While this establishment may initially have had commendable aims, an investigative journal called TRUTH revealed that its main aim seemed to be the upkeep of its proprietor and that it was not a charity in any real sense of the word. Almost all cats were destroyed the day they arrived. The proprietor pleaded poverty and crushing debt, the accounts were fraudulent, and aristocratic patrons did not know their names were listed as supporters. All the time, she used public donations to buy property (at least 4 freeholds held in her own name not in the Institution's name) and to maintain her own comfortable lifestyle. This was investigated in depth. The R.S.P.C.A. publicly distanced themselves from it. Another journal, John Bull, also covered the story of fraud. Unfortunately these journals were less widely read than the daily papers and women's magazines and the stream of leaflets circulated by the Institution. Better termed a cat abattoir (which further profited by selling the cats' skins and carcases for commercial use), it continued to milk the public until the death of its colourful proprietor. Regarding the prorietor, not only was she using the donations to buy property in her own name(s), she was adulterous and a bigamist.

[BENEFIT FOR LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS]
The Sketch, 4th December 1895 It was really a night on which, proverbially speaking, you would not turn a dog or cat into the street that I journeyed to St. George's Hall to assist (as one of the audience) at an entertainment given to help provide a comfortable home to those harmless, necessary animals to which I have referred. Notwithstanding the unwelcome attentions of the Clerk of the Weather, I was glad to find the hall fairly well filled, and to learn that that much-deserving charity, the Home for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, had a large number of enthusiastic supporters, which I am sure every dog- and cat-lover (and their name is legion) will agree with me such an excellent institution should possess. The entertainment was as excellent as the object for which it was given, and I was particularly pleased — and so was the audience, if enthusiasm be a proof — with the recitation by Mr. Oscar Berry of a humorous poem entitled, "What is Home without a Cat?" — a really admirable piece of work, bright, original, and well put together, by Miss Grace Ernestine Becks, which had an effective musical accompaniment. When Mr. Berry told us in a feeling (I had almost been betrayed into saying "feline") manner how the real hero of the story, who had been banished from his home through jealousy, came back —

And so, of course, "the cat came back"
To kisses, love, and laughter;
And Angelina, Tom, and Jack
Lived happy ever after.

I really believe (among the elderly maiden ladies) there was "not a dry eye in the house." I am glad to know that the Home for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs reaped a substantial benefit from this entertainment.

STRAY CATS AND DUSTBINS. Hampstead & Highgate Express, 28th March 1896
To The Editor of the "Express."
Sir,—May I plead for a small space in your valuable paper on behalf of the poor stray and starving cats of our great metropolis Since the sanitary dustbins have come into general use thousands and tens of thousands of stray cats who before could eke out a miserable existence with the scraps from the old-fashioned wooden dustbins now die of certain starvation. May I entreat the generous public to assist in a much-needed humane work? I have built a small cattery at the back of my house and take in all stray cats, and either find homes for them or, in default of homes, send them twice a-week to Battersea lethal chamber, sleep in death being preferable to the miseries of slow and cruel starvation in the streets. Lovers of poor pussy will approve of my work, and those who dislike cats must acknowledge the immense benefit to the public in general in clearing our streets and squares of starving, diseased cats, suffering from mange and distemper, dying in areas and crawling into empty houses to die. I average already twenty cats a-week received at my door (mostly the cats in kitten). My books open to anyone for inspection, show both donations and expenditure, and that, since the 1st of January to this 5th of March, 1 have taken in 152 cats, which either have had homes found or been destroyed. I entreat the generous public to assist me to enlarge my work with donations, however small, as expenses are very heavy. I never ask anything of the poor, but many people well off, living in large houses, send for the servant and refuse the smallest donation towards rail or 'bus fare. Visitors are invited to inspect my cattery and my books. The smallest sum gratefully received and acknowledged by post card.—Yours, &c.,
Z. WILLIAM, Manageress. 80, Park-road, Hampstead.

THE OUTCAST CAT. HER HAVEN AT HAVERSTOCK HILL. The Westminster Budget, July 3, 1896
The Duke of Portland, the Countesses of Warwick and Dudley, and other well-known society leaders have once more asserted their sympathy with the outcasts among " dumb things " by giving their patronage to the new " London Home for Lost and Starving Cats," which has recently been opened at 80, Park-road, Haverstock Hill. There are one or two other "Homes" of this class, but what are these among the millions of cats in and about London? If there were a dozen more there would not be too many, for an altogether appalling number of cats are every year and every day left to join the number of "outcasts." The dog, when the family removes, or when its owner "has had enough " of him, is provided for in one way or another. No one would dream of leaving him alone in or about an empty house. The cat, because it asks so little at all times, and forages for itself as far as it can seize an opportunity in the shape of London mice or sparrows, is left to its own resources, to make its living, to escape as best it may the fiendish cruelties which threaten it at the hands of many enemies, or to perish in the attempt. As a rule it perishes, after suffering slow martyrdom in one form or another, for the cat is a domestic animal which requires care, and not a wild beast that may be trusted to " manage " for itself. This being the time of year when cats suffer most, through removals of their owners, or other causes, the following account of the new "Home," as a correspondent gathered it from Mrs. Williams, the manageress, will be read with interest.

The Home, said Mrs. Williams, was entirely a work of charity, and not undertaken with any idea of profit. In fact, since the Home had been opened, in the latter part of January this year, the expenses had not nearly been met.. The expenses had come to £89 7shillings, 7-and-a-half pence during that period, and the subscriptions of the public to £51 and 4-and-a-half-pence. Mrs. Williams, who, by the way, speaks with a French accent, explained that she had been led to open the Home on account of her sympathy with poor "puss." And, quite in the orthodox way of older "cruelty" societies, she related the "experiences" of her officer — in this case a stripling in livery, who goes forth on his missions of rescue mounted on a tricycle, which is fitted with a receptacle for cats. Empty houses are rare hunting-grounds for the cat lover. People go away, it seems, and leave the cat, all heedless of its fate. " The other day," said Mrs. Williams, " we found in a house a cat which had been a week without food, and in another case a fortnight. The boy had to rescue this latter unfortunate creature by descending to the cellar by means of a rope. Then wounded cats are brought here. Their injuries are sometimes perfectly horrible, and point to dreadful cruelty.

" You would be astonished," continued the manageress, " at the warmness with which my plan has been taken up. People write to me from all parts of London about their cats. Some want them destroyed, others taken care of. I get as many as twenty letters a day." One or two of the letters, as we glanced over the budget received by the day's post, struck us as being slightly humorous ; such, for instance, as the lady who wished her cat to be "put quietly to sleep" because he had "an abscess on his nose." Poor beast !

Two rooms in the basement of Mrs. Williams's house have been set aside for the purposes of the Home. Just before our arrival some cats had been despatched to Battersea, where they are painlessly put out of the way at sixpence per head. When a cat is too ill to live his end is hastened by the administration of prussic acid by the Home's " vet." Then there is the hospital cage, which had several occupants the other afternoon suffering from cold, distemper, and other cat disorders. Another wired-off section received the " cats for sale," and in a room all to themselves were the " private and boarder cats" — a distinction which seemed quite Mayfair in its overwhelming respectability. Cats are boarded at the home at 1s. 6d. or 2s., according to the means of the owner. In the case of poor persons who desire their cats taken care of for some temporary reason, nothing is charged. Generally speaking, they are not of blue blood, these cats. We detected something of the silver-blue Persian strain in one, but the generality are of the homely English tabby type. You can buy them at a shilling apiece, or for nothing if your means are lacking and you have an idea that a cat would set off the hearth-rug.

THE DESERTED CAT. TO THE EDITOR Of THE MORNING POST. Morning Post, 25th July 1896
Sir, — "The harmless necessary cat" will, in many cases, soon be the starving, melancholy cat if the practice which too often obtains at this season of the year finds its customary observance. I allude to the practice of leaving town and closing the house without a thought for the dumb creature who up to the family departure has been a member of the household. The practice is not only inherently objectionable, but betrays the selfish indifference of the person responsible; it not only is a cruelty, but oftentimes leads to further cruelty and is calculated to be dangerous to the community. Of course it is a difficulty to know what to do with a cat when you are leaving town and know of no one to whom you can trust the creature until your return. The difficulty is partly solved in London, at least by three charitable institutions, for cats can be boarded out at a small charge at the Dogs Home, Battersea, for the south side of the Thames; at the Cats' Home, College-park, Harrow-road, for West London; and at the London Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 80, Park-road, Haverstock-hill, for the northern and north-western districts.— Yours etc THE EDITOR OF THE "ANIMALS' FRIEND." 20, Victoria-street, Westminster, July 21.

LONDON HOME FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS, Truth, 15th October 1896
Apropos of starving cats, I am asked to mention that a line addressed to the Manageress of the London Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 80, Park-road, Haverstock Hill, N.W., will bring round a servant in livery for the removal of any "unwanted" pussy; or, if the distance is too far, a suitable box for the reception of the animal, the box being conveyed to and fro by Carter, Paterson, & Co. If the cat is really a stray one - a feline bond-fide traveller - the Home asks nothing for this accommodation beyond a voluntary donation at the discretion of the sender. Every effort is made to find suitable situations for the vagrants thus received, failing which, the surplus population is packed off three times a week to the lethal chamber at Battersea.

This Home also undertakes, for the modest charge of 1s. and carriage (or servant's fare if a man in livery is preferred) to fulfil the wishes of "owners wishing their pets humanely destroyed" ("mother and kittens counted as one"). I feel sure that many among my readers will be glad to avail themselves of this convenience, and the Home seems in every way an institution worthy of support. But I do hope - indeed I do - that this notice will not lead unprincipled parties to entice away the harmless necessary pussies of their neighbours, and send them off to the lethal chamber in charge of a man in livery.

THE RESCUED PUSSY CATS OF THE LONDON HOME FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS, 80 Park-road, Hampstead, earnestly appeal this Christmas time to the animal-loving public for funds to held in the rescue work, and save more of the London beggar cats from starvation – 2,267 taken off the streets in 11 months. Patron – The Duke of Portland. (Morning Post, 22nd December 1896)

THE LONDON TEMPORARY HOME FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS Truth, 8th April 1897
A few months back I gave some particulars of an excellent institution, the London Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Cats, established by Mrs. William, at 80, Park-road, Hampstead. Mrs. William has just issued her second half-yearly report, which shows in a very striking way the usefulness of such an institution. During the first half-year that the Home existed 700 cats were received. During the second half-year the number grew to 1,750, making a total of 2,450 for the year. As the majority of these poor beasts were rescued from starvation and misery, there can be no question as to the merits of the work. As mentioned in my previous notice, many of these animals are eventually placed out in comfortable homes; while the rest are disposed of in the lethal chamber at Battersea. The number dealt with by the latter process amounts to sixty or seventy weekly, from which it follows that the home has equal claims on those who like and those who dislike cats. Indeed, I believe it has already had an appreciable effect in clearing off the superfluous cat population of London - much to the benefit of light sleepers.

A "HARBOUR OF REFUGE" FOR CATS. The Westminster Budget, May 7, 1897
According to the late Dr. Norman Macleod, a man's religion is not worth much unless his dog and cat are the better for it. One remembers the saying in reading through the second half- yearly report of the London Temporary Home for Lost and Starving; Cats, which has just been published. Mrs. Williams, to whose deep pity for the host of hungry, helpless, and homeless London cats the home owes its existence, ought to be regarded as a public benefactor by those who dislike cats as well as by those who are fond of them. For while to the latter the thought is very painful of thousands of poor starving cats and kittens dying a slow and cruel death in the midst of plenty, the former will no doubt see the advantages of stray and starving cats being cleared off the highways and byways.

The Home (80, Park-road, Hampstead) is admirably managed, and deserves the widest support. The cats at the present moment have some £50 "in hand," but what is that among so many, seeing that every week a band of from sixty to eighty poor creatures are brought in to be saved from as cruel a death as any living creature is ever exposed to, or, if they are past help, to be mercifully destroyed? The following facts, which we take from the report, speak for themselves, and we hope that Mrs. Williams will be encouraged and generously supported in her endeavour to minimise the suffering of one of the creatures which is more dependent on human kindness and mercy, and more persecuted than any other of our domestic animals :

Two little three-weeks-old kittens, with large blue eyes, the prettiest and softest little creatures imaginable, were found shut up in an empty house, the brutal owners taking the mother away with them. Another poor cat was locked up for a whole fortnight in an uninhabited house ; my servant,, who had to be lowered with a rope down a steep area, found the wretched animal trying to eat cinders. Her colour then was black, now she is a beautiful pure white pussey, and we have christened her "Snow." She is now fat, sleek, and happy, the domineering mistress of the catteries. Another case, a cat left for a week in an empty house tied to the leg of the kitchen dresser. "This Cat was raving mad when found, and had to be killed by a policeman with his staff."

London Home for Lost and Starving Cats Truth, 16th September 1897
In expressing a wish last week for the painless destruction of the homeless cats of London I was not, of course, unmindful (though it seems to have been thought I was) of the existence of the London Home for Lost and Starving Cats, at 80, Park-road, Hampstead. I am well acquainted with the work of that admirable institution, the manageress of which will, on the receipt of a postcard, send for any stray feline, and, if no home can be found for the poor creature, consign it to a merciful death in the lethal chamber at the Battersea Home for Dogs. Since the beginning of 1896 upwards of 5,000 lost cats have been received at 80, Park-road, and about 95 per cent of them have been put out of their misery in the lethal chamber. This seems a large number, but it is small in comparison with the multitude of homeless, neglected, and starving cats which are to be found in London, and which it would be a kindness to destroy. The Home can, of course, only collect those of whose whereabouts it is informed. This means that the wretched animals are dependent upon the kindness of individual householders for their rescue, and the object I had in view in writing last week was that people should be stirred up to a more active sense of their duty in the matter.

An excerpt from an article in The Sketch, 3rd November 1897: Speaking of cats (writes a correspondent), I may draw attention to the pussies' home on Haverstock Hill. It is a charming villa, by the way, and as unlike the usual "refuge" as can well be imagined. The honorary superintendent, "Mrs. William," gave me an interesting account of her work on behalf of lost and starving cats, and showed me some wretched-looking animals just brought in by her servants. These would be restored to health, if possible, and new homes found for them if not, they would be sent to Battersea to be painlessly removed, and their bodies afterwards cremated. With reference to one nice animal which attracted my notice she had a comical story to tell. We take boarders in sometimes," she said. "That is an exception, however. Charlie belongs to an old woman in the Hampstead Workhouse - Mrs. Gifford, I think, her name is. She was on the out-relief list, but the Guardians thought it desirable to get her into the ‘house.' Mrs. Gifford was quite willing to go with Mr. Wheatley, but only on condition that he took care of her cats. The Relieving Officer, like enough, was in a quandary, and sent me this letter. I consented to look after her two pets, and so here they've remained ever since, free of charge, of course for the Guardians won't pay for them, and the poor old woman cannot. She comes to see them, though, every week, in her poke-bonnet and blue frock. She always brings some milk and fish or other food with her, and the three of them renew their old relationship over the meal, which generally lasts, I am sorry to say, a couple of hours or more."

The London Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 80, Park-road, Hampstead, N.W. Mrs. William, Hon. Manageress, urgently pleads for funds both to enlarge the Home (Building Funds) and Subscriptions for Maintenance urgently required. Help is earnestly entreated; however small, the donation will be gratefully received, and building fund paid to deposit account. Unless the public assist this charitable work will have to be abandoned. Over 100 cats are received every week, and 4,534 taken in since January 1896 to August 1897. Please help. (Morning Post, 5th August 1897)

An Appeal to the Liberal-Minded. Morning Post, 9th December 1897
The London Home For Lost And Starving Cats, 80, Park-hill-road, Haverstock-hill, Hampstead. N.W Honorary Manageress – Mrs. William; Veterinary Surgeon – Mr. Alex Daniels, M.R.C.V.S. 39, Fortress-road, Kentish-town, N.W. Kept up by voluntary contributions. Visiting hours twelve to six, except Sunday and Bank Holidays. Cats taken in all hours and days. Stray cats are taken in, sick or well, free of all charge to the poor, at the London Home for Lost Cats. 80, Park-hill-road, Haverstock-hill, Hampstead. N.W., and either have homes found for them or in default of which are sent three times a week to Battersea Home for Dogs, where they are immediately upon admittance painlessly destroyed in the lethal chamber.

The London Home for Lost Cats has only been opened since the 22nd of January, 1896,, and in one year and a half up to 4th October, 1897. the enormous number of 5,460 lost and starving cats have been received, and now they average over 100 weekly. No cat has over been refused admittance, and they have been brought to the Home some in the most dreadful state of broken limbs, hunger, distemper, blind, caught in traps, or mauled by dogs. These are immediately destroyed in the chloroform box on the premises.

Inspection of Cattery invited between twelve and six. Cats taken in at all hours, Sundays included, but no visitors admitted Sunday. No experiments allowed on animals. It should not be forgotten that the humane work of feeding these poor cats is performed by the Home without any subsidy whatever. A BUILDING FUND has been opened, as the present Catteries are quite inadequate for the enormous number of strays received. A wing for boarders will also be opened at the same time in the new Catteries. DONATIONS are most urgently needed. A Special Appeal is made to all lovers of animals for help to raise the sum of £160 before the end of the year for the Building Fund.

THE CAUSE OF THE CATS. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 23rd January 1898
The second year of the existence of the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Cats was completed yesterday. During this period no fewer than 4,000 animals, rescued mostly in a wretched state of starvation and suffering, have been painlessly put out of their misery by a final sleep in the lethal chamber. The institution, which is kept going by voluntary contributions, numbers a great many members of the nobility amongst its most enthusiastic patrons. The institution, which is situated at 80 Park-hill-road, Hampstead, is not to provide a permanent home for cats, but to reduce the terribly large number of homeless ones. Servants attached to the home search empty houses etc. for any cats that may be starving that they may be put out of their misery. There is one particularly interesting pussy at park-hill-road who, when a kitten, was locked up in an empty house for a fortnight and one of the officials had to be let down a deep area to rescue her, where she was found trying to eat cinders. The poor frightened little mite was then black, but is now so white that her name "Snow," eminently becomes her.

Friendless and starving cats, for whom there is no room in the home, are painlessly despatched, the process being simplicity itself. The condemned animal is placed in a box into which an ounce of chloroform is poured, and pussy falls into a sleep from which she never awakes. Cats that are so killed are afterwards cremated at the Dogs' home, Battersea.

The manageress, who is devoted to her work, to which she gives up a large portion of her handsomely-furnished house, receives no remuneration, although all other officials are paid. Formerly well known in society, until a bicycle accident rendered her a cripple for life, she took up the cause of the cats as a hobby. On receipt of a postcard she is always willing to send her cart for a cat to be destroyed, a small fee – a shilling or whatever the sender can afford – being expected, except in the case of really poor persons.

