and that the Countess, who has paid so much for the cause of Italian freedom, should be reduced to her present extremities, should serve as a warning to intending patriots; for, alas! she has not found the gratitude which she expected. “I have spent gold enough to fill this room — aye, and more — to benefit my fellow-beings. They have proved to be ingrates. My charity has been abused. Animals are more grateful than my fellows. I now devote my small means to the cause of suffering cats and dogs and dumb creatures.” The Countess, it may be added, besides devoting much of her large fortune to the cause of Italian freedom, took charge of one of the hospitals during the war, and when in charge of the ambulance was twice wounded. Her sobriquet was the Italian Nightingale, in allusion not to her powers of singing, but of nursing. In 1870 she was busy again at Versailles nursing the German wounded. “I come of a military family. I shall stick to my post. At present I am in a state of siege. l am ordered to abate the nuisance, and daily I am subject to a fine of ten shillings a day until I do so. I keep my doors locked, so that my enemies shall not enter if I can help it. Will, oh! will the law allow them to come and kill my cats?” And here there was a flood of tears. The little boys and girls — wicked urchins — who deserve to be devoured by wolves like the rogues who mocked at the prophet, cry at her: “Hoh ! hoh ! mother of dogs and cats ! Thou shouldst be burned, thou wicked one ! Harbourer of unclean animals, thou shouldst be drowned as a witch” “Are we living in the Middle Ages? Will they duck (drown) me? or will the ordeal be by fire ?”

  THE STRYCHNINE AT WORK.

  An animal smell pervaded the house, but without I did not detect anything unusual, however one might regard the Countess as a next-door neighbour, it is ridiculous to say that her establishment is a nuisance to the whole square. Since the decision of the magistrate on Saturday, poison has made sad havoc among the cats. The Countess burst into tears as she told of the death of her red cat “Ruby,” of the tabby Manx “Rosie,” of the decease of “Jumbo,” of “Bella,” and another whose name has escaped me. Post-mortems have revealed the strychnine. How have they come by their death? Is it the neighbours? For, strange to say, after the appeal case, which went against the Countess, poison carried off two of the collection, “Bob” and “Cobby,” who are now at rest. “I would not have sold them for a hundred pounds apiece,” sobbed the Countess, crying bitterly. “How can they inflict this agony upon me? My cats are all I have to care for in the whole world. My left-hand neighbour does not complain; it is the people on my right who are persecuting me. Ask the postmen or the policemen whether my house smells strongly enough to be a nuisance. Why, my windows are always open; my cats are never allowed to go out at night, so that there may be no noise. Every morning at daylight I put on my dressing-gown and let them out. As for the smell, why, my windows are open all day long, with a draught of fresh air constantly ventilating the house, and dishes of carbolic powder in every room. Does the law of England say how many cats or how many dogs I shall keep? No. Why the pigeons in the square have damaged my roof, but I have said nothing about it. Then why shouldn't I be allowed to have my cats in peace; there are seventy houses round about me; every house has its cat, I daresay, and those seventy are actually allowed to do as they list at night, whilst my poor pets are put under lock and key to preserve the peace.”

  FIVE CATS DEAD IN THE COAL-CELLAR.

  The Countess then led the way down the steps on to the kitchen floor, down a passage which took us to the area. “Here are my dead pets,” she c
ried, as she pulled open the door of the coal-cellar. On the top of an empty hamper lay two fine black-and-white cats, rigid with the colds of a violent death. These were lifted up, and beneath the hamper were three more fine cats, also dead, apparently from strychnine. With careful step I then went into the strip of garden, a little wilderness with one or two trees, the grass long and uncared for, and the beds choked up with weeds, low party walls separating it from the gardens on each side. The dogs, bright, cheery fellows, barked a welcome, and one or two cats appeared and followed us with every mark of affection. “Ah!” said the Countess with a shriek, “there is something wrong with this poor cat,” lifting it up, smelling its mouth, and carrying it indoors. Then we went into the dark kitchen, in which it is easy to picture the Countess, brooding over the ingratitude of the men and women whom she had befriended, and thinking of the treasure that has been thrown so recklessly and so fruitlessly away, seated on a broken-backed chair, with a few embers burning in the grate, and a halfpenny candle stuck in the neck of a bottle. “Let us go upstairs,” said the Countess; and, mounting the narrow bare steps, followed by half-a-dozen cats, we entered a room overlooking the square, one window being open, the other closed, with the shutters fastened across. This room is the old nursery. An old sideboard stood in the middle, on which was a waste-paper basket filled with litter, where inclined a big grey cat. A small, low chair, such as passengers use at sea, covered with a bit of sheepskin, stood by the open window. Before the fireplace were the cradles ranged round. On a torn and battered sofa were half a dozen little baskets for the reception of the mothers and their offspring. The room, like the others in the house, had a poverty-stricken air, being altogether given up to the animals. Close against the walls were jugs and pails of water, plates full of the red disinfectant powder, dirty glasses, and an old basket or two.