Ann Arbor Gets All The Cats

A Suspicious Story Comes from Kalamazoo

LOST HALF HER CATS

The Kalamazoo Telegraph claims that the reason cats are rapidly decreasing in Kalamazoo is because they are being sent to medical students in Ann Arbor. The article is a good example of what a fertile imagination can do. Although the medical department is charged with the decrease the Telegraph's own figures only account for 55 deaths out of a total of 1,165 in this manner. The figures given are so precise that one can only believe that the whole article is faked, but the reporter made such good work of it that it is worthy of reproduction. It is a follows:

Statistics have been compiled by the Telegraph which show that Kalamazoo is verging on a cat famine. The total number of cats in Kalamazoo in 1898 was placed at 3,605. A careful canvass of the city by a cat fancier this year shows Kalamazoo to harbor less than 1,800 of the once plentiful domestic pets.

During the past six months certain medical students from the University of Michigan are said to have vïsited Kalamazoo and enlisted boys to secure cats for the University medical department. Boys claim that they have been offered 20 cents for every cat secured and eight cents for kittens. It is known that at different times during the past year large consignments of cats have been shipped to Ann Arbor in boxes and sacks. What disposition was made of them there can only be judged by the constant demand for cats that is being made all over the state.

VIVISECTED AT ANN ARBOR.

Many causes and reasons are assigned for the mysterious disappearance of some valuable Kalamazoo cats. Some maliciously assign it to the thirst for knowledge on the part of the medical fraternity at Ann Arbor, who, if reports are true, spend much of their time and money in exhaustive investigations of feline anatomy. Others claim that the cat is no longer the popular domestic animal of 20 years ago, but a public nuisance and look upon the cat famine as a blessing to the community.

Fifty-five is the number of Kalamazoo victims claimed to the cause of science in one year. Anti-vivisectionists may claim that this number should be multiplied by nine on the plea of the proverbial longevity of the animal in which case there are of course 495 Toms, Tabbie and their progeny exposed to the pitiless scalpel each year.

STATISTICS FOR FELINE YEAR.

This number seems small compared to the birth rate of cats in Kalamazoo and not sufficient to cause a famine, but the fact remains that cats of all kinds and descriptions are fast disappearing from Kalamazoo. Statistics for the feline year ended May 1, 1903, are as follows:

Number of cats in Kalamazoo..1,800

Average annual birthrate...... 907

Death rate, 1902-3............... 1,165

The total of deaths is divided among the following general causes:

Chloroformed ................186

Shot............................... 221

Strayed.................................... 85

Accidental* ............................... 9

By flying instruments............... 65

Vivisected..................... ...........55

Drowned................................ 307

Killed in action......................... 52

By disease.............................. 17

Old age..................................... 4

Exposure during kittenhood ....69

Mysterious disappearances.... 104

Grand total........................... 1,165

(*Prize Angora cat hit by batted ball Feb. 8, 1903, on college campus.)

PAIN AND TORTURE ELIMINATED.

The many various ways Tom has for escaping from this world has raised a doubt in the minds of the Humane society officers about the state as to whether he generally provokes his own end or is maliciously sacrificed to science. A local authority upon the subject said this morning:

"To the student the lower animals are very necessary. The study of surgery can only be successfully carried on through the study of living issues. Cats are necessary for victims. Before operating the animal is put under the influence of some powerful anesthetic and I am positive that absolutely no pain is felt and no torture inflicted.

"Cats are certainly very scare in Kalamazoo at present and in my mind there can be no doubt but that the medican schools are in a way responsible for many missing Toms."