THE CATS' HOME. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 27th February 1898
The manageress of the London Home for Lost or Starving Cats, whilst wishing to thank the Editor of Lloyd's for his kindly meant article on the Catteries recently published in this paper, fears that a great many persons did not understand that a small fee is expected with every cat except from the very poor. She writes: -"The article brought us by the next post forty orders to fetch cats from every corner in London and the suburbs, and every post brought shoals of letters, We nearly lost our heads, working from half-past six a.m. to eleven p.m. with extra hands. And this has been going on ever since the article appeared. We receive some thirty cats a day now, and with our limited accommodation it is simply awful. The worst of it is that with all these orders we have not received a penny, and are nearly £8 a week out of pocket. If the institution is to carry on its humane work we are bound to have more support from the animal-loving public. The Duke of Portland, and the Duchesses of Bedford, Wellington, and Sutherland, are amongst the more enthusiastic patrons of the home, which, situated at 80, Park-hill-road, Hampstead, is open for inspection from twelve to six.

It is perhaps only poetic justice (says a London contemporary) that the passion for cats should not always be consistent with tenderness to boys, who are too often as much the natural enemies of the feline as dogs are. Mr Plowden on Friday dismissed the case against a boy who had been charged by the keeper of an "institution" for lost and starving cats with embezzling 2s. The magistrate thought some of the large-hearted sympathy shown by the prosecutrix her cats might have been extended to the boy; and the evidence certainly inclines ordinary people to the same opinion. In the "catteries" — so the lady named her "institution" — there were strict rules for those who were not cats. Fines were imposed on the boy when he did not keep his clothes clean, or when he smoked, and there was a rule against taking gratuities. It is a rule not unknown in houses of refreshment; but if a police prosecution should follow every violation of that rule the magistrates will certainly have enough to do. The boy in this cats' home had taken his gratuity as earned by special advice of his own; and the magistrate could not blame him; but gave his censure to the lover of the cats and a discharge to the boy (Shields Daily News, 2nd May 1898)

THE "CATTERIES" IN COURT Daily Telegraph & Courier (London), 16th April 1898
One might probably search in vain through the pages of that useful handbook, "Things not generally Known," for any information respecting the "Catteries." It is, however, only in deference to a popular weakness for free and easy phraseology that the asylum has been so dubbed. Its proper title is the "National Institution for Lost and Starving Cats," the headquarters being at Park-hill road, Hampstead. Although the establishment is as yet but in its infancy, and it can boast of no larger staff than a lady manageress, a lady secretary and four boys, a printed return of the work done shows that they must have had a tolerably busy time of it. According to a circular dated the first of the present month, since January, 1896, the institution has received and dealt with no fewer than 7,550 cases of the lost and starving of the feline species, and still more startling – it would be incredible, only that we have the lady manageress's own word for it – of that number about 7,000 were slain by her within twenty-four hours of being received, chloroform being the merciful agent employed to put them out of their misery.

The arrangements at the asylum are on the most economical scale. Cats that are the property of the working classes and those too poor to pay a few and taken in gratis, but persons who can afford it are charged eighteen-pence per cat if delivered at the doors, and sixpence extra if conveyed by carriers' cart or "bicycle." One might well suppose that the offer of such modest terms would secure Mrs. Morgan from paltry imposture, but that it is not so may be assumed from the fact that she finds it necessary in her circular to intimate that she relies on the honour of the sender, whoever he or she may be, not to attempt to pass a cat as a homeless one when it is their own.

But, sad to relate, she has even worse than that to contend against. It might be expected even of boys that they would respect and show obedience to a lady whose life is devoted to such a worthy object. In the witness box at Marylebone Police-court yesterday it was Mrs. Morgan's painful duty to inform Mr. Plowden that such was far from the case. Her appearance there was due to finding it necessary to prosecute a youth named Frederick Preston for misappropriating the sum of 2s.

As might be looked for in a lady possessed f strength of mind enough to immolate ailing cats at the rate, say, of 150 a week, she is not a person to be trifled with, and in managing the affairs of the institution she has her rules and regulations, and is inexorable as regards their observance. As already stated, she employs four boys, as she calls them, but the specimen in the dock must have been at least eighteen, whose daily work it is to collect cats – those that householders wish destroyed and those that are at large without visible means of support. The lads are each supplied with a bicycle, which, no doubt, is useful for pursuing grimalkins that object to be captured, and to carry the bag in which is placed the animal consigned to the asylum. It appeared, according to the prosecutrix, that a few days previous to Easter Monday a lady wrote requesting that an old cat she had might be fetched and destroyed, and the lad Preston was sent on the errand. When, mounted on his bike, he arrived at the house, puss was not ready for delivery. Its tender hearted mistress had bethought her of it being holiday time, and sent word by the mounted messenger that she would prefer that the execution was put off until after Easter Monday. At the same time she gave the youth 2s., which he failed to account for, and hence the charge against him. When he was taken in custody he remarked to the constable [Detective-sergeant Taylor, who arrested the Defendant ] "I'll round on the other three. They put me up to it, and one of ‘em did her for five-and-twenty bob. I try it on for two bob, and am copped first go." Through his solicitor, Mr. Freke Palmer, however, he repudiated any such confession. It was sought to be made out for the accused that he regarded the two shillings in question as a little present to himself, and one he was very glad of in consideration of Mrs. Morgan's harsh treatment in making stoppages from his wages.

Questioning the lady, Mr. Palmer asked: What wages did you pay the accused?
Mrs. Morgan: Eighteen shillings weekly.
But did he ever receive as much? Have not the deductions you have made, by way of fine, amounted sometimes to as much as 3s 6d in one week?
That would depend on his behaviour.
As, for example, his time for arriving for work was half-past six a.m. What would he be fined if he did not come until a quarter to seven?
Sixpence.
And if it was a little after seven?
A shilling.
And if you caught him with a cigarette?
A shilling for that.
And if he did not keep his livery buttons as bright as new sixpences?
For general untidiness he would be fined sixpence or a shilling. But they spoil their livery on purpose. They all do it when they are under notice to quit. Just out of malice.
Mr. Plowden remarked that the one question before him was whether the accused had appropriated the two shillings knowing that they belonged to his employer. Mrs. Morgan said that the lady herself would prove that she sent to money to the institution, and the case was adjourned that she might attend and do so.

LOST AND STARVING CATS. London Evening Standard, 16th April 1898, Illustrated Police News 23rd April 1898
Among the cases before Mr. Plowden, at the Marylebone Police-court, yesterday, was that of Frederick Preston, aged 18, who was accused of having embezzled 2 shillings belonging to the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 80, Park-hill-road, Haverstock-hill. Mr. Freke Palmer appeared for the defence. Detective-sergeant Taylor, who arrested the Defendant, said that Preston, in reply to the charge, remarked, "Then I'll round on the other lads. One has done her (the Prosecutrix) for 25 shillings. They put me up to it, and she cops me the first time."

Cross-examined, the Officer stated that the money was given to the Prisoner by a lady who had wished to get rid of a cat, but afterwards changed her mind. The Prosecutrix had written to the Prisoner's father, saying that if the money was paid there would be no prosecution. Miss Zoe Constance Morgan, the hon. manageress of the Institution, said it was under distinguished patronage.

Mr. Freke Palmer.— Then I am one of the distinguished patrons, I suppose, for I had one of my cats killed there the other day (laughter).

Miss Morgan, continuing, said the Prisoner was in her employ at a wage of 18 shillings a week and overtime money. He was sent to a lady who wished her cat conveyed to the home to be killed. He returned without it, and made two explanations — one that the lady wished to delay the matter until after Easter, and the other that she meant to keep the cat. In consequence of that the Witness wrote to the lady, and having ascertained that she had paid the Prisoner two shillings, she now charged him with embezzling that amount.

Mr. Palmer.— I think you impose fines on your employes?
Mr. Plowden.— Fines?
The Witness.— Yes.
Mr. Palmer. — If his brass buttons are not cleaned he is fined? — No; if his clothes are not clean.
Mr. Plowden. — What is the amount of the fines? — From 3d. to 6d. for unpunctuality.
Mr. Palmer. — Don't you impose a fine of 1s. for smoking? (laughter.) — Oh, yes. How much for drinking? — He is at liberty to drink. You draw the line at smoking? — Yes, because they once set the place on fire. Have you not stopped as much as 3s. 6d. out of his 18s. in one week ? — That was his own fault. He agreed to the terms. But the money went into your pocket. Have you the contract? — It was verbal. Gratuities are sometimes given?— He knows that gratuities are prohibited. You dismissed the Prisoner because he wanted an Easter holiday? — I said he could only have half a day, and that if be disobeyed my orders he should not come back, and he would owe me a week's wages (laughter). He left the "Catteries."
Plowden. — The what? — The "Catteries" (laughter) by climbing over the railings and bolting.

Replying to the Magistrate, Miss Morgan said her institution was for taking cats off the streets. If those who owned them were poor no charge was made, but those in a position to pay were expected to do so. On the application of Mr. Hill (who prosecuted), the case was adjourned for the attendance of the lady who paid the two shillings. Mr. Plowden liberated the Defendant on his own recognisances.

THE HAMPSTEAD "CATTERIES." "FINES" AND "BONUSES." London Daily News, 30th April 1898
At Marylebone Police-court, yesterday, Frederick Preston, 18, of Fleet-road, Hampstead, was again before Mr. Plowden to answer the charge of having embezzled the sum of 2s., received for an on account of Miss Zoe Constance Morgan, manageress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Park-hill-road, Hampstead. Mr. J. Hill, solicitor for the prosecution, and Mr. Freke Palmer, solicitor, defended. When the case was before the court on the 15th inst. the cross-examination of the prosecutrix caused great amusement. It was shown that although the prisoner was in receipt of only 18s. a week wages he was liable to be fined under several heads, including smoking and not keeping his uniform clean, the money to go to the prosecutrix. Miss Morgan described the establishment as the "Catteries," a place for the rescue of cats found straying on the streets and for the destruction of cats. Her case was that the prisoner was sent to fetch a cat which was to be killed. The lady, however, who possessed it, changed her mind, kept the cat, and gave the prison 2s., which he never accounted for to his employer. This was afterwards found out, and he was spoken to on the subject. His answers were unsatisfactory, and she gave him into custody.

The prosecutrix was yesterday further cross-examined by Mr. Freke Palmer. She said she told the prisoner he was not allowed to receive gratuities, and that if any were given him he was to hand them over to her.
Mr. Freke Palmer – Or be dismissed? He was not to have the tips, but you were?
The Prosecutrix – He had good wages. I wanted money to keep up the place.
Mr. Freke Palmer – How much was he fined during the short period he was with you?
Prosecutrix – 2s. 3d., bu the receive a bonus of 2s. 6d.
Mr. Plowden – So he gained by the transaction 3d.?
Mr. Palmer – Do you say this is a benevolent institution?
The Prosecutrix – Yes; profits go to keep up the charity.
But the expenses are £10 to £12 a week. What for – killing cats?
For everything.
That means your own personal expenses?
I am honorary.
Honorary when you receive gratuities?
They go to keep up the home.
I suggest this is purely a money-making concern.
Prosecutrix – Not for me; I am out of pocket.
Is it try that the fines on a boy named Taylor amounted in one month to £3 8s.?
The prosecutrix laughed at the suggestion, and Mr. Plowden remarked that perhaps there was a big bonus on the other side. (Laughter.)
Mr. Palmer – That sounds very well, but the boy says he did not get one.

Mrs. Greenwood, a lady residing at Lady Margaret-road, Kentish-town, proved handing 2s. to the prisoner. A stray cat came in, and as it did not agree with her dog - (Mr. Plowden – When do they?) – she determined to have it killed. When the prisoner, however arrived there was some discussion as to the sex of the cat, and as he convinced her it was tom she determined to keep the cat. (Laughter.) She said to the boy, "I'm sorry to have been troublesome to the manageress; take this 2s."

Mr. Freke Palmer's defence was that the accused, who was of respectable parentage, regarded the 2s. – the only charge against him – as a tip for the services he had rendered, services which caused the lady to change her mind.

Mr. Plowden thought very strong measures had been taken against the defendant. He took it for granted that the person charging was a lady of large benevolence and charitable ideas, and he thought it was a pity she had not seen her way to bestow just a little of that abundant sympathy which she had for cats on this boy in her service. Anyhow the evidence was far too slender for the accused to have been brought before the Court. Under all the circumstances the boy would have the benefit of the doubt and be discharged.

THE OLD LADY'S CATS. South Wales Echo, 2nd September 1898
The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats superintended the removal yesterday from the yard of John's Mews, Rosebery-avenue, of the remaining cats which Miss Margaret Scott had, according to her own version, collected in the cause of art. Eight cats that had survived the systematic starvation with which they had been treated were at once secured by the employees of the home for conveyance to the lethal chamber of the institution in the Hampstsad home. The proceedings were watched by a crowd, who hung about the approaches of the yard for some time after the "catch" had been effected. The incident which attracted most curiosity on the part of the crowd was the removal of the dead cats and the fumigation of the artist's studio. There was nothing to hinder the crowd from personally watching the work from the very threshold of the room, but the stench was such that even the faces of intrepid dustmen wore an expression of surprise as they assisted in the disagreeable task. But they stuck manfully to the work, and the accumulated remains were in due course removed in dust carts to Lambeth to be destroyed, while the studio" itself was subjected to a thorough fumigation.

THE CATTERIES. Globe - Friday 5th May 1899
A vein of unconscious humour winds itself round certain passages of the apparently severely business-like circular issued by Mrs. Morgan, on behalf of the London Institution (late the Home) for Lost and Starving Cats, which is situated in the charming and healthy neighbourhood of Hampstead. The first signal of distress appears in the personally-addressed letter to prospective helpers in the cause of the homeless cats. The passage runs as follows: "The landlord will not renew the lease, as he objects to the Catteries." It is evident that the landlord's character is of a decisive pattern, and his attitude is firm towards cats. The four-footed songster finds no favour in sight. Perhaps he esteems the cat in the singular, and maybe he makes a great pet of the one specimen of the "felis domestica" that monopolises his own family hearth-rug. But a large number confined in a limited area on his property, giving voice to different views on feline politics, would tax the patience of any properly brought-up landlord. There are other strong objections, but experience teaches us to leave them severely alone. Our sympathy is with that particular landlord.

An impressive array of well-known leaders of society, in the shape of patrons, leads up to the circular paper. The first page is headed with a passage of singular import:— "N.B.—Boarders Are Not Token In." This is easily explained by the following somewhat sinister announcement that "cats are taken free of charge, and destroyed by the lady manageress herself by chloroform in lethal boxes on the premises, and sent to Battersea for cremation." The passing away of the overplus [surplus] of the prolific London cat is explained by the fact that the home the first three years of its existence, has taken in — and mostly done for [destroyed] - 15,594 lost and starving cats. The statement. "No Boarders Taken In" once more looms gloomily, when the manageress blithely states that "95 per cent" were destroyed by her own relentless hand within twenty-four hours of their admittance to the home.

The lady head of the establishment is all destroying in her self-elected post as chief cat executioner the home. The terms for the "spifflication" [destruction] of pet pussies is 3s. 6d. per head, hut a liberal discount is allowed for families. "Mother and baby kittens counted one." A reluctance is evinced in the circular to destroying dogs; it takes so much chloroform to kill them, thus at once destroying the cherished illusion of the nine lives that centuries have apportioned to the tenacious cat. "Fish-bones extracted from cat's jaws, or any other little acts kindness," ere undertaken by the thoughtful lady. An illustrated post-card is attached to the circular and depicted on the reverse side, in highest form of Continental colour printing, is a large number of cats of every shape and colour. A party of them, evidently of strong suicidal tendencies, is evidently endeavouring to gain admittance to a house across whose front runs a large board on which is written "To Let." In the distance is a modest, broken-down tenement, with the word "Full" emblazoned thereon. The whole country beyond is swarming with serried battalions of cats. Not a living human being is to be seen; they have evidently all emigrated. At the end of what is virtually three years' return of cat mortality are the following tender lines:-

"It seems to me so beautiful,
So blessed thing to do,
To make God's innocent creatures see
In everyone a friend,
And on out faithful kindness
So fearlessly depend."

How is it possible to resist such a touching appeal!

FOURTEEN THOUSAND CATS. Young Woman, 5th May 1899
WE all have our Rights, and societies for protecting them, nowadays, but whoever thought of the rights of the cat? Three-quarters of a million cats are said to be roaming about London every day, and of these quite a hundred thousand are homeless, picking up food here and there as best they can, but generally lingering many weeks on the verge of starvation, and dying at length from sheer want of food and warmth. The dog, as a rule, has its master and is well cared for, but how many ever think of the cat as a creature needing attention and worthy of being cared for? There are pet cats, it is true; but the cat world is a world mostly left to look after itself. If puss comes home at night, well and good; if not, well, let it starve. It is perhaps all that can be done,—one can't go running about after a cat at all hours of the night,—but it suggests at once the need for some sort of institution that will undertake to protect pussy from evil when she wanders away from home and finds herself unable to retrace her steps, or when, as is oftener the case, she is deliberately driven from the hearth she has learned to love; or when, again, she has no home at all. A stray cat in the street does not strike most of us as constituting any claim for action or sympathy; but when we consider that for every stray cat we see there are a hundred thousand more within a few miles of Charing Cross, the fact certainly makes a difference. The sufferings endured by this army of homeless cats constitute a very real claim on our sympathy.

Everything that has ever moved the hearts of men began in a small way, and the "Catteries," which has now grown to considerable proportions, and is growing more and more every month, began in the smallest way imaginable. The Dogs' Home at Battersea suggested it, no doubt; and Mrs. Morgan, a lady with a great love for dumb animals, started three years ago to receive cats which had nowhere else to go, at her house, 80 Park Hill Road, Hampstead, not many stone-throws from the famous Heath where 'Arry and 'Arriet play. The reception of the idea was not very encouraging. Mrs. Morgan was laughed at even by her friends, and anonymous letter-writers poured ridicule on her scheme in terms worthy of Billingsgate at its worst. She could not leave the house without hearing rude remarks, her servants were pelted with mud and stones, and no opprobrium was considered too bad for her and her house. But those days have passed now; the "Catteries" has become an established institution, and the time will probably come when similar institutions will be established in all our great cities.

A cats' home is not a mere fad: it is really almost as urgent in its way as a hospital for human beings. There are people who, think no treatment too cruel for a cat. It has nine lives: what matter if it loses one? A porter in Hanover Square boasted to Mrs. Morgan that he had strangled thirteen cats with a string pulled through the keyhole, and many cases came to her knowledge of cats which had pieces of paper, tied to their tails and set fire to. A woman in a position of authority at a London hospital ordered a cat no longer required to be thrown alive into a furnace a command which was obeyed! —and even kind-hearted people frequently leave a cat alone for weeks in an empty house, or thoughtlessly cast them adrift. Twenty-two dead and dying cats were found in the cellar of an empty house in the West End of London not long ago, the poor animals having crawled in through broken windows and died of sheer exhaustion from cold and want of food; and cats are sometimes received in the institution covered with tar or with their tails chopped off. The suffering thoughtlessly and wilfully inflicted on cats, indeed, is almost incredible, and the record of the "Catteries " has amply vindicated Mrs. Morgan's humanitarian scheme.

The "Catteries" comprise the basement and the back garden at 80 Park Hill Road, and the normal population is about fifty. There is not room for more until the new home is built, for which the funds are slowly—oh, so slowly—coming in. But it is the proud boast of the "Catteries" that no deserving destitute cat has ever been refused admission. What, then, becomes of the cats which arrive here in hundreds? That is the least cheerful feature of the "Catteries." It is a home, but for nine out of ten of the cats received it is the last home they ever know. During three years fourteen thousand cats have been destroyed in the little outhouse at the bottom of the yard adjoining the "Catteries"! It seems cruel, but it is really the most merciful thing in the world. Let it be remembered that ninety-nine in a hundred cats received at Hampstead are cats that nobody owns, cats afflicted with disease, or cats which have been cruelly treated. Now and again a pretty, healthy cat is sent in, and is taken care of in the room set apart for "pets"; but it is rarely that a cat is kept. If a good home can be found for a healthy cat, it is sent, but if there is nothing for the poor creature to do but to roam about, and almost certainly end its life in suffering, it is a mercy to put it into a sleep from which it will never wake. Twelve cats were enjoying their last meal when I visited the "Catteries"—a plentiful supply of meat and milk. Though they had only just come in, and had merely an hour to live, they were being as carefully looked after as their more fortunate companions in the next room, which live on from day to day, and are fondled as only pet cats can be. Then, as evening comes on, the massacre of the innocents takes place. Every night twenty or thirty cats are set at rest for ever in the lethal boxes. The principal box has six compartments, each with room for two cats, and the moment the cats are placed on the straw the top is fastened down, and an ounce of chloroform for each animal is poured into a narrow division in front of the boxes. The partition being made of wire netting, the drug takes effect rapidly. In two minutes the cats are asleep, and in a few more minutes they have passed out of existence for ever—unless there be some truth in the doctrine, put forward by a famous preacher, that there is a "life beyond" for the animal creation! It is a painless death and after seeing the condition of the cats when they arrive, one cannot doubt that it is the best and indeed the only thing that can be done. The dead bodies are cremated at the Dogs' Home at Battersea, where they are taken every morning in a cart.

The cats come from all parts of London—from all parts of England, it might almost be said. One came recently from the Isle of Wight, and others have come from Brighton and various parts of the south of England. Distance is no object at the "Catteries," and a post-card from John-o'-Groats would be enough for the manageress to send a specially constructed box there for the conveyance of a cat to Hampstead. The boxes are sent to any address in the kingdom on application, all expenses being paid by the institution, except under certain conditions. All expenses connected with stray cats are paid out of the funds, but, in the case of a cat being taken from a good home through disease or other causes, a payment of eighteen-pence is asked for, if the owner can afford to pay it, though the charge is by no means compulsory. It is significant of the scant love that exists in the world for cats that the money is rarely paid, and that the actual cost of carriage, even when the cat is sent for by request, has nearly always to be paid by the institution.

The "Catteries" has its own van, painted in many colours, with a picture of a huge starving cat on either side. The van travels some thirty miles a day, or nine thousand miles a year, picking up stray cats. Those outside the area covered by the van are conveyed by Carter Paterson under contract, or by rail. Now that the home is becoming better known, more than half the cats are received by arrangement, the rest being picked up casually in the street. Such letters as the following reach the "Catteries" every morning :—" Will you kindly have removed from a cellar at ----- a poor homeless cat ? Its Master has been dead a fortnight, and it will be a great charity to have it put to death." "A cat at the above address is being very badly treated. It has no real home, and it is terrible to see the poor thing. If we knew when you would call we would entice it into a basket." Another interesting epistle reads: "Amid the rejoicing and benevolence of Jubilee week I have been overlooked. I sit, day after day, in the garden of Queen's Square, Southampton Row, watching and waiting; but nobody cares for me. I have a tabby back, white chest, four white feet, and a white nose. If you will take compassion on me and send for me, I should be very grateful. I am a poor homeless cat." It is gratifying to know that the poor homeless cat was not doomed to the fatal box, a good home being found for it.

Cats reach the home in many ways, some in baskets, carriage unpaid, without any name or address; others in baskets left on the doorstep in the night. A cat with a ticket tied to its neck, on which was written, "Please take me in; I am a good little cat," was once fastened to the knob of the front door; and another was found on the doorstep with a large paper full of fish beside it. Collecting the cats is not an uninteresting occupation. A girl accompanies the van-man on each round, and curious experiences are sometimes met with. A cat once found its way on to the roof of a church in the Brompton Road, not far from the Oratory, and was evidently unable to get down again, for the poor creature remained there a whole week. Attempts had been made to reach the cat with ladders, but in vain; and at length a letter was received at the "Catteries" describing the situation. The cart was sent round, ladders were procured, and two boys succeeded in climbing on to the roof. After two hours' waiting and climbing, the cat was safely brought down, but it died in a few days. A lady who witnessed the rescue sent a sovereign to the home. Cats have frequently been rescued from empty houses, chimneys, church steeples, and deep areas, and no trouble is spared to put an end to their sufferings. Mad [rabid] cats have been received into the institution, too, chloroform having to be administered to them on a handkerchief at the end of a broomstick. In the room devoted to pets is a cat which had long been fed at a certain spot by a lady who went away in the summer for three months. During the whole of that time the cat visited the place daily at the usual hour!

The "Catteries " is not maintained without considerable trouble and expense. It costs £750 a year to keep the place going, and keeps nine persons constantly employed. In one month nearly 1300 letters were posted from 80 Park Hill Road, and in a year between 30,000 and 40,000 letters and reports are sent out. Every cat received in the home costs 1s. on an average, the balance-sheet of a cat tragedy being something like this: Forwarding empty box, 1d.; carriage to the home, 6d.; chloroform, 2d.; cremation, 3d. It costs 3d. to cremate a cat after it is dead, and, as some 14,000 have been cremated so far, nearly £180 has been spent in this way. Other daily expenses of the institution are equally large - 2s. 9d. a day going for meat, 2s. for fish, and 1s. 6d. for milk, and £1 a day going in wages. The "cats' supper" runs away with another little sum. Every night of the year a heap of fish is placed in the yard for cats to feast upon, and the rapidity with which it disappears is eloquent of the lot of the homeless cat. There are a good many subscribers to the institution, but the subscriptions are small, and the extension so urgently needed is being delayed. so far, the home is entirely dependent on working people for its support,—"The superior working class keep us going," I was told,—and a five-pound note from one or two who would not miss five pounds would be novel as well as helpful. The "Catteries is a queer little place, but it has come to stay, and it would be well if it were popularised and doubled in size.

"DUMB THINGS ALL." A FRIEND IN NEED. The Westminster Budget, 3rd November, 1899
Of making many reports there is no end. At this time of year they come before the public in bewildering multitudes. To those interested in the charitable institutions with which these pamphlets deal they are interesting enough. Not so, however, as a rule, to the general public. Still there are exceptions, and I doubt whether any man, woman, or child, unless they have hearts of stone, will read the Annual Report of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats without a throb of sympathy with the poor creatures that necessitate such a report and such an institution, and without many throbs of thankfulness that there should be somebody like Mrs. Morgan, the hon. manageress, and, in fact, its founder and best friend.

Only three years ago Mrs. Morgan, unable to bear any longer the sight of all the poor outcast cats which creep with an apologetic air about the streets of London, as if they, and not their inhuman owners, were responsible for the pitiful sight such cats represent, opened a home for these starvelings. And what fact could plead more eloquently for the institution than this, that up to date 20,950 starving cats have been received? At the rate of forty per day they are sent or brought into this place of mercy, where quickly and painlessly they are put out of their misery. Once the London Institution became known it grew rapidly, for there are few people who will not take the trouble of seeing that a homeless or diseased animal is taken care of, so long as there is somebody who will take the trouble of actually handling and dealing with the patients.

Together with the report a letter has been received from Mrs. Morgan, from which we quote a few passages, firmly convinced that whosoever has any pity for so helpless a little dumb thing as a homeless cat will do his or her best to help this excellent institution, which is founded and maintained for no other reason than that of removing pain and suffering. The institution is not a money-making affair in any sense of the term ; on the contrary, not only the entire time, but a great deal of substantial help, has been given to it by Mrs. Morgan, who, we trust, will be generously supported in continuing her good work, as she deserves :

"The term of our present premises being up at Christmas, we have, after much trouble, secured suitable ones in Camden Town. But, to add to our difficulties, the place has now been condemned by the district surveyors, and before entering into possession we are compelled to construct drains, asphalte, construct a damp course round the entire buildings, pull down two walls, and rebuild everything, at a cost of £500. This must be done by Christmas. Therefore, I earnestly entreat all lovers of poor pussy to help me this once again, and to those who have no love for our little fireside friend, I would say, give a sixpence in return for the midnight sleep which my endeavours to strike at the root of the evil by reducing the terrible over-population of the feline tribe will ensure them. There are few people who have not had their feelings harassed by the sight of some wretched, starving, gaunt, hollow-eyed cat, now vainly craving for a crust of bread, shrinking from an outstretched hand, crawling down the alley way, dying on our very doorstep.

We reproduce, by permission of Mrs. Morgan, a few of the illustrations interspersed in the report. They speak for themselves, louder than words.

THE CAUSE OF THE CAT. The Westminster Budget, 17th November, 1899
Several of our readers have written to ask for the address of Mrs. Morgan's Home for Starving Cats of which we gave an account the other day, in order that they may send contributions towards the good cause. All letters should be addressed to the Manageress, the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 1, Albert-road Gloucester Gate, N.W.

LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS Truth, 4th January 1900
"The terrible increase of cats received." That phrase seems to stare out prominently from a page of the appeal for funds for the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats at 80, Park-hill-road, Haverstock-hill, N.W. It is a "terrible increase," indeed. Here are the figures :
In 1896, 2,450 cats received.
In 1897, 4,010 cats received.
In 1898, 7,337 cats received.
The institution is for lost and starving cats only, and contains also a lethal chamber in which diseased or aged cats may be painlessly destroyed. From a paragraph in the appeal for funds I gather that well-to-do people are in the habit of sending their pets there for a final quietus, but neglecting to pay the fee. To do this they have to pose as belonging to the working classes; but what does that matter as compared with the lordly sum of eighteenpence These pennies are actually saved by owners who prefer to throw the expenses upon the institution. Owners who wish to see their pets humanely destroyed can do so by making an appointment with the manageress and paying 2s. 6d. Some poor things have been taken to the home in a shocking condition, with broken limbs, starved, blind, and so on. I wish that cats could be taxed as well as dogs. It would be a humane law, and would also greatly tend to the comfort and convenience of human beings, for London is absolutely overrun with cats. Any one who sees a stray cat, looking helpless and neglected, may send it to this home, where it will be mercifully destroyed. It surely is a good work, and one to be encouraged.

[BENEFIT FOR CATS INSTITUTION] Gentlewoman , 17th March 1900
I am asked to state that there will be held a musical and humorous entertainment at Wellington Hall (1, Finchley Road, St. John's Wood), on March 31st, at 3.30 in the afternoon, in aid of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats. The excellent object of the Institution is to find a refuge for the many miserable and starving cats haunting the streets of London, more especially during the summer time, when hundreds of thoughtless people go out of town, leaving their poor cats to starve. The Institution makes every endeavour to find comfortable homes for the waifs, and for the benefit of those for whom no place can be found a lethal chamber exists. Several distinguished artists have promised their services, and after their entertainment a performance of "Puss in Boots" is to be given by amateurs. Tickets can be obtained for a guinea, half-a-guinea, five shillings, and half-a-crown, admission being one shilling. All friends should make an effort to attend. The institution is under the patronage of the Duchess of Beaufort, the Duke of Portland, the Duchess of Wellington, the Duchess of Sutherland, the Marquis of Donegal, Julia Marchioness of Tweeddale, the Countess of Warwick, the Countess of Kintore, the Countess of Annesley, the Countess of Dudley, and other well-known ladies. Communication., should be addressed to the Manageress, 38, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, N.W.

WHERE STRAY CATS GO. Dundee Evening Post, 23rd June 1900
GATHERED IN BY A BEAUTIFUL MAID AND CREMATED. Is your back garden a gathering place for cats? If so, drop a line to the hon. secretary of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, notifying her of your distress. In the course of the next day a well-appointed cart with a prancing cat blazoned its hood will pull up at your door. From it will descend a young lady with a gold-lettered hat-band and a smart boy in buttons. You will be asked to point out the distressful animal, and, if it not on the spot, James, the boy in buttons will seek it out, and lure to his arms with desirable cat's meat. When found, the young lady will, on the principle of Captain Cuttle, make a note of it. You will be required to declare that the cat is a genuine "stray," and immediately it will be whisked off, to seen by you no more.

"Oh, yes," the young lady replied, in response to inquiry. "Sometimes we get many as twenty and thirty cats a day. "We put them in here," she continued, leading the way to a bright room gay with pictures by Louis Wain, and flowers in pots. "Here," she went on, waving her hand towards numerous cats lying about in all direction, after ticketing them we leave them for a day. During that time they can help themselves to much meat and milk as they like. Then we put them into a chloroform box, and they die painlessly. We received about 4000 last year. We keep pretty ones for a few Mays sometimes, and try to find them homes. We have another room for boarders upstairs, and a playground the roof."

"This," she said, leading the way to another apartment, "is the infirmary. Yes, the patients have various ailments. Now, this is a case of nerves and hysteria. Her people went away. She sulked and made herself ill. But you're better now, aren't you, puss?" and she chucked a dyspeptic-looking Persian under the chin.

"This," she continued, lowering her voice and opening another door, "is the mortuary." The press representative removed his hat entered softly. The young lady opened a long wooden box, smelling faintly sweet of chloroform. At the bottom lay something fluffy, very quiet and still. "In the evening," whispered the young lady, "they will be cremated."

"Woking?" – "No, a knacker's yard at King's Cross."

A CORRESPONDENT, who says she has read with painful interest the two letters that have appeared in The Standard with respect to lost and starving cats, writes: — "There are two excellent Institutions, to both of which I am a subscriber, whose object is to mitigate the sufferings of these poor helpless animals, which are caused by the callous indifference of those to whom they have belonged. It would occupy too much space if I were to describe what I know of the lingering misery of these poor creatures. For all humane persons who may see this letter it will be sufficient for them to know the two following addresses: — Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, 38, Ferdinand-street, Chalk Farm-road, Camden Town, London, N.W. (The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats), and Mrs. Gordon, 7, Nevern-road, Earls-court, London, S.W. (The Society for the Protection of Cats). At this last Institution cats may be boarded at a moderate cost." (London Evening Standard, 18th July 1900)

A CATS' PARADISE. New Zealand Herald, 1st December 1900, Supplement)
THE HOME FOR THE HOMELESS AT CAMDEN TOWN. The homeless London cat no longer cries in vain. For four years it has received the sympathetic attention of Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, whose good work on, pussy's behalf has so grown that a new home had to be erected at Camden Town in place of the old. This new cats' workhouse is a paradise for the pauper pussy. When an Express representative visited the scene of feline felicity there were eighty cats upon the premises, including thirty-four who are on the permanent staff "kept for the inspection and amusement of visitors;" eight in the infirmary wards receiving the most delicate attentions, and thirty-eight strays having a few hours of domestic felicity before sleeping the last long sleep in the lethal boxes. In response to appeals received, twenty-one boxes were being sent out to bring back twenty-one more of the stray or diseased animals who would otherwise have been left to starve and suffer unpitied. The growth and usefulness of the work is amply shown by some telling figures in the report, which give the subscriptions (voluntary) and the number of cats dealt with during the four years : —

Already this year 7900 cats have been dealt with, and they are coming in at the rate of 150 and 200 per week. Of course, the great majority of these have to be destroyed, but they are destroyed painlessly. The society have a mandate from the London County Council to clear all squares, recreation grounds, etc., of stray cats, and they have already dealt with many such areas.

Poor pussy's remains are cremated by contract at King's Cross at three-pence a cat. Cats entitled to a permanent residence at "The Catteries" are provided with a "playground" in which are various aids to catathletics, while their boarding room is furnished with suitable toys such as elastic-hung balls of mixed colours, etc.

Four pages wait upon them, and a caretaker on the premises "has been specially appointed to spend several hours daily playing, feeding, and coaxing the cats to eat." Mr. Louis Wain is a regular visitor and benefactor of this happy home for pussies that were once homeless.

All that is needed is funds to complete the payment for the new premises.

1896: 2,450 Cats Received, £455 Expenditure, £505 Receipts
1897: 4,019 Cats Received, £789 Expenditure, £840 Receipts
1898: 7,525 Cats Received, £1,050 Expenditure, £965 Receipts
1899: 8,381 Cats Received, £2,100 Expenditure, £2,239 Receipts

THE PUSSY CATS OF THE LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS. The following advertisement, cut from the daily papers, speaks for itself, and I beg my humane Editor give it free insertion. "The Pussy Cats of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats present their humble love and respects to all their kind friends, and hope they will enjoy a merrier Christmas and happier New Year than they themselves anticipate, with the very small funds their disposal at present." - The above institution is well-managed and deserving, so any your readers might do worse than spare it just a trifle. (Bury Free Press, 22nd December 1900)

THE QUEEN HAS GIVEN HER PATRONAGE TO THE LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. (Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 9th February 1901)

AT THE CATTERIES, by J. A. Middleton. (The Lady's Magazine, 1901. Vol II, No 4.)
This is an account of Pussy's Paradise, to which she can be sent when deserted by her owners. A good home may be found for her, or death may come painlessly in the lethal box.

It was an unfortunate day for cats when someone discovered they had nine lives, for since then the loss of two or three of these is considered of no consequence. Although cats, under happy conditions, always manage to get the best out of life - the softest cushion, the warmest corner - the choicest tit-bit, there is not a single member of the animal world more cruelly sinned against. Three-quarters of a million of cats in London, and of these 80,000 to 100,000 homeless - think of it!

A cats' home is quite as much needed, in its way, as a hospital for human beings, and the idea of starting one on novel lines occurred about five years ago, to a kind-hearted lady named Mrs. Morgan, living at Hampstead. Previous to this, her own house had always been open to the waifs and strays of cat-dom, and great was the persecution she suffered in consequence. Her servants were stoned and pelted with mud; cats were left in hampers and sacks on the doorsteps, and dropped over the wall, and anonymous letters of the most insulting nature were frequently received.

At last, the Home for Lost and Starving Cats was opened at 80 Parkhill Road, Hampstead, on January 22nd, 1896, and removed to 38 Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, on February 19th, 1900, and, as a clergyman who visited it once said : "It is like coming from the slums into a little Paradise." Passing through the gaily-painted green door which is kept by a boy in neat livery, the visitor finds himself in a well-paved yard with garden-seats, and flower-boxes and pretty hanging baskets filled with ferns, and a general air of brightness and cleanliness. Round this yard are the catteries and outbuildings. The first cattery on the right is devoted to strays, and is, as can be imagined, never empty. Here are cats of all sorts, colours, and sizes, in every stage of destitution. They arrive at the rate of about sixty a day - sometimes as many as ninety-seven in twenty-four hours, for the Institution never shuts its doors to any starving animal, and, moreover, sends its carts to collect the wretched creatures from the cellars and areas of empty houses and other places where forsaken cats congregate.

The strays are, naturally, for the most part in a pitiable condition, with broken limbs, injured spines, and loathsome diseases, mauled by dogs, scalded with boiling water, or daubed with pitch or lime, their tails cut off, some poisoned, some having been set on fire, and others, again, with even more terrible injuries. The worst cases are destroyed at once; the more hopeful ones, after being fed and made happy and comfortable for twenty-four hours are examined and reported upon, after which the valuable ones are picked out and kept, and the rest painlessly put to sleep. The doomed cats are destroyed by means of methylated chloroform in a large lethal box with six divisions; but a large lethal chamber is being built. The process is absolutely free from pain or suffocation and death comes speedily. The bodies are afterwards conveyed to Battersea Dogs' Home, where they are cremated, at a cost of threepence per cat, by special contract.

Upstairs is the Pets' Room, in which the favourites of the institution disport themselves. Round the walls are hung some of Mr. Louis Wain's delightful cat pictures, and the room is furnished with suitable toys, such as elastic-hung balls of various colours. Leading out of it is a large verandah supplied with fresh grass and other luxuries. This is the pets' playground, in which they run about and play, and sun themselves. The pets' room is, perhaps, the most amusing spot in the building. Its inmates assume a certain dignity, which is lacking in the unfortunate "strays," although, as a matter of fact, all of the pets were originally "strays" themselves, and have been exalted on account of their good looks or some similar qualification. Here is "Bruno," the Belle of the Catteries, a lovely blonde Persian, with a lemon-coloured ruffle. Rumour has it that she was found destitute in one of the squares, but she is such a fine lady that this is hard to believe. Here, also, is "Mark Anthony," a white Persian, singularly un-like Mr. Beerbohm Tree. By-the-bye, white cats are quite a feature of the Home, being a fad of the Manageress, who never destroys one if possible. Consequently there are no fewer than twenty-three white inmates at present, two of them with kittens.

Another illustrious boarder is "Master Perky," a valuable blue pedigree Persian, pointed out proudly as a son of "Woolomoloo." He is aristocratic in appearance and manners, and a thorough contrast to "Jacky Boy," a facetious old white cat, aged twelve, who is the Nestor of the Catteries. The latter wears a collar and bells, and, like the Abbot in "Ingoldsby," has a merry eye. He plays, somewhat languidly, with "Bobby," a gaunt cat with a sore throat, who is wearing a flannel band round his throat, and likewise suffers from ennui, for if ever a cat's face wore a bored look it is his. A small room is set apart for sick cats, with separate cages for each disease. The invalids are visited twice a day by their nurse and the vet, when required, and are fed by hand. Brandy, eggs, bovril, Brand's extract, minced beef and other luxuries are included in their menu, and every attention is paid to the sufferers.

The cart belonging to the Home is a very smart affair, blue and gold, with a picture of a cat on the panels. The lady-collector, who accompanies it on its rounds, wears a brass plate on her hat, with the name of the Institution engraved upon it. Cats coming from a distance arrive in railway boxes, supplied by the Home, and travel at special contract prices. Orders to fetch cats pour in by every post — as many as 11,267 last year — and to cope with these orders requires a great amount of organisation. Sometimes they come by telegram, and in all cases are attended to as quickly as possible, either by box or van. Some idea of the amount of work done by the Catteries may be gleaned from the following table, which gives the subscriptions (voluntary), and the number of cats dealt with during the last five years:

Date
1896: 2,450 Cats Received, £454 Expenditure, £504 Receipts
1897: 4,019 Cats Received, £789 Expenditure, £841 Receipts
1898: 7,525 Cats Received, £1,058 Expenditure, £964 Receipts
1899: 8,381 Cats Received, £2,102 Expenditure, £2,229 Receipts
1900: 11,267 Cats Received, £2,542 Expenditure, £2,432 Receipts
(Receipts include loans)

The animals of the poor, or of the needy working classes are received absolutely free of charge.

The Institution is now placed under the patronage of H.M. the Queen Alexandra, who thinks the Home is doing good, kind, and useful work. Visitors are invited to view the Catteries between the hours of 11 and 5, Sundays excepted. Funds are urgently required, for the heavy building expenses has left the Institution, which has no subsidy whatsoever, in debt, the annual subscriptions only to £279 3s.

Such is, briefly, the kind of work done by Mrs. Morgan and her staff, and it is of a sort to commend itself to all lovers of dumb animals, and to all those who view with regret the neglect with which the moving population of London treats its domestic pets. "I would give nothing," said Dr. Norman Macleod, "for that man's religion whose cat and dog are not the better for it." Tenderness to animals is one of the greatest of human virtues, and it is impossible to prize too highly the great value of such an institution as the Catteries.

HOW THE CAT WAS CAPTURED. A somewhat amusing scene was witnessed yesterday in Holywell-street, which is now being rapidly demolished, illustrating the instinct of the cat and its strong attachment to home. Several cats have been either left behind by tenants who have gone, or have refused to accompany them, and they are being removed by the Royal London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, situate in Camden Town, in which the late Queen took considerable interest and became its patron. When the society's van drew up in Holywell-street in quest of a tabby on "the list of the lost," which was wandering about the old dilapidated place, the cat instinctively apprehended that it was wanted, and made a desperate effort escape the driver of the van and a young woman who accompanied him. It was chased upstairs and downstairs and into the street, where it was captured after pursuit. Placed in box pierced with airholes, brought for the purpose, the animal was removed amid the laughter of a little crowd who had witnessed the incident. (Pall Mall Gazette, 1st August 1901)

LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS. The Queen, 28th September 1901
The above useful institution - of which H.H. Queen Alexandra has graciously consented to become the patron - -was opened by Mrs Morgan, its founder and manager, in 1898, and has since then continued its humane work with increasing encouragement and success. The objects of the institution are to receive and collect homeless and diseased cats, or such as their owners wish to dispose of, which shall be mercifully destroyed; to search and call for, free, all lost and starving cats by request of anyone kindly writing on the subject; to provide a temporary home for the best of the strays, also a permanent home for a limited number of the prettiest cats for the amusement of the visitors and as pets of the institution; and to mercifully destroy all useless, homeless, sick, mangy, or injured cats. If a postcard be sent to the institution a cart will call by appointment for people's own cats to be either found fresh homes; for or to be painlessly destroyed, as the owners request. This kindly and much needed work has been taken up by the committee of management as the result of seeing the fearful misery and suffering of homeless and deserted cats left by careless and thoughtless owners to slow but certain starvation. It is impossible to exaggerate the needless sufferings entailed on these harmless creatures through the thoughtless cruelty of those who leave town for summer vacations, or permanently, leaving behind them their cats homeless. Such work, therefore, as that for which Mrs Morgan so eloquently pleads in her annual report, lately issued, and embellished, it should be added, with a charmingly graceful portrait of the institution's Royal patron, should commend itself to all lovers of animals, and should enlist the active sympathy and support of the community at large. Funds are urgently required at the present time to pay for the new lethal chamber which it is proposed to erect as soon as sufficient means are forthcoming, and also for increased accommodation, the institution being terribly cramped for want of room. Visitors are cordially invited to visit the institution, 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, N.W. any day, except Sundays and Bank Holidays, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., those who have done so having expressed themselves delighted with all arrangements, sanitary , useful, and ornamental. A copy of the most interesting and instructive report, and all further particulars, may be obtained on application to Mrs Morgan, the manager, at the address of the institution.

GETTING RID OF STRAY CATS. Sir.— I beg you kindly in common fairness to grant space in your valuable paper to contradict a most erroneous and misleading statement published in your issue of the 8th inst., and which is likely to cause the London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats much harm. I wrote to the St. Pancras Guardians offering them one penny a head for each dead cat or kitten to cremate, and I have been in the habit for years of paying 3d for each dead cat and one penny for each dead kitten to the Battersea Dogs' Home. But our work increases and the number of cats get more and more, the price is getting much too heavy for our resources, besides the distance to send the dead bodies to Battersea. You further state "on what authority I know not" that we receive 1 shilling for each animal which enters our gates. I should be only too grateful if I could count on sixpence a head, in fact we not get l shilling a dozen pussies, and any one most welcome to start a cats' home and I will gladly give them all advice they may wish for.

To be brief, each cat costs us, chloroform, 3d.; cremation, 3d.; carriage of L.P.D.C., both ways, 7d. for our cat- travelling boxes: total. 1s. 1d. Our own cart works out at about 6d. as we pay for two good job horses £2 10s weekly, have our own cart, but pay our driver 25 shillings, and besides boys and collectors' wages on cart. There is food (we never have less than 60 cats here), wages, etc., etc. Never till I started this home did I have such insight into the callousness, cruelty, meanness, and uncharitableness of human nature. Often and often, and this from well-to-do people, after sending a very long way are told, "This is a stray, it came to us five or even ten years ago; so, of course, I won't give anything." Were it not for kind friends and for the loving patronage of our gracious Queen who so well knows that tenderness to animals is one of the greatest of virtues, our institution would long ago have had to be closed. I cordially invite all visitors to call and judge for themselves and will gladly send a report free to anyone asking for same. — I remain, Sir, faithfully yours. Z. C. MORGAN. Hon. Manageress, London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, N.W. (London Daily News, 11th October 1901)

HOME FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS. In six years this institution, in Ferdinand-street, Camden-town, has provided happiness [note: merciful death] for nearly 50,000 lost and starving cats. (Morning Post, 20th December 1901)

Writing in 1903, Frances Simpson mentioned a number of societies which rescued cats. One such society was located at Gordon Cottage at Argyle Road, Hammersmith and the other was the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats at Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. The aims of both were very similar: To receive and collect homeless diseased cats and painlessly destroy them; To provide a temporary home for lost cats; To board cats at a moderate weekly fee

The Camden Town Institution to which HM the Queen had graciously given Her Patronage, was founded by Mrs Morgan in 1896. It received 300 cats per week on average. The sorry state that the cats were in meant that every day, "several wretched cats" were found to be beyond help and had to be destroyed on admission while 80% of cats were destroyed within 24 hours. Many would have been admitted with distemper, others would quite simply have been starving. Members of the public could also take their cats there for euthanasia and Simpson wrote "No charge is made to the poor and only 1s 6d for a painless death in the lethal chamber is asked from those who can afford this most merciful mode of destroying life." (the lethal box was a small air-tight container into which the cat was put along with a chloroform-soaked rag or sponge, occasionally other vapours might be used). The dead cats were cremated at the Battersea Dogs home, at a cost of 3d per body. A motorcar was employed to go round and collect stray cats and would call at any house if due notice was given to the manageress. In Ireland there was a Cats' Home established 16 years ago (1903 - 16) by Miss Swifte in Dublin.

For small shelters and individuals without the room for a large lethal box, or for breeders who sometimes had to dispose of surplus kittens or sick cats, small lethal boxes were required. The simplest, for very young or sick kittens, was an airtight biscuit tin in which a chloroform-soaked rag was placed. Simpson described a commercially available lethal box in her chapter on building a cattery: "Mr Ward, the well-known feline specialist, has patented a lethal box of more moderate dimensions. Mr Ward, not yet having a description of it, kindly writes the description as follows:- "The box inside is 15 inches by 12 inches by 12 inches. A sheet of glass is inserted in the lid, so that the operator may watch the process. The vapour - coal-gas passed through chloroform - enters through a tube at end. Two minutes is sufficient time." Fanciers, I think, will agree that this simple peace-giving box is not among the least of Mr Ward's kindly ministrations to the cat he loves so well. Few amongst as can bear to see unmoved the terrible last pains of a pet who in its days of health delighted us with its beauty."

MISANTHROPIC "CHARITY" St James's Gazette, 20th December 1902
Among the flood of appeals for charity which reach us at this time of year it is seldom that any actually fill us with indignation. But this we confess is the effect on our mind of receiving an appeal from some sort of an institution for lost and starving cats. We hope none of the public are so lost to all sense of decency as to subscribe money for such a purpose at a time like this when human distress is widespread and severe. The appeal before us has the impudence try to commend itself to the charitable by stating that owing to the many other public appeals both for philanthropic and patriotic purposes and now the cry of the poor —the cats are left out in the cold! I do not wish suffering to any creature on earth, but we do not hesitate to say we would rather every cat in London starved to death than that a single woman or child should beg in vain for bread. Every shilling subscribed for these semi-wild beasts — lost cats soon run wild — might and should go to some really deserving cause, and for our part we regard anyone capable of assisting such a charity guilty of a sin against humanity.

SHUT IT UP! Bournemouth Daily Echo, 25th July 1903
Judge Bacon displays such unvarying courtesy towards ladies who attend his court as witnesses that those present at Birmingham on Thursday were considerably shocked when he affected to be guilty of an act of unaccountable rudeness. A: lady who had got into financial difficulties through the insufficient support accorded to her Home for Lost and Starving Cats was pouring her troubles into the ear of the judge in a manner more voluble than interesting when his Honour suddenly interrupted her with the interjection. "Oh, shut it up!'" "Sir!" indignantly responded the lady, shocked at the apparent rudeness, not to say vulgarity, of the remark. Then the judge hastened to explain that his interjection had been misinterpreted. "I don't mean that you are to hold your tongue," said his Honour. "I merely suggest you should close the institution." Thereupon, the reporter adds, the lady seemed mollified and the Court looked much relieved.

[MRS. MORGAN SUED] Truth, 30th July 1903
A Mrs. Morgan, manageress of a home for lost and starving cats in Camden Town, was last week sued in Bloomsbury County Court by a young lady who had been employed at the home and dismissed without notice. The young lady had been a collector - a collector of cats, as it appears from the context, not cash. She claimed four guineas in lieu of notice, and she got it, his Honour Judge Bacon, whose wit or wisdom is always at the disposal of suitors in his court, remarking that if the plaintiff "had been as kind to human beings as she was to cats, this would not have happened." In connection with this case, I may say that I have lately heard from one quarter and another a good deal about Mrs. Morgan's Cats' Home, and I recently had an interview with Mrs. Morgan herself on the subject. Pressure of other matters has hitherto prevented me from discussing it in TRUTH, but I hope to deal with it in an early issue. In the meantime, I may say that I do not consider the institution one deserving of public support, whether from the point of view of kindness to cats or kindness to human beings.

KIND TO CATS BUT UNJUST TO THE SERVANT. Illustrated Police News, 1st August 1903
An amusing case was heard in Bloomsbury County Court, when Mrs. Morgan, the honorary manageress of a home for lost and starving cats, at 38, Ferdinand Road, Camden Town, was sued by a young lady for four guineas for seven weeks' wages, including one week in lieu of notice. Plaintiff stated that she was engaged in February as collector to the home at a salary of 12s. a week and commission. After working for a few weeks the manageress told her that her services would not required for a month, but that she could resume work again after that time, if in the meantime she did not find a situation to suit her. She was not given notice of dismissal, nor did she receive a week's wages in lieu of notice. Defendant explained that some weeks after she had engaged the plaintiff she was compelled to abandon the system of sending round a collecting van owing to lack of funds. She therefore dismissed the plaintiff, on the understanding that if funds permitted she would be re-engaged. She did not pay a week's wages in lieu of notice, but she gave the plaintiff a very good reference.

In answer to some questions by Judge Bacon, defendant proceeded in a very voluble way to show that the home was not in a strong financial position.
Judge Bacon: Oh, shut it up!
Witness (indignantly): Sir!
Judge Bacon : I don't mean that you are to hold your tongue; I merely suggest that you should close the institution. (Laughter.)

I think the defendant made a mistake sending away a servant in this way, and if she had been as kind to human beings as she pretends to be to cats, this would not have happened. Judgment for plaintiff for four guineas.

MRS. MORGAN AND THE CATS. Truth, 20th August 1903
As mentioned the other day in TRUTH, I have lately been looking into the affairs of the Cats' Home in Camden Town run by a Mrs. Morgan, and have formed a very unfavourable opinion of this charity. The reasons for that opinion I will now give. Before doing so I may mention that I have bad the advantage of a personal interview with Mrs. Morgan herself, who has also submitted to me her accounts for 1901, as yet unpublished, and the passbook of two banking accounts, one of which was the account of the home at that time. The opinion I have formed is, therefore, not based on any ex parte statement or one-sided investigation. Everything about the home that is worth knowing I think I know.

The full style and title of the charity is "The Royal London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats," and it is located at 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town. It is under the patronage of the Queen, by whose permission, presumably, the title "Royal" has been assumed. Among other patronesses are the Princesses Alexis Dolgorouki and Lowenstein-Wertheim, and the Duchesses of Beaufort, Portland, Wellington, Sutherland, and Manchester. Mr. J. Colam, of the R.S.P.C.A., was till recently a Vice-President, but I understand that he has resigned that position, being dissatisfied with the management of the concern. The institution has acquired and built substantial premises, and its income from subscriptions, &c., for 1901 exceeded £2,800. It bears, therefore, all the outward signs of a highly reputable and prosperous charity. Closer examination, however, shows it to be something very different.

The first objection to the institution - and this alone would be a sufficient ground for unqualified condemnation - is that it is purely the personal undertaking of the so-called "Hon. Manageress," Mrs. Morgan. Mrs. Morgan started it in January, 1896; Mrs. Morgan alone has managed it down to the present day. She is not only the Manageress, but the Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Committee. At the interview above-mentioned she informed me that she originally had a committee, but she quarrelled with them - ladies always do, she said, speaking from experience of three such bodies - and, after the example of King Charles I. and his Parliament, having quarrelled with the committee she dissolved it, and for the last five years has reigned and ruled without any such encumbrance. She has a true autocrat's views on the subject of finance. Her private banking account is, or was at the date of our interview, the institution's banking account. She receives and opens personally all the letters, those containing subscriptions among the rest, and pays or does not pay the money received into the bank, as it suits her. The premises of the institution, although acquired with the funds of the institution, are her premises, and no one else has any legal right in them or power over them. In a word, this "Royal London Institution" is Mrs. Morgan's private establishment. Her view of the situation was stated with perfect frankness when she visited TRUTH Office. She invites the public to subscribe the money requisite for carrying the business on. She issued, down to the end of 1900, accounts purporting to show how much she had received and what she had done with it, and she did not recognise the right of anybody to ask more of her.

These facts alone should suffice to show that this is not a properly-constituted charitable institution and ought not to be supported by the public. All the abuses and frauds which disfigure the administration of charity have their origin in this way of doing business. It is the method of every impostor who preys upon the benevolent by constituting himself the agent of their charity; and those who subscribe to concerns thus managed not only run the risk of wasting their own money, but encourage other professional charity-mongers to run institutions on similar lines for their own benefit. It is only when the public resolutely refuse to support enterprises conducted in the style which Mrs. Morgan considers to be legitimate that the incessant frauds and scandals which do so much to damage reputable charities by damping down public benevolence will be stopped.

But there is more than this to be said against Mrs. Morgan and her cats' home. It is perfectly evident that the funds entrusted to this lady have been grossly mismanaged, and there is good ground for the question whether they have not been misapplied. The last accounts published were issued with the report for the year 1900. Down to the present moment the accounts for the two subsequent years have not been published, but they have been made up, and Mrs. Morgan has allowed me to see those for 1901. Her reason for not issuing any accounts since January, 1901, is worth quoting. It is thus stated in a letter which she wrote to me on June 21 :

"The reason no report or balance-sheet has been published for two years is that we have been so very hard up, and the work is so very heavy and expensive that simply want of funds last year has prevented me. We have thousands of names on our books for tiny sums - sixpences and one shilling - and every one of these names has to be entered, and when the same people duplicate their small donations many times a year, and many names are the same, each of these names receiving a printed receipt for each and every small sum, the work is heavy and very expensive. Therefore last year, perhaps unwisely, I decided on bringing out the two years in one issue only."

In point of fact, Mrs. Morgan keeps an accountant, whom she brought with her to this office, and who seems to be an intelligent and capable person. Accounts could be prepared for publication by this gentleman without any extra expense to the institution. The general management of the place is not distinguished by economy in any particular. On the contrary, it is grossly extravagant. It is preposterous to suggest that out of an income from all sources exceeding £3,000 a year - of which several hundreds a year are spent on printing, postage, and stationery, and £40 or £50 more on unspecified "sundries" - the few pounds necessary for the payment of auditor's fees and the printing and circulation of the accounts could not have been found, even if a few more cats had to go unchloroformed and uncremated (this being what is done with the great bulk of the rescued animals). Moreover, at the end of 1901, as shown by the accounts for that year which I have seen, Mrs. Morgan had cash to the amount of £229 8s. 8d. in hand, which would have amply sufficed to pay for this small amount of printing and postage. Finally, although she represents that delay was merely due to her decision to bring out the two years' accounts in one issue, the accounts for 1902 had not been made up at the time when the above letter was written, and they had not made their appearance at the end of July, even if they have since. Mrs. Morgan's letter does not explain why the second year's accounts should be more than six months behindhand. Let us now look at one or two points in those accounts which are available.

At the beginning of the year 1900 (ending Jan. 21, 1901) a balance was brought forward of £134 14s. 2d; subscriptions and donations for the year amounted to £2,038 1s. 1d. ; and receipts from various sources, including apparently a lottery (" prize drawing tickets £33 7s."), brought up the ordinary revenue to £2,254 10s. 1d. This handsome sum, however, did not suffice for the year's expenses, and it was necessary for Mrs. Morgan herself to make advances to the home. The accounts show loans from her to the amount of £312 during the year; but also on the other side repayment of loans to the amount of £222; so that the net advance during the year was £90. The whole of the receipts (which thus amounted to £2,344) were expended during the year, except a trifling balance of £21 8s. 3d.; and, further, the institution was heavily in debt at the end of the year, as shown by the following statement :

BALANCE SHEET, 21, 1901.
Liabilities.
Sundry creditors on open accounts -£385 16s 7d
Loan secured by mortgage on premises - £200
Temporary loan - £90
Total - £290 (loans)
Grand Total - £675 16s 7d

Assets
Cash at bankers - £21 2s 10d
Cash in hand - £3 5s 5d
Total Cash - £24 8s 3d
Balance being deficit - £651 8s 4d

I have examined the foregoing accounts with the books and vouchers of the Institution and certify them to be correct. In the balance sheet nothing has been included for the value of the lease of the premises, plant, fixtures and fittings, and stock. P. JNO. PAYNE Chartered Accountant, Payne, Howell, & Co., 42, Old Broad-street, E.C.
May 3, 1901.

As I do not wish to overstate in any way the case against Mrs. Morgan, it should be mentioned that during this year the following expenses, which are really in the nature of capital outlay rather than maintenance, had been incurred :
Cattery building - £473 8s 1d
Cattery plant - £171 7s 9d
Total - £644 13s 10d

In the following year (ending January 21, 1902) the receipts from subscriptions, &c., increased by nearly £800, and amounted to £2,81.1 1s. 1d. The balance brought forward, and various small items ("Prize Tickets" again figure for £26 5s. 6d.) brought the ordinary revenue up to £2,885 2s. 8d. Again it was found necessary to borrow no less than £317 11s., which brought the total receipts for the year to £3,202 13s. 8d. On the other hand, loans to the amount of £124 16s. 9d. were repaid, and there was a balance in hand at the end of the year of £229 8s. 8d. But it further appears from the following balance-sheet that huge liabilities, over and above the loans shown in the revenue account, had been incurred during this year :

BALANCE SHEET, JANUARY 21, 1902.
Liabilities
Loan secured by mortgage on freehold – £600 0s 0d
Temporary loans - £255 0s 0d
Builder's account - £493 18s 3d
Balance of purchase money, 36 and 38, Ferdinand-street - £314 13s 0d
Bexley Heath Motor Agency - £175 0s 0d
Battersea Dog's Home for Cremation (balance) - £64 14s 11d
Chloroform account - £103 13s 1d
Sundry creditors on open account (chiefly printing) - £656 16s 7d
Total - £2,665 17s 10d

Assets
Cash in hand - £221 19s 3d
Balance, being deficit - £2,443 18s 7d
I have examined the foregoing accounts with the books and vouchers of the institution and certify them to be correct. In the balance sheet nothing has been included for the value of the lease of the premises, plant, fixtures, fittings, and stock. (Signed) HARRY G. POWELL, Auditor, Hillside, Highgate road, N.W.

Certain items in this balance-sheet are simply incomprehensible. The balance-sheet for the previous year shows loans, secured and unsecured, to the amount of £290. The income and expenditure account for 1901, as above-mentioned, shows net additional borrowing during the year to the amount of £172 16s. 1d. (£317 11s. borrowed, less £144 14s. 11d. repaid). The total loans at the end of 1901 should, therefore, be £462 16s. 1d. Instead of this the balance-sheet for that year shows existing loans to the amount of £855. There is therefore an increase of loans during the year to the amount of £392 3s. 11d., of which no explanation is given, and which is inconsistent with the income and expenditure account. Or, to put it another way, Mrs. Morgan is certified to have advanced £392 during the year, which there is no trace of the institution having in hand or having expended. I invite Mr. Powell, the auditor, to explain this extraordinary discrepancy, if he can.

For the present, take the figures as they stand. The excess of liabilities over assets has grown in one year from £651 to £2,443, an increase of £1,792. This amount added to the net income received and spent during the year, apart from borrowings, brings the total expenditure and debts incurred to £4,677 2s. 8d. It is true that in this, as in the previous year, there are considerable items which may be considered as capital expenditure, viz. :
Building and Repairs - £481 3s 4d
Purchase of Property - £367 0s 0d
Total - £848 3s 4d

There is also an item of £87 10s. for a deposit (returnable) on a motor van, and one of £39 16s. for "legal expenses," which may be in connection with the purchase of property. But after deducting all these items, we are still faced with the fact that the ordinary administration expenses of the cats' home for one year, reached the amazing figure of £3,701 13s. 4d.

Now, what is done for the cats of London with all this money? In the "cattery" itself some few pet cats are maintained as "boarders." The number of them may be judged from the fact that in 1900 £25 5s. 9d. was paid to the institution for the maintenance of such animals, and in 1902 £9 8s. 2d. I do not know what the charge for board is, but, even if it were as low as 1s. a week, the last figure would not keep four cats a week all the year round. There may also be occasionally one or two valuable stray animals kept on the chance of finding homes for them, but I was told by either Mrs. Morgan or her accountant that this practice has been almost given up, as it is found that people do not care to adopt grown cats, preferring, when they want them, to rear kittens. With these few and insignificant exceptions, all the animals received into the "home" are destroyed at the earliest opportunity. The place is, in fact, not a cats' home at all, but a cats' slaughter-house. A lethal chamber has been constructed for the purpose, and after they have occupied it for the appointed time, the defunct pussies are removed by a contractor. They used to be cremated at the Dogs' Home, Battersea, but that method has been dropped. According to Mrs. Morgan's published statements, the number of animals received in 1900 was 11,267, and in 1901 15,738. Taking the figures arrived at above as the cost of working the establishment during the latter year (£3,701 13s. 4d.), a trifling sum in arithmetic will show that to take the animals to the "home," keep thorn for, perhaps, a day or two, kill them, and get rid of their bodies, costs as nearly as possible 4s. 8d. per cat! Such a sum is a self-evident absurdity, being far in excess of the average value of a stray cat when alive. If every cat had nine lives and had to be killed nine times over, this sum ought to more than suffice for the operation. When the average householder desires to dispose of an "unwanted" pussy, what does he do? According to my experience, he sends it round to the nearest chemist, who usually charges a shilling for administering the requisite dose, and doubtless makes a good profit on the operation. The rest of the process is completed by digging a hole in the back garden, which may possibly cost another 2d. When large numbers of animals are disposed of in bulk the cost ought to be proportionately reduced, even without allowing for anything in the shape of "waste products." (To prevent misapprehension, I desire to say that I am not thinking of sausage shops or rabbit dealers.) Yet to kill a cat and dispose of his mortal remains through the agency of Mrs. Morgan costs, not 1s. 2d., but 4s. 8d.!

The reckless waste that there must be in the business, if Mrs. Morgan's figures are correct, may be shown in another way. Here are those items from the same year's statement of expenditure which cover the cost of collecting, keeping, killing, and cremating the animals:
Food - £192 6s 0d
Cremation - £112 1s 6d
Chloroform and Carbonic Acid Gas - £84 2s 7d
Carriage for collecting Cats and Travelling Expenses - £244 14s 8d
Jobmaster (Van and Harness) - £128 18s 4d
Cleaning, Sanitary Materials, Fire and Lighting - £82 6s 6d
Total of above – 844 9s 7d

Add following debts appearing in Balance Sheet:
Cremation - £64 14s 11d
Chloroform - £105 15s 1d
Bexley Heath Motor Agency - £175 0s 0d
Total of above - £1,189 19s 7d

Several of these items are grossly extravagant on the face of them, notably the payment of £175 for a motor van in addition to the items for "carriage" and "jobmaster," the total cost of collecting the animals being thus brought up to £548 13s. (over 8d. per cat!) On the other hand, it may be said that there is nothing allowed for labour. But allow another £3 a week under this head, and you have still only accounted for £1,346 out of the £3,701 which it cost merely to keep up the establishment during 1901.

It would be easy to produce further proof of the wastefulness and extravagance of the management by a closer analysis of the accounts, but the truth is so obvious from the broad facts indicated above that I spare the reader further details. If Mrs. Morgan's figures are accurate, a grosser example of muddling mismanagement has rarely been furnished by a charitable institution. With an ever-increasing income from the public, reaching at last upwards of £2,800, the proprietress is, according to her own story, in a constant state of impecuniosity, the institution is living from hand to mouth, the staff have a difficulty in getting their wages, the bills are unpaid, and a hopeless load of debt is being piled up; while, on the other hand, the only practical work accomplished is the destruction of some 15,000 cats per annum at a cost of 4s. 8d. per cat.

That is all on the assumption that Mrs. Morgan's figures are correct. But are they correct? True, the receipts and expenditure and the balance-sheets for the two years I have dealt with are vouched for by auditors, one of whom is a chartered accountant. But what is the value of any audit in the face of the facts mentioned earlier in this article? The proprietress of the institution is in sole control of the funds. The only check upon her of any value is the issue of printed receipts to subscribers, and this is no check at all for the purpose of anonymous contributions. The books of the institution - though I do the accountant the justice to say that they appear to have been systematically kept - are not conclusive evidence that all the money received has been properly applied, when all the money is received and paid away by one person, without supervision or check of any kind; when the book-keeper is the servant of that person, and merely makes such entries as he is instructed to make, or receives the materials for making; and when the private cash of the manager is inextricably mixed up with that of the institution. The extent to which this last process has been carried in this case would be sufficient in itself to throw suspicion on Mrs. Morgan's accounts, and on the alleged indebtedness of the institution to her. In the first place, the money of the institution has never been properly banked. During the year 1901, the mysterious accounts for which have been referred to above, Mrs. Morgan kept two accounts at the Birkbeck Bank, one for the home, one for herself. She admits that she did not pay all the cash she received for the home into this account, explaining that the bank was too far off, and she did not see why she should put herself to so much trouble. She, therefore, paid away a great deal of the cash as it came in, to meet current expenses, without passing it through the bank. On the other band, she drew during this particular year several cheques upon the home account, one or two for large amounts, to the credit of her own account, these cheques being distinguished by being drawn to a number instead of a name. These transfers of cash from the home account to her private account are explained as repayments of advances previously made by her. Further than this, there is no trace of payments from her private account to the home account. For evidence of these advances one must refer to the books of the institution. The account at the Birkbeck Bank was eventually closed at the instance of the bank, because it was so frequently overdrawn and gave so much trouble, which incidentally shows that in spite of the handsome income of the home, and the alleged loans by Mrs. Morgan herself, she was also frequently compelled to overdraw the bank account. The bank would not have closed the account of a charitable institution unless the overdrawing had been carried beyond reasonable limits; and their taking such a step when they also had a private account in Mrs. Morgan's name strongly suggests that it was not only the home account which was apt to be overdrawn. On the closing of this account Mrs. Morgan opened a new one at one of the branches of the National Bank for the joint use of herself and the cats. All attempt, therefore, to discriminate in the banking account between her money and that of the institution was from this time abandoned. The way she has administered the cash not paid into the bank seems to have been very much the same. Practically, she keeps a running debtor and creditor account with the home. You find on one date an entry of a small sum advanced by her. This represents some payment which she says she has made out of her own pocket. On another date you find another entry of money paid to her. This means cash which she has put back into her own pocket against her previous loans. There are large numbers of such entries. I have not seen the books myself, but one of my staff looked through them with Mrs. Morgan's accountant; and the accountant explained to him that the loans and repayments of loans entered in the income and expenditure account for the year are arrived at by totalling up all these scattered entries.

The reader will now, I think, be able to appreciate the true significance of the fact that the balance-sheet for 1901 shows a net increase of Mrs. Morgan's loans during the year to the amount of £392 in excess of what the home expended for every purpose during that year. Unless Mr. Powell, the auditor, can respond to my request for some other explanation, the existence of this discrepancy is prima facie evidence either that this debtor and creditor account between Mrs. Morgan and the home is not genuine, or that in some other material particular the figures placed before the auditor were not correct. As an example of what Mrs. Morgan's free-and-easy method of mixing up her own finances with those of the home leads to I may mention one circumstance particularly. On October 2, 1901, the home received payment of a legacy of about £1,181. The cheque in payment duly appears under that date in the home account at the Birkbeck Bank. On the same date Mrs. Morgan appears to have drawn a cheque for £200 upon this account to the credit of her private account. Thus a substantial portion of this legacy was almost immediately applied to Mrs. Morgan's private use - of course, on the theory that the institution was indebted to her to that amount. This will show how material it becomes to know whether the facts really corresponded to this theory, or whether there was any little mistake of book-keeping anywhere, especially when we see that £392 of Mrs. Morgan's alleged loans during this same year is not shown by the accounts to have been applied or required in any way for the current purposes of the home. Whatever be the facts, however, this way of dealing with the accounts and funds of an institution supported by public contributions is grossly irregular; and a charity managed on such a system stands self-condemned.

The question naturally arises, ‘Who is the lady who is running the institution and dealing in this way with some thousands of pounds per annum subscribed by benevolent people?' Ostensibly she is a married lady, living apart from her husband, and receiving a handsome allowance from him. In the early days of the Cats' Home she described herself first as "Miss" and afterwards as "Mrs. William;" her name is so given upon the stationery of the institution down to 1898, since which date she has assumed the name of Mrs. Morgan. Her explanation of the adoption of the first name is that Mr. Morgan, which is her husband's real name, at first objected to her association with a Cats' home. I suppose that his objection was based on social grounds, and that it disappeared when the cats obtained the patronage of Royalty and duchesses, and the income began to be reckoned in thousands per annum. Apparently Mr. Morgan, at the same time, relaxed his purse-strings considerably. At any rate, simultaneously with the resumption of her husband's name, and the great increase in the income of the Cats' Home, Mrs. Morgan removed from a comparatively modest residence off Haverstock-hill, to which the original Cats' Home was attached, and became the mistress of the spacious detached residence at Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park, which she has since occupied. L am bound to state, however, that the pass-book which she submitted to me contained no evidence of remittances from Mr. Morgan at all commensurate with the rent of the lady's house and the general style in which she lives. One must assume, therefore, that if her income is really derived from her husband, he makes his payments in cash and postal orders, and that these are used as they come in, like the receipts of the Cats' Home, without ever being passed through the lady's bank. But whatever be the true facts about Mrs. Morgan's private position and finances, I must point out this, that out of the funds subscribed by the public for the benefit of the cats, she has purchased the freeholds of at least two, and I believe four, houses in Ferdinand-street, and expended upon them in the years 1900 and 1901 alone close upon £1,000 in building; and that the whole of this property is to-day hers, without it being in the power of any living person to dispute her ownership. This state of things, like her general method of dealing with the funds, is absolutely wrong and indefensible. And although it is true that there is a mortgage on this property, it is not stated to whom the mortgage has been given, nor for what purposes it has been incurred. The subscribers have certainly reason for asking how the mortgage-money has been applied in view of the fact that the balance-sheet for 1901 shows alleged loans by Mrs. Morgan to the amount of £392, which are in no way accounted for in the year's statement of expenditure. This is not the first case noticed in these columns in which the promoter and manager of a "one-man" or "one-woman" charity has acquired and assumed the right to hold in his or her own name property which should by rights belong to the institution; nor the first in which the process has been accompanied by the exposition on paper of loans due from the institution to the proprietor which are inconsistent with the surrounding circumstances. Charity-mongers who place themselves in this position have no right to be surprised or to complain if such proceedings expose their general conduct to unfavourable inferences.

I commend these facts to the attention of the numerous subscribers to Mrs. Morgan's establishment, and still more to that of the exalted personages who figure in the list of patrons and patronesses. It is surprising, when the character of the charity is examined, to find at the head of this list the honoured name of her Majesty the Queen. The great care usually exercised in lending the names of the Royal Family to charitable institutions is well known. The apparent oversight in this instance is possibly due to the fact that at the time when her Majesty, being then Princess of Wales, consented to become a patron of the Cats' Home, Mrs. Morgan was able to show some sort of a committee, while, the thing being more or less in its infancy, the grosser abuses indicated above had not become visible. A mere examination of the constitution of the concern as it is today, and of Mrs. Morgan's position in relation to it, would, I have no doubt, be sufficient to put an end to the Queen's patronage of this institution. The same thing ought to be true of the rest of the patrons and patronesses.

Perhaps some of those who have shown their interest in the welfare of London cats to the extent of subscribing £2,800 a year to Mrs. Morgan's establishment may have sufficient energy to tackle that lady, oust her from the control, and place the institution on a respectable footing. If they could do so, they would have my sincere sympathy, for I am very fond of cats myself, and I would cheerfully subscribe my mite to put a stray tabby out of its misery rather than leave it to be starved or worried to death in the streets. But the need of an independent institution for the benefit of stray cats is very questionable. In the first place, if, as Mrs. Morgan asserts, upwards of 15,000 cats require to be destroyed every year in London, it is a matter requiring the attention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. If an enterprising lady can raise the money for this purpose under such conditions as have been described above, a fortiori the R.S.P.C.A. could do it, and it is neglecting its duty if it allows the work to be undertaken by another charitable agency. In the next place, if the R.S.P.C.A. does not see its way to undertake this duty, it is quite clear to my mind that public authority ought to step in. Fifteen thousand cats in danger of starvation or violent deaths in the streets in the course of one year is a matter of serious public concern. To take them in hand humanely is of quite as much importance as the emptying of our dustbins or the watering of our streets. I invite the attention of the London County Council to this view of the matter. "Municipal Socialism," in the shape of a London County Council lethal chamber and crematorium, may frighten nervous Councillors; but I think if they look into Mrs. Morgan's accounts and reckon up what the owners of superfluous pussies will pay to get rid of them painlessly, they will see a practical possibility of working the business on commercial lines, and perhaps getting something out of it towards the relief of the rates. Anyhow, the time has come for Mrs. Morgan to be suppressed.

REPUDIATION. London Daily News, 7th September 1903
The Secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 105 Jermyn-street, S.W., hereby announced that, three months ago, he formally, by legal notice, WITHDREW his name as Vice-President from Mrs. Morgan's London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden-town. In consequence of that demand being systematically ignored by the Manageress up to present date, he is compelled to give this Notice. 105, Jermyn-street, St. James's. August 28, 1903.

THE CATS' HOME SCANDAL. Truth, 10th September 1903
It is evidently necessary to call public attention again to the facts set out in TRUTH of the 20th ult., respecting the so-called Royal London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 29, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town. In so carefully-edited a paper as the Westminster Gazette there appeared on Saturday, under the heading "The Starving Cat," a letter signed "Lyell Thomas, Grove House, Lewisham, S.E.," which recommended this institution to some previous correspondent of the paper, and went on to add: "Owing to a scarcity of funds the demands are overwhelming, but all lovers of animals can help by seeking its aid and by sending a small donation, with a letter stating any particular case."

It is evident from this that there are still people, interested in this "home" who do not yet know the truth about it, unless, which I should be sorry to think, Mr. Lyell Thomas, having seen the TRUTH article, takes on himself to publish this puff of the home in the face of it. As the article may not now be accessible to Mrs. Morgan's patrons and supporters, I will briefly recapitulate the facts for their information, and also for that of any of my contemporaries who, like the editor of the Westminster Gazette, do not understand the necessity of reading TRUTH carefully.

In the first place, the institution in question is not a home for cats at all, in the proper sense of the words, but a slaughter-house, where the animals are received and destroyed in a lethal chamber, at the rate, according to the proprietress's last published statement, of over 15,000 per annum. For this purpose £4,677 is alleged to have been spent in the last year for which accounts have been made up, of which £2,814 was obtained from the public by subscriptions. An analysis of the figures shows that the cost of killing a cat through the agency of this "home" works out at an almost incredible sum, and the gross extravagance of the whole thing is sufficient in itself to raise a doubt whether all the money accounted for can have been spent on the ostensible objects of the Home. The institution is not in any sense a public charity, but the private undertaking of a lady, who originally started it in the name of Miss William, and has since assumed the name of Mrs. Morgan, alleging that she is a married woman dependent on her husband. There is no committee, nor any single independent person associated with this lady in the management of the concern. She has the whole control of the funds, and does not even keep a separate banking account for the Cats' Home. Her own money, whatever it may be, and that of the institution are mixed up indiscriminately. She alleges that she is constantly making advances to the home, and she draws on the home for her private expenses, on the theory that the home is heavily indebted to her. The whole property of the place, including freehold premises erected out of the public subscriptions, stands in her name and belongs to her absolutely. Mortgages have been raised upon it, and there is no evidence as to how the money has been applied. No accounts have been published since January, 1901, the excuse given being that there has been no money available for the purpose, although large sums have been expended on the most extravagant objects, and the accounts for 1902 which have been shown to me disclose a cash balance of £229 in hand at the end of that year. A comparison of the last balance-sheet with that of the previous year shows an increase of liabilities during the year to the amount of £392, of which no explanation is afforded either by the accounts themselves or by the auditor. In other words there is an unexplained deficiency on the year to that amount. The lady who runs the concern on these lines, has simultaneously with the expansion of the subscription list to nearly £3,000 a year removed from a small house in which the home was originally started to a substantial detached residence at Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park, where she lives in a fairly luxurious style.

These were the main facts set out in TRUTH of August 20. Every one can see from them that the institution, on the most favourable view of it, is totally undeserving of public support on its present basis, and on the least favourable view of it, one which ought to be suppressed without loss of time. It may be added that Mrs. Morgan has offered no reply of any kind to the TRUTH article, although she had previously written to me in her own defence and paid a visit to this Office for the same purpose. The only conceivable reason for this is that she knows the article to be unanswerable, and the conclusions drawn above are that much accentuated.

It has come to my knowledge that a number of copies of TRUTH of August 20, containing the article on the Cats' Home, have been posted to ladies whose names are advertised as patrons of the institution, the envelopes being inscribed with words calling attention to the article. Some of these copies have been returned to me by the recipients, while one, having been wrongly addressed, has been returned to this Office through the Dead Letter Office, the inference having been drawn in all the cases that the copies were sent out by me or by my orders. I desire, therefore, to state that I am in no way a party to this proceeding, and that I strongly disapprove of it. It frequently happens that people who are interested in articles or paragraphs that have appeared in TRUTH buy copies of the paper and post them to other people for their own private ends. I should be very sorry for it to be supposed that in all such cases that the paper is sent out from this Office, for it is a method of advertising which only journals of very doubtful position ever resort to. I should be glad, therefore, if the public generally will understand that no copies of TRUTH are ever posted from this Office except in stamped wrappers showing clearly where they come from.

One of the copies of TRUTH above referred to was addressed to Lady Frances Cecil, whose name appears among the patronesses of Mrs. Morgan's Home. Lady Frances Cecil writes in consequence stating that she has never had anything to do with the institution in question. It would be interesting to know whether the same thing is true of any of the other ladies whose names appear in this very imposing list. Lady Kintore also writes under similar circumstances to state that she has requested the removal of her name from Mrs. Morgan's list. It is to be hoped that she is not the only one among the lady patronesses who have taken the same course. As, however, there may be other cases in which names are being used without the knowledge of their owners, it may be useful to some of the ladies to reprint here the whole list as it appears in Mrs. Morgan's last published report:

H. H. Princess Alexis Dolgorouki. H. S. H. Princess Lowenstein-Wertheim. Her Grace the Duchess of Beaufort. Her Grace the Duchess of Portland. Her Grace Evelyn, Duchess of Wellington. Her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland. Her Grace Sydney, Duchess of Manchester. Julia, Marchioness of Tweeddale. Her Excellency Countess of Dudley. The Countess of Warwick. The Countess of Kintore. The Countess of Annesley. The Countess of Roden. The Countess of Kilmorey. The Countess of Aylesford. Georgina, Countess of Dudley. The Countess of Munster. The Countess of Iddesleigh. The Countess of Shaftesbury. The Countess of Westmorland. Susan, Countess of Malmesbury. Viscountess Sherbrooke. Her Grace May, Duchess of Sutherland. Lady Annaly. Lady Westbury. Lady Algernon Lennox. Baroness Dorchester. Countess de Castella. The Lady Mary Milbanke. The Lady Frances Cecil. Lady Windsor. The Lady Virginia Saunders. The Lady Edith Corry. Lady Muriel Strangway. The Hon. Lady Forsters. Lady Pender.

In view of the facts above stated, it is evident that a serious responsibility must rest upon any of these ladies who consents to the retention of her name in this position, inasmuch as the names are only published for the purpose of inspiring subscribers with confidence in the genuineness of Mrs. Morgan's appeals and the sound management of the institution. In saying this, I may add that it is not enough to request Mrs. Morgan to remove a name. It is necessary also to see that the request is complied with, and to enforce it if it is not. This may be sufficiently seen from the following intimation published in the principal London papers on Monday. (While sending this article to press, I am glad to see that the advertisement has also been reproduced in the leading columns of the Westminster Gazette, by way of antidote to the letter in the same paper quoted above):

REPUDIATION. - The SECRETARY of the ROYAL SOCIETY for the PREVENTION of CRUELTY to ANIMALS, 105, Jermyn-street , S.W., hereby announces that three months ago he formally, by legal notice, WITHDREW his NAME as VICE-PRESIDENT from Mrs. Morgan's "ROYAL LONDON INSTITUTION and HOME for LOST and STARVING CATS, 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town." In consequence of that demand being systematically ignored by the Manageress up to the present date, he is compelled to give this Notice. - 105, Jermyn-street, St. James's, August 28, 1903.

The fact of Mr. Colam having severed his connection with the institution is in itself significant. The fact of Mrs. Morgan continuing to use his name after he has done so, and compelling him to publish a notice of this kind, is still more so. But it is really wasting words to insist further upon the disreputable character of the concern. It is a scandal that such an institution should be carried on under the most distinguished patronage, and it behoves every one connected with it to take steps to prevent Mrs. Morgan getting more money from the public. I do not speak specially of the most distinguished name on the list, because every one knows that it is only there by some accident, for which the Queen herself is in no way responsible. At the same time, it is greatly to be desired that Mrs. Morgan's right to dub her premises a "Royal Institution" should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

[NO LONGER "ROYAL"] Truth, 5th November 1903
The Queen has withdrawn her name as patroness of the Royal London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, which thus ceases to be a "Royal" institution. When calling attention to the character of the Home and to Mrs. Morgan's financial relation to it, I took for granted that this step would be taken, unless Mrs. Morgan had some better explanation to give than she had offered to me, and no doubt the removal of the Queen's name has only been delayed by her Majesty's absence from England. It is to be hoped that those of the patronesses who have not already withdrawn will now see the propriety of following her Majesty's example without further delay. As regards the future of the institution, there is, of course, little prospect of Mrs. Morgan being able to obtain further funds from the public. It is very desirable, however, that the money that has been spent on the premises should not be entirely lost; and there seems ground for believing that some such means of disposing of stray cats - the so-called home is nothing more than that - is really required in London. It would be well, therefore, if some means could be found of ejecting Mrs. Morgan and preserving whatever useful work has been done at the place. When I last referred to the matter, I suggested that the work really falls within the province of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Cannot Mr. Colam come to the rescue of the cats, and arrange to take the institution over as it stands?

[HUMBUG] Truth, 24th December 1903
Those who receive Christmas cards adorned with a harrowing picture of a starving family of cats, and intimating "that the little Beggar Cats of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats," wish their kind friends a Merry Christmas, and hope for a trifle "for their Christmas dinner and Christmas debts," will do well to throw the card unanswered into the fire. The "little Beggar Cat" who really wants the trifle for the Christmas dinner and Christmas debts is Mrs. Morgan, the proprietress of the Institution. The humbug of her work and her appeals has been fully exposed in TRUTH, and it is high time that her "cattery" was closed.

PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES COLUMN Daily Mirror, 5th January 1904
DENIAL. Mrs. Morgan, Hon. Manageress of London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, absolutely CONTRADICTS False and Malicious REPORT circulated that this Home is Closed or under New Management, or Amalgamated with any other Society. All cats sent for immediately on receipt of post-card. Average 60 cats received daily. Visiting hours eleven to four; cats taken in all hours. 81,248 cats received [in] under eight years. Report, with balance-sheet, on application. FUNDS Urgently ENTREATED for. Please Help. More ladies required to join the existing committee.

MRS. MORGAN STILL MORGANEERING. Truth, 21st January 1904
A determined attempt has been made during the last two or three weeks to obtain more money from the public for Mrs. Morgan's Cats' Home in Ferdinand-street, Camden Town. The attempt has taken various shapes. One of them - the wholesale circulation of Christmas and New Year's cards pleading for the " little beggar cats " of London - has already been noticed in TRUTH. Another takes the form of an advertisement in the "Personal" column of the Standard, in which Mrs. Morgan contradicts a "false and malicious report" that the Cats' Home is closed, and goes on to take the opportunity of appealing for cat boarders, funds, and ladies "to join existing Committee." But the most conspicuous effort that has been made - and from the journalistic point of view the most deplorable - is an illustrated article, a column and a half in length, which appeared in the Daily News of Thursday last. It takes the form of an interview with Mrs. Morgan, gives a highly picturesque description of Mrs. Morgan's establishment, and commends it to public benevolence, with the assurance that the good work done at the institution "among the forlorn and outcast of the feline tribe can hardly be too highly spoken of." No newspaper editor can be omniscient, and I do not reproach the editor of the Daily News for being unaware of all that has passed in the columns of TRUTH and elsewhere during the last six months with reference to Mrs. Morgan and her cats. But it seems to me the duty of every editor before giving a prominent and valuable advertisement to any charity to satisfy himself of the genuineness of the concern from some other source of information than the party who is running it. A very little inquiry would have been sufficient to prevent the editor of the Daily Yews allowing this article to appear. In order, however, that there may be no excuse for a repetition of such mistakes, and in order to counter act as far as possible the effect of Mrs. Morgan's efforts to rehabilitate the Cats' Home, it seems desirable to summarise again what has already been said in TRUTH on the subject.

The London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats - to give it its full official title - was started by Mrs. Morgan eight years ago, and has been carried on by her, virtually single-handed, since that day. She has combined in her own person the functions of manageress, secretary, treasurer, and committee. This fact by itself is sufficient to disentitle the concern to consideration as a reputable and properly organised charity. Such a state of things necessarily lends itself to abuse of all kinds, and to the misapplication of public money. It is sufficiently clear that these results have followed in the case of Mrs. Morgan's home. The money of the institution has been for years inextricably mixed up with Mrs. Morgan's private cash. Until a year or two ago she kept an account in the name of the home at the Birkbeck Bank, where she also kept her private account. She did not, however, put into the cats' banking account all the money that she received on their behalf, but paid much of it away to meet current expenses without passing it through the bank. This is her own statement. On the other hand, she on several occasions transferred large amounts from the cats' account to her own. This she explains as having been done to repay monies which she had paid away on behalf of the home out of her own private income. Although the Cats' Home has for several years enjoyed a very large income from subscriptions - on the face of it a much larger income than was required for the upkeep of such an institution - the account at the Birkbeck Bank was frequently overdrawn, and gave so much trouble that the bank eventually closed it. Mrs. Morgan then opened an account at one of the branches of the National Bank' for the joint use of herself and the cats, all pretence of keeping a separate account for the institution being thus abandoned.

Such hugger-mugger methods of dealing with other people's money are sufficient in themselves to cast suspicion upon any charity." In this case, however, the suspicion is greatly strengthened by the utterly unsatisfactory nature of the published accounts. At the time when I went into this matter - July and August last - no accounts had been published since January, 1901 - that is to say. the accounts were two and a half years in arrears. Mrs. Morgan's explanation of this was that funds were not available for printing and publishing the accounts. This excuse clearly did not apply to the year 1901, for she allowed me to see the accounts for that year, and they showed cash in hand to the amount of £229 8s. 8d. at the end of the year, which would be quite sufficient to cover the small amount needed for printing and postage. Moreover, in July last the accounts for 1902 had not even been made up. Mrs. Morgan asserted that they were then in hand, and would shortly be issued; but if that has ever been done, I do not know of anybody who has seen the result. Taking the latest accounts available, namely, those for 1900 and 1901, it appears that the income of the institution from all sources in the first of these years amounted to £2,254, and for the second year to £2,885. This large income, however, did not suffice in either year to meet the expenses, and heavy amounts had also been raised, on mortgage of the premises, besides "temporary loans," which purported to be Mrs. Morgan's own cash advances to meet the current expenses. In addition to all this, the balance-sheet for the year 1901 (made up to January 21, 1902) showed heavy debts, to the amount of hundreds of pounds, to builders and other creditors, the net result being an excess of liabilities over assets to the amount of no less than £2,443. In comparing the accounts for these two years, the extraordinary fact was shown that loans to the amount of £392 had been incurred during 1901 the expenditure of which was not accounted for in the statement of receipts and expenditure for the same year. As for such expenditure as was shown, it was obviously on a most extravagant scale, and bears no relation whatever to the actual work done at the home.

As regards this work it was also clear that Mrs. Morgan had indulged in the most exaggerated and romantic statements. In the first place, the establishment had no right to the title of a cats' home." An insignificant number of cats have been kept there as boarders, the owners paying for their maintenance; and a few more are kept for show, to impress the benevolent visitors who call to see the place at Mrs. Morgan's But the rest are all destroyed at the earliest opportunity in a lethal chamber constructed for the purpose, and the place is really, as I remarked in my first article, not a cats' home, but a cats' slaughterhouse. According to Mrs. Morgan's own published statements, no less than 11,267 cats were received in 1900, which means that about 11,000 were destroyed - probably more. In 1901 the number rose to 15,738. A comparison of these figures with the expenditure during the corresponding years - so far as it can be calculated from the accounts - shows that the cost of killing each cat amounted to several shillings. This fact alone is sufficient to condemn the institution, whether it is to be regarded as a cats' home or a cats' slaughterhouse. I might add that in her most recently published statements Mrs. Morgan asserts that during 1902 the number of cats received was no less than 17,380. This means over 334 cats a week, and over 47 cats a day, Sundays included. I do.not believe that these figures are genuine. But even if they were, a place where cats are killed at the rate of 17,000 per annum has no right to call itself a cats' home.

Finally, as regards the lady running this singular charity, it is known that she originally started the concern in the name of "Miss" and afterwards Mrs William, under which she passed till 1898, when she appeared as Mrs Morgan, her explanation being that she is a married lady living apart from her husband, but that this husband, for no conceivable reason, objected to her association with a cats' home. He seems, however, to have waived this objection when he saw what a good thing the cats' home was becoming. Originally Mrs Morgan resided in the modest residence off Haverstock Hill where the Cats' Home was started; but as the income expanded, and the present premises were acquired, the manageress and treasurer removed to a comfortable detached villa in Albert-road, Regent's Park. Whatever may be the truth as to her dealings with the income subscribed by the public, and her alleged advances out of her own pocket to supplement the public contributions, one fact is certain - namely, that the present Cats' Home, including at least two, if not four, freehold houses, with the special additions that have been made to them at a cost of upwards of £1,000, stands in Mrs. Morgan's name, and is for all legal purposes her private property. This alone is gross irregularity.

That is a rough statement of the case against this lady in her capacity of charity-monger. Unless some clear and categorical answer to it can be given, it should be sufficient to prevent another sixpence being subscribed for the maintenance of the Cats' Home under its present conditions. No such answer has been given, or attempted. Mrs. Morgan has contented herself with judicious silence as regards what has been said in TRUTH, and with endeavouring to counteract the effect of this exposure by the various expedients for obtaining fresh assistance above described. This attitude on her part is only open to one interpretation. Had she been in a position to give an answer, she was bound to do it for the sake of the home and the cats for which she expresses such affection, even if she slid not think it necessary to vindicate her own reputation. The immediate effect of the TRUTH articles was the withdrawal from the institution of various ladies of title whose names had appeared among the list of patronesses, and more recently her Majesty the Queen, who was abroad at the time when the first exposure took place, caused her name to be withdrawn immediately on her return to this country, thereby depriving the institution of the right to the title "Royal," which it had previously borne. No one can suppose that the Queen's name would have been withdrawn had Mrs. Morgan been in a position to offer any explanation of what had been alleged against her. To this it may he added that Mr. John Colam, the secretary of the R.S.P.C.A, who was at one time associated with the Cats' Home, has also withdrawn his name, though he was compelled to publish advertisements to that effect in various newspapers in consequence of Mrs. Morgan continuing to use his name after his withdrawal. In view of this circumstance, it seems desirable to reprint here the list of ladies and gentlemen whose names Mrs. Morgan is still advertising as patronesses and patrons of the institution. The following list was distributed with the Christmas and New Year cards of the " little beggar cats": -

H H. Princess Alexis Dolgurouki. H.S.H Princess Lowenstein Wertheim. Her Grace the Duchess of Westminster. Her Grace Evelyn Duchess of Wellington. Her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland. The Most Hon. the Marquis of Donegal. Her Grace May Duchess of Sutherland. Her Excellency Countess of Dudley. The Countess of Warwick. The Countess of Annesley. The Countess of Roden. The Countess of Kilmorey. The Countess of Iddesleigh. The Countess of Aylesford. The Countess of Shaftesbury. Georgina Countess of Dudley. The Countess of Westmorland. Lady Annaly. Lord Batherton. Lord Braye. Lady Algernon Lennox. The Lady Frederick Cavendish. The Lady Florence Dixie. Countess de Castella. The Lady Francis Cecil. Lady Windsor. The Lady Virginia Saunders. Lord Mount Stephen. The Lady Edith Corry. Lady Muriel Digby. The Hon. Lady Forsters. Lady Pender. Lady Watson of Delhi. Elonora Lady Trevelyan.

It would not surprise me to learn that some of these names have already been withdrawn; but, if that is not the case, it is high time that it was done. Any lady or gentleman who chooses with a knowledge of the above facts, to send money to Mrs. Morgan - for the killing of cats or for any other purpose - has, of course, a right to do so. But no one has a right to assist Mrs. Morgan in any way in obtaining money from the public who do not know the facts, until some categorical and conclusive answer to the charges that have been made is forthcoming. As matters stand at present, this so-called "charity" is entirely unworthy of public support in any shape, and any one who assists in prolonging its existence incurs a very serious responsibility.

A TRUTH CAUTIONARY LIST Truth, 4th February 1904
LONDON INSTITUTION AND HOME FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, Proprietress And Manageress, Mrs. Z. Morgan. - -Has received large sums of money, which are chiefly expended in destroying stray or "unwanted" cats in a lethal chamber, those alone being kept in the "home" which are paid for by their owners, or are useful as the stock-in-trade of the charity. Mrs. Morgan has always been in uncontrolled management of the business and the cash, and all the property stands in her name. Her accounts are most unsatisfactory; the cash of the institution has been systematically mixed up with her own; and while she asserts that the institution is in her debt, the books and accounts, read with the surrounding facts, do not, bear out this assertion.

PUSSY'S MILK BILL. THE AFFAIRS OF A BLOOMSBURY CATS HOME. St James's Gazette, 4th March 1904
At the Bloomsbury County-court, before his Honour Judge Bacon, Mrs. Morgan, described as the honorary manageress of The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats," 35, Ferdinand-street, N.W., was sued for a debt of £l5 6s. 1d. for milk supplied by Messrs. J. Richardson, Ltd., dairymen, of 41, England's-lane, N.W. Defendant had written a letter to the Court, in which she acknowledged her liability, but said "the home was very hard up, and had several judgment summonses against it, which had to paid monthly, that it was quite impossible for her to pay more than £1 a month." Judge Bacon: Why are such institutions started? I suppose for people to indulge in fads. A gentleman who appeared for the defendant said Mrs. Morgan had asked him to attend the Court, as she was not very well. He was now engaged in going through the books of the institution, and there had been a great falling off in the subscriptions during the past year.
Judge Bacon (examining defendant's letter paper): Do you mean to say people subscribe to such things? The London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, under the patronage of Princess - - -"
Plaintiffs' Solicitor: Very distinguished patronage, your honour.
Judge Bacon: Such a piece of paper does not impose upon me. Probably the printer has not even paid for it. But how is it that the defendant holds herself answerable for this?
Witness: When the money does not come in Mrs. Morgan makes up the money to keep the home going out of her private income, but her income is limited.
Judge Bacon: Ah! Most incomes are limited. (To plaintiffs' solicitor): Why did you give credit to an old woman like this? Well, she may not be an old woman, but I should think she is.
Plaintiffs' Solicitor: We were impressed by the distinguished patronage. We know the home has been criticised lately, and is somewhat under a cloud.
Judge Bacon: You can't get more from the cat than the skin You'd better take her offer.
An order for the payment of 20 shillings a month was made.

THE CAMDEN TOWN CATTERY. Truth, 17th March 1904
A case heard the other day in Bloomsbury County Court once more calls attention to the grotesque "charity" carried on in Camden Town by Mrs. Morgan, under the style of The London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats. Mrs. Morgan was sued by a dairy company for milk supplied to the cats to the value of £15 odd. She pleaded that "the home was very hard up, and had several judgment summonses against it," and on this ground she offered payment at the rate of £1 a month. The learned Judge, after various characteristic observations, indicative of his contempt for the Cats' Home and anyone who subscribed to it, or gave it credit, recommended the plaintiffs to accept this offer on the principle that "you can't get more from the cat than the skin." The advice was accepted, and Mrs. Morgan has one more judgment debt in process of liquidation.

The Camden Town Cattery having been again brought before the public, the opportunity seems convenient for mentioning a fact which has only come to my knowledge since my last mention of the institution, namely, that Mrs. Morgan, apparently in September last, issued a pamphlet entitled "TRUTH and the Cats," purporting to answer the criticism which her management of the concern had brought upon her. I do not feel under any obligation to discuss, six months after its appearance, a document circulated behind my back; but, in justification of what I have already said, it may be as well that I should notice a few points, which show how little Mrs. Morgan can offer in the way either of denial or explanation.

The first objection to the Cats' Home is that it is a proprietary institution; that the property, though acquired with public subscriptions, belongs absolutely to Mrs. Morgan; and that this lady is in uncontrolled management of the whole concern, even to the extent of using the bank account for her private purposes. Hear what Mrs. Morgan has to say to this:

"The Report for last year will show that it (the charity) was founded by myself in 1896, and that I have borne the whole care and responsibility during many years of uphill work. have laboured day and night for its well-being and have left not a stone unturned for its advancement; and, in spite of the opposition of enemies, it has overcome many difficulties, greatly increased in usefulness, and established its claim upon public sympathy. I have been - as I am now - vilely slandered; my home life and honesty attacked, simply because many people cannot understand that solely for the love of animals one can voluntarily undertake arduous work, thinking it must be done, for personal gain. As the work grew, I formed a Financial Committee, but its members would take no financial responsibility; and, rightly or wrongly, I thought the one who took all the burden should take all the control, and since then I have been able single-handed to extend this humane work to its present large proportions."

Mrs. Morgan goes on, however, to say that she. has asked certain ladies and gentlemen to join a committee, but that they have refused to do so. What does all this come to? We are asked, first, to believe that Mrs. Morgan is a victim of persecution, inspired by personal enemies, who doubt the honesty of her intentions. The blind enmity of these malignants is directed not only against her, but against the home and the cats. Having accepted all this, we are apparently to find in it some excuse for her being in sole control of the concern. Obviously if her honesty and her home life have been attacked, that is an additional reason why she should protect herself by associating other persons with herself in the management. Conscious, apparently, that this tirade against her enemies is not worth much as argument, she adds the statement that she once formed a committee, but that the members would not accept responsibility - meaning, presumably, financial liability - for which reason, we are left to infer, she got rid of them. This does not tally with what she told me when she visited TRUTH Office. Her statement then was that she had seen too much of committees, that they always quarrelled, and that she did not believe in them. If it be true that she once had some sort of a committee at the home, her reason for its disappearance is absurd on the face of it. The committees of charitable institutions do not bear any personal liability for the debts, and there is no reason why they should do so in this case. If, after collecting a great deal of money from the public and establishing this home, she asked other persons to form a financial committee, she obviously did it for her own protection and convenience and for the benefit of the home. To ask people who consented to give their time and trouble for such a purpose to accept a financial liability as well, would be an impertinence. There is no excuse whatever here for the absence of a committee.

With regard to her right to hold property acquired with public subscriptions, she says: "I have no wish to use public money to purchase property for myself, and am perfectly willing that it should be in the hands of trustees. But the financial statement will show you that the liabilities of the institution, for which under present circumstances, I am absolutely and solely responsible, exceed the value of the freehold and house property purchased, and the main portion of the cattery building upon which money has been expended is of value only for the purpose for which it was erected. When the property is handed to trustees, of which I shall be one, my personal liability for the debts of the Institution will have to cease at the same time, and it is impossible to find anyone willing to take the affairs over until these liabilities are considerably decreased."

The argument about the non-existent trustees is much the same as the argument about the non-existent committee. The lady first involves the concern hopelessly in debt - though there is no apparent reason why it need have got into debt at all. She then declines to give up the property unless she is relieved of liability for the debts, thereby doing her best to create a deadlock. Had she in the first instance taken the proper and usual course, the property and the liabilities could both have been provided for independently of her. This might be done even now if she were really disposed to surrender the control, but I do not believe she is disposed to do anything of the kind. Her tone throughout her letter is that of an autocrat, who is in possession, and intends to remain in possession, this attitude being glossed over by the suggestion that it is necessary for the welfare of the home and the poor cats. As to the point about the property being of little value after deducting the liabilities, the answer to this is two-fold: First, there is a considerable question as to how these liabilities have arisen; secondly, a considerable part of them are alleged debts due to Mrs. Morgan herself. in the last sentence of the above passage Mrs. Morgan practically claims the right to treat such debts as a charge upon the property of the institution. She cannot, therefore plead at the same time that the property is worthless, because of the debts. Whether she holds the property or merely a charge on it, her interest in it is substantial.

But the question of the property is not all. It was stated in the TRUTH account that Mrs. Morgan is in uncontrolled command of the income, and that she carries this to the length of mixing up her own cash and the cash of the institution at the bank. See what she has to say on this point:- "With regard to the bank account, it is quite true that for a few months, owing to the closing of the account by the Birkbeck Bank because of frequent overdrawing, I paid monies received for the Institution into my own account and drew cheques against these payments for the Institution expenses. This was because we had not at one time enough money to open an account. . . . "

But the irregularity here admitted, and apologised for as a temporary expedient, was of long standing, and was not confined to the period after the Birkbeck Bank closed Mrs. Morgan's account. Any one who will take the trouble to compare the account of these financial irregularities originally given in TRUTH with the above paragraph, will easily see that the above explanation is wholly inadequate.

The next point of importance in my criticism of the institution was the extravagance of the expenditure and the unaccountable increase of debt side by side with increase of income. On this Mrs. Morgan in her reply says nothing, apparently thinking that the increase of debt is quite reasonable and inevitable. It appears to me to be out of all proportion to the increase in the work done, and Mrs. Morgan is evidently unable to explain it. She offers an explanation, however, of one matter, of which I cheerfully give her the benefit. In discussing the accounts I made a point of an apparent discrepancy between the increase of loans during 1901 as shown by the, balance-sheet for the year, and the amounts shown to have been advanced during the same year in the income and expenditure account. Mrs. Morgan, if I understand her correctly, explains that the increase of loan during 1901 as disclosed by the balance sheet, is due to the acquisition of property, for which £600 was borrowed or on mortgage. This amount does not agree with the discrepancy I pointed out, and I am not able to reconcile it with the item of £200 "loan secured by mortgage" in the previous year. But as I have no desire to put anything against Mrs. Morgan which I am not sure about, I will say no more on this point. Mrs. Morgan, I find, has, since my first article on the Cats' Home, issued her accounts for the year 1902. By this time those for 1903 are due. Whatever criticism the accounts may be open to seems better deferred until the financial statements can be brought up to date.

The last fact to which I drew attention was that concurrently with the increase of the income of the Cats' Home Mrs. Morgan - who is understood to be a married lady living apart from her husband and dependent upon him - had moved into a much larger house, and adopted a much more expensive style of living. She affects to treat any allusion to this matter as "gross impertinence"; but, in view of her irregular position as almoner of other people's charity, her free-and-easy dealings with the cash, and all the other circumstances of the case, I hold that the question of her private means and private expenditure is strictly pertinent to the main question. She knows this, and in a sort of a way admits it by insinuating, rather than frankly asserting, that she is able to give satisfactory explanations on this point :

"TRUTH more than implies that my removal from Parkhill-road, Hampstead, to a larger establishment at Gloucester-gate was the result of the financial success of the Institution. I consider it the grossest impertinence on their part, to interfere in any way with my private concerns. If Mr. Morgan wished to purchase a larger house, that was entirely his own concern. The house was bought by him and given to me, as can be proved, if necessary, by the solicitors who managed the purchase. And if he chooses to pay his own expenses of his own establishment by his own cheque bock, surely this is nobody's concern but his, therefore any remarks on this matter are, as I have said, gross impertinence. As regards my own cheque book, only such sums passed through it as were for my separate expenses, perfectly independent of the general expenses of the establishment at, Gloucester-gate."

Seeing the position which this question has reached, it seems to me highly desirable, if only for Mrs. Morgan's sake, that it should be proved that Mr. Morgan bought the Gloucester Gate house and gave it to his wife. I would suggest, therefore, that either the gentleman or his wife should instruct the solicitors who managed the purchase to drop me a line verifying the above statement. More than this, I think it is equally desirable for Mrs. Morgan's sake that the fact should be verified that Mr. Morgan has all this time been paying by his own cheques for the up-keep of Mrs. Morgan's establishment - excepting only her personal expenditure. I, therefore, appeal to Mr. Morgan to come forward and state the facts like a man. I must say that I do not think Mr. Morgan's attitude towards his wife's amiable enterprise has been to his credit. In the first place - as Mrs. Morgan has explained - he objected to his wife running a Cats' Home at all. He thus compelled her to start her humane mission under the assumed name of Miss Williams. This might easily have compromised the lady, had the existence of Mr. Morgan become known to her friends, and it was probably a sense of this danger that led her to alter her style to Mrs. Williams. However, after a time, Mr. Morgan relents about the Cats' Home, forgives his wife, buys for her this attractive villa at Gloucester Gate, and pays handsomely, by his own cheque-book for the up-keep of it. (The reference to the cheque-book rather strikes me, because when Mrs. Morgan was at this office, and was asked to explain which of the numerous small credits in her private bank account represented her husband's cheques, she explained to us that Mr. Morgan never sent her cheques, but always cash - generally odd amounts in gold, silver, and copper, judging by the pass-book.) Nevertheless, Mr. Morgan still keeps himself in rigorous seclusion. Enemies swarm around his wife and charge her with dishonestly living on the Cats' Home. An article appears in TRUTH, which the lady considers to cast most impertinent aspersions upon her. All this time Mr. Morgan has only to come forward and say a word in order to place his wife above all possibility of unfavourable remark. But, still he remains silent. Even when she publishes a pamphlet of fifteen pages in her own defence, the poor lady is not allowed to give her husband's full name, or state where he can be found. This is unmanly conduct on the part of Mr. Morgan. I trust that he will, on reflection, see that his duty to his wife requires him to come forward at once. If he does not do so, I consider that Mrs. M. will be perfectly justified in declining to screen him any longer.

DENIAL. London Evening Standard, 22nd March 1904
The Committee of the London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, N.W. ABSOLUTELY contradict and deny false and malicious report circulated that this Institution is closed, or under new management, or amalgamated with any other Society. All cats sent for at once on receipt of post-card. The cart of the Institution will call for cats within reasonable distance. If too far for carrier will call with cats' boxes for cat. Average 40, 50, 60 and more cats received daily. Visitors cordially invited 11 to 4 [o'clock] week days. Strong Antivivisectionist. Free to the poor. Cats taken in at all hours, Sundays included. 84,230 cats received in 8 years up to 18th March. Average 50 to 60 cats always kept on premises. Boarders received. Report for 1902, with balance-sheet on application. New report for 1903 issued to May next. Funds most urgently and earnestly entreated for to help this humane work. All communications to be addressed to Mrs. Morgan, Hon. Manageress.

THE BLACK CAT OF HOLBORN.Portsmouth Evening News, 22nd August 1904
The black cat of Holborn, who pined three weeks in a deserted confectionery shop in that thoroughfare, has been rescued. It now reposes in the boarders' room of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town. As soon as it reached that home it ran away from its rescuers and traversed the yard of that institution with its tail in the air, swearing horribly.

MRS. MORGAN'S FINANCES. Truth, 25th August 1904
I pointed out a fortnight ago that the observations in TRUTH upon the management of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats were to a great extent justified by the report of the firm of chartered accountants who have audited the books of the institution for the last year. The auditors report that the books had been kept in such a manner as to be quite useless for audit purposes, and that before accurate accounts could be prepared it was necessary to have the books rewritten for the whole year from such original materials as could be obtained. Coupling this statement with what has been previously mentioned in TRUTH as to the manner in which Mrs. Morgan, the treasurer and sole manageress, herself dealt with the funds in the hands of the bankers, no one can be surprised that the accounts previously issued should have been unsatisfactory in themselves, and have pointed to a long course of waste and mismanagement, if to nothing worse. The accounts, however, that have now been prepared by Messrs. Blakemore and Co. bear out my opinions of this charity in other ways than this. The most important point to notice is the cost of conducting the institution. The business of this institution is to kill "unwanted" cats and dispose of their carcases. Although called a "home," it is so only such in the sense that the cats may be housed there for a day or two prior to their destruction - a temporary home on their way to their long home - the number of animals permanently kept in the institution being quite insignificant by comparison with the number collected and killed. At the time I dealt with the concern the last accounts which had been made up - Mrs. Morgan having got very much behindhand in this matter - covered the year 1901. In that year Mrs. Morgan had, according to her own statement, despatched 15,700 pussies. To do this had cost, according to Mrs. Morgan's own account, about £3,700, so that the cost of killing each cat amounted to no less than 4s. 8d. When this expenditure was described as preposterous Mrs. Morgan protested. On turning, however, to the report for 1903, and the accounts prepared by Messrs. Blakemore and Co., what do we find? In that year the number of cats received is stated to have been 14,002. The number killed, therefore, would not have been very far short of 14,000. The upkeep of the home during the same year under all heads cost £1,484 10s. 2d., which gives an expenditure of a little over 2s. 1d. per cat. In other words, the expenditure has somehow been reduced by considerably more than one-half.

It may be said by Mrs. Morgan and her friends: "This, at any rate, is a practical proof that the management has been reformed. Take credit to yourself, if you like, for having reformed it, but you are bound to admit that the management is now on a satisfactory footing." I regret to say that I cannot accept this interpretation of the figures. Assuming that the institution was conducted in the old style up to the date of the TRUTH articles in August last, and that Mrs. Morgan thereupon set herself to work to effect radical reforms and economies, it is a mathematical impossibility that during the three months of the year which then remained a saving of upwards of 50 per cent. could have been effected upon the pre-existing rate of expenditure. To reduce the expenditure of an institution by more than one-half in the course of a whole year would be a very surprising achievement, and would point to the most gross maladministration in the previous period, but no reforms could by any possibility effect such a saving for the whole year after three-fourths of the year had already expired. We must therefore look to other causes than administrative reforms for the explanation of the sudden reduction of Mrs. Morgan's expenditure. Nor is it, in my judgment, necessary to look far. Messrs. Blakemore and Co., after describing the process by which they rewrote the books for 1903, and prepared from them the accounts now issued, frankly admit that the accounts they have made out do not agree with those issued in previous years. They cannot explain the discrepancies, but they are satisfied that their accounts represent the truth for the period they cover. The inference from this is that the accounts previously issued did not represent the truth. When, therefore, one finds from Messrs. Blakemore's accounts that the annual cost of killing each cat in 1903 was 2s. 3d., and when one finds that Mrs. Morgan's accounts represented the cost of killing each cat in 1901 as 4s. 8d., and when one sees at the same time that no corresponding reduction of expenditure could possibly have been effected in the time available, the conclusion is unavoidable that Mrs. Morgan's accounts for 1901 grossly overstated the real expenditure. The words "grossly overstated" are not too strong. The expenditure for 1903 was £1,484 odd, that for 1901 was £3,700 odd. In 1903, 14,000 cats were dealt with; in 1901, 15,700. Assuming, as must be assumed, that for the greater part of 1903 the institution was being managed on the same lines as in 1901, the expenditure for the former year should not have exceeded £1,662, and even that figure assumes that the cost per cat is uniform, no matter how many are received, whereas everybody can see for himself that the increase in the number of cats does not involve a proportionate increase of expenditure, a great part of the annual charges being permanent charges, bearing no relation to the number of animals dealt with. We are therefore faced with a discrepancy of upwards of £2,000 between the cost of conducting this institution in 1901 and 1903 respectively, and of this discrepancy there is no explanation, except that the accounts for 1903 have been prepared by an independent firm of accountants from the original materials, while those for 1901 were prepared by Mrs. Morgan and her staff from books now found to be worthless for the purpose of audit.

The significance of this conclusion is the more evident when one compares it with the income for the corresponding years and the position as disclosed by the balance-sheet. In 1901 the income from subscriptions and other sources amounted to about £2,885. In 1903 the income from corresponding sources, including legacies to the amount of £108, had fallen to about £1,535. In the former year Mrs. Morgan's home-made accounts showed that not only had the £2,885 subscribed been expended on the home, but that further expenditure to the amount of nearly £900 had been incurred, and that the concern was consequently getting heavily into debt. In the latter year the researches of a competent firm of accountants show that even the income of £1,535 was not entirely expended, and that there was an excess of income over expenditure for the year to the amount of £85 8s. 6-and-a-half d. In other words, when the institution prepares its own accounts an income of £2,885 is shown to be utterly insufficient for its needs; when an independent firm prepare the accounts, an income of £1,535 is shown to have more than sufficed for that purpose. The balance-sheet tells a similar tale. I published in TRUTH the curious balance-sheet prepared for 1901, and signed by a Mr. Harry G. Powell, of Hillside, Highgate-road. It represented an excess of liabilities over assets to the amount of no less than £2,443 18s. 7d., a statement admirably calculated to open the pockets or cheque-books of all sympathisers with Mrs. Morgan's noble work. Messrs. Blakemore and Co. have now prepared new balance-sheets for the beginning and the end of the period covered. The second of these shows at December 31 a surplus of assets over liabilities to the amount of £412 13s. 6d. Notwithstanding, therefore, a reduction of income from £2,885 to £1,535, the home has no liabilities which are not amply secured. In a word, every statement put forward as to the expenditure, debts, and general financial position of the institution at the time when I criticised it last year is now shown by an independent audit to have been utterly fictitious and misleading.

Before leaving the figures I cannot refrain from calling attention to a fact which is indicated by Messrs. Blakemore's accounts, although they themselves have made no observations upon it. Although in drawing up the income and expenditure account for last year Messrs. Blakemore enter the above-mentioned balance of income over expenditure, £85 8s. 6-and-a-half d., they do describe it, according to the usual practice, as "cash in hand." Turning to the balance-sheet, we find that all the "cash in hand" on December 31 was £3 4s. 8d. If this was all the surplus income visible, it follows that there was a deficiency of cash to the amount of £82 odd, a deficiency for which it is to be presumed the hon. manageress and treasurer is herself responsible. The balance-sheet indicates that the alleged advances of Mrs. Morgan herself to the charity still continue, and there is a debit entry of "Loans account, Manageress, £49 16s. 5d." If, while her loans account showed that Mrs. Morgan owed the institution £49, the auditors' calculations show that she was liable for cash of the institution to the amount of £82, it seems to follow that her loans account is of a somewhat fictitious nature, which is what I rather thought when dealing with the accounts last year.

As already mentioned, Mrs. Morgan has called on me to withdraw my observations upon her charity in view of the report now issued. So far from doing that, I am of the opinion that the glaring discrepancies between her present auditors' accounts and those which she has personally issued call for some explanation on her part, if she is to be further trusted with the administration of the finances of this or any other institution. I had a letter the other day from one of Mrs. Morgan's supporters who advances the absurd contention that the lady has merely got into a muddle through her ignorance of finance, has made mistakes which anybody might have made, and ought not to be judged harshly now that she has taken steps to put the management on a proper basis. This argument is utterly absurd, because no one has any right to collect thousands of pounds from the public for a charitable purpose and keep the administration of the funds exclusively in his or her own hands, and there can be no shadow of excuse for any person doing this who is ignorant of the most elementary principles of account keeping, not to say of the elementary rules of arithmetic. No excuse for Mrs. Morgan, therefore, based upon her ignorance of money matters has the slightest validity. But as a matter of fact, what we now see is not explained by mere ignorance of money matters or formal errors in book-keeping and accountancy. If the amounts alleged to have been expended in previous years were not really expended and all the evidence suggests that they were not - the money received in those years has not been accounted for, and one is entitled to ask what has become of it.

In asking this question it is impossible to lose sight of the incomprehensible mystery attached to Mrs. Morgan's private position. As already mentioned, she started this home in the name of "Miss Williams," subsequently changing it to "Mrs. Williams." After some years, when the home was growing into a bigger concern, and she herself was removing into a larger house and increasing her personal expenditure, she revealed herself as Mrs. Morgan, the wife of a gentleman who had originally objected to her association with a cats' home, but had apparently waived his objections when he saw that the cats were in receipt of a large income and had obtained the patronage of Royalty. From that day onwards Mr. Morgan has, ostensibly been maintaining his wife in her comfortable house in Regent's Park. Yet nobody connected with the home has ever seen him, his whereabouts are unknown. Mrs. Morgan herself declines to say where he is to be found, and he himself remains obstinately in hiding, although he must know that this inconsiderate conduct exposes his unfortunate wife to somewhat unfavourable remark, and he has been urgently appealed to in these columns to disclose his address, if only in the strictest confidence. It would be affectation under the circumstances. to pretend that no doubt surrounds the existence of the retiring Morgan. and the existence of such a doubt has an obvious bearing upon the question which arises out of the financial administration of the cats' home in past years. If Mr. Morgan will come forward and satisfy me, not only of his existence but of the fact, that. it is he who has been supporting Mrs. Morgan and her establishment in Regent's Park during the last few years, I am quite ready to admit that the maladministration of the cats' home points to nothing worse than feminine inaptitude for arithmetic and ignorance of the elementary principles of book-keeping. As long, however, as the existence of Mr. Morgan remains shrouded in mystery I should be disposed to think that this mystery extends itself to the funds of the cats' home. In this also I think most reasonable people will agree with me.

Yet in our New Year appeals we must not quite overlook those on behalf of the lesser brethren," and do not think any cat lover into whose hands chances to fall the pathetic little card voicing a plea for the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 38, Ferdinand street, Camden Town, N.W., can be deaf to its appeal for a home which counts among its supporters Princess Dolgouruki, the Duchess of Sutherland, Princess Lowenstein Wertheim, and other warm champions of our dumb friends. And the reclaimed are ill-used and starved to a shocking extent to judge by the photographs from life on the card. The record of 108,814 cats mercifully saved from cruelty and starvation, and relegated, where no other alternative offers, to the kindly lethal chamber, in the last nine and a half years, speaks volumes for the need of such an institution, and ought to bring in many more voluntary contributions to this labour of mercy, to which the manageress devotes her life. (London Daily News, 5th January 1906)

The annual report of the London Institution and Home for Lost and Starving Cats, 36 and 38, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, shows that to May 16 of this year it had received no fewer than 112,555, and that it has been the means of ridding the squares, streets, empty houses, and parks of the poor suffering creatures which formerly haunted them, it estimated that there are about 750,000 cats in the Metropolis, and that from 80,000 to 100,000 of them are homeless. The institution is maintained by voluntary contributions, and an appeal is made for funds to complete the payment of £230, the balance of debt upon the building and meet the general expenses. Subscriptions should be sent to Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, the foundress and treasurer (Morning Post, 6th September 1906)

Truth, 14th November 1906
With characteristic astuteness Mrs. Morgan, of the "Institution for Lost and Starving Cats," contrived to secure a useful free newspaper advertisement in connection with the seizure and removal of some homeless tabbies in St. James's-square last week. It is a pity that the ‘Daily Chronicle' and the ‘Star' did not remember what TRUTH has said about this "Institution," and consign the lady's communications to the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Morgan describes herself as the "manageress and foundress" of the " Institution." I think she might more correctly be called the "proprietress," for, though the "Institution" appeals for public support, and though the public have given large sums of money towards its maintenance, Mrs. Morgan has never rendered any satisfactory accounts. On that ground the press would be better employed in warning the public against this concern than in lending it any sort of countenance.

The East London Coroner held an inquest a few clays ago on an elderly woman named Hazlett, who was found dead in her bed at 7, Elder-square, Spitalfield, with seven Persian cats "keeping guard" round her. The mangeress of the London Institute and Home for Lost and Starving Cats on Saturday applied to the coroner for the address, so that she might send for the cats and provide a good home for them. (Gloucestershire Chronicle, 19th January 1907)

A young man, who represented the manageress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats Kentish Town, complained to Mr. Plowden, the Magistrate the Marylebone Police-court, of the noise made by family of children at the back the cats' home. Mr. Plowden promised to send a policeman to admonish the mother of the children. (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 13th April 1907)

The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats has issued a very interesting report describing the excellent work it is doing. An average of sixty to seventy cats are received daily, and further assistance is urgently needed to enable the institution to carry on its notations. Intending holiday-makers are informed that boarders accepted, and that their pets will well cared for during their absence. (Morning Post, 9th July 1907)

WILL CASE SETTLED. Before Mr Bargrave Deane and a Jury. London Standard, May 20, 1908
The action concerning part of the estate of Mrs. Maria Rebecca Bey, formerly of Jersey, who died at the Home for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, in December 1906, leaving property valued at £18,000, was settled. The plaintiff, Mr. John Harold Milton, of Staple Inn, a solicitor, and one of the executors, propounded her will of August 15, 1900, and two codicils dated respectively November 5, 1900, and August 9, 1902. Only the last document, leaving the plaintiff property said to be worth £10,800, was contested by the defendants, who were Mrs. Josephine Marie Constance Ruttledge (connected with the Home for Lost and Starving Cats), a niece of Mrs. Bey, her husband Captain John Knox Ruttledge, a nephew, Captain Harry de Longueville, and an executor, Mr. le Huquet. They said in their defence that Mrs. Bey at the time the last codicil was executed was of unsound mind. Mr. Milton denied all the allegations against him, and in the course of his case proved that the codicil was drawn up by an independent solicitor. Counsel had a consultation and it was announced that the parties had settled all their differences and come to an amicable arrangement. Accordingly, the jury were discharged, end his lordship pronounced for the documents propounded by the plaintiff.

PAINLESS DEATH FOR KITTENS. Aberdeen People's Journal, 3rd October 1908
How to destroy kittens or puppies in a painless if somewhat expensive way, without calling into use the old-fashioned method of a bag and a pail of water, is told in the annual report just published of the London Institute for Lost and Starving Cats. The directions are as follows: Take a dish cover, place it where it can be pressed into the mould of the garden, or, in default of this, on an old cushion, so that the latter bulges out all round and makes the cover airtight. Place the animals beneath, and pour four ounces of pure chloroform on wadding. Push the wadding under the cover, hold the cover down for three or four minutes, and then leave undisturbed for an hour. The body must he stiff before burial.

CAT KILLING AND CASH COLLECTING. Truth, 21st October 1908
During the last few weeks street collections have been carried out on an extensive scale in the West End of London in aid of the London Institution for "Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town. The business has been conducted in the most effective way, girls being stationed at tables in the principal thoroughfares, in company with a captivating pussy, to arrest the attention of every passer-by. A good deal of money must have been collected in this way. The collection is, of course, authorised by the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, and, with all respect to that gentleman, I should uncommonly like to know on what principle so valuable a privilege is conceded to a charity of this character. Doubtless Sir Edward Henry has satisfied himself that the concern is deserving of public support, but I cannot help thinking that the inquiries by which he has arrived at that conclusion must have lacked thoroughness. In the years 1903 and 1904 the history and management of the institution were very fully discussed in TRUTH. It was, I think, fully demonstrated then to any one capable of understanding figures that the concern was entirely undeserving of public support; and after studying the last report I see no reason to suppose that its character has materially changed since that date.

The institution was started some years ago by a Mrs. Morgan. She was from the first, and still is, the sole owner of the premises, consisting of several houses in Ferdinand-street, subject to mortgages, on which a considerable amount of money subscribed by the public has been spent. Mrs. Morgan was also from the first, and still is, the sole responsible manager. She has no treasurer, except herself; she receives and administers all the money contributed by the public. In the early days she formed a committee of ladies to assist in the management, but quarrelled with and dismissed them. Since the irregularity of her position and proceedings was pointed out in TRUTH she has appointed some more ladies as a committee, and prints their names in her report. She says that they meet once a month, but who they are and what they do she alone knows. Whatever their functions may be, they are only such as she chooses to assign to them. The, true state of the case is sufficiently indicated by the report, which does not even pretend to be issued by the committee, but is written in the first person singular and signed by Mrs. Morgan. This lady appears to have had a somewhat varied experience of life. When she started the cats' home she took the name of Miss Williams. She subsequently altered it to Mrs. Williams. Later on she revealed herself as Mrs. Morgan, but she has no more legal right to that name than the others. When the character of the charity first came under notice in TRUTH she was living in a comfortable style in a good house near Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park, to which she had removed from much more modest quarters after the cats' home became a flourishing concern. She posed at this time as a lady of means, living apart from her husband, conducting the cats' home as a hobby, and contributing to it substantially out of her private resources - a theory apparently borne out by the accounts, which purported to show considerable sums advanced by her to the institution. My inquiries showed that the character she assumed and the entries in the accounts were more or less fictitious. Since the TRUTH articles appeared she has retired from Gloucester Gate to the Cats' Home, and I understand that she rents her quarters there from the institution. Mrs. Morgan's accounts were carefully analysed in two articles which appeared in TRUTH in August and September, 1903. Mrs. Morgan had previously allowed me to inspect her books, and had placed her bank pass-book at my disposal. The accounts dealt with related to the years 1900 and 1901. The latter account had not even been published by August, 1903, and the accounts for 1902 had not then been made up. The accounts for 1901 had been prepared by a gentleman employed by Mrs. Morgan who was not a member of any recognised society of accountants. It was evident and incontrovertible that the accounts were quite worthless. Mrs. Morgan's private affairs and those of the institution were jumbled up inextricably. This applied to two banking accounts which she had at one time kept at the Birkbeck Bank, and which the Bank had compelled her to close, as well as to the account which she had subsequently opened with another bank, and on which she drew indiscriminately for her own private purposes and those of the institution. There was no evidence of any advances by her to the institution, and I had no hesitation in concluding that the alleged sums owing to her were fictitious. On the assumption that the institution alone benefited by the receipts, the management must have been extravagant to a degree almost incredible; but, at any rate, as the accounts stood, the cost of every cat that entered the place was 4s. 8d. As all but a few of the animals are destroyed as soon as possible after they enter, this made the whole concern a ridiculous farce. Even if every cat had nine lives and each life had to be taken separately, such a price for killing the animal would be extravagant. In the year 1901 Mrs. Morgan had, even by her own admission, received £2,885 from the public for her business as a cat-killer.

It is unnecessary to enlarge further upon these accounts; because in the following year the justice of the criticism was demonstrated conclusively. Mrs. Morgan was moved by the TRUTH exposure to put the preparation of her accounts for 1903 into the hands of a firm of chartered accountants - Messrs. Blakemore and Co., of Old Jewry, who still act for her. Messrs. Blakemore and Co. reported that owing to the condition in which they found the books, they had been compelled to have them re-written for the whole year from original documents obtained from the tradespeople, the counterfoil receipt books, and such other information as they could obtain. The accounts prepared by the firm from the books thus constructed exhibited the most extraordinary discrepancies as compared with those of previous years. The expenditure, which had been above £3,700 in 1901, was found to have been only £1,484 in 1903, although there had been no material change in the management or work of the institution. The average cost of killing a cat, which was 4s. 8d. when Mrs. Morgan's book-keeper prepared her accounts for publication, now came out at only 2s. 3d. Whereas the 1901 accounts showed a deficit of nearly £900 after receipts to the amount of £2,885 had been expended, Messrs. Blakemore showed that in 1903 income exceeded expenses by some £85, although the income for the year was only £1,535. Even more remarkable was the altered aspect of the balance-sheet. Mrs. Morgan's private auditor had shown at the end of 1901 an appalling debt upon the institution of £2,443; Messrs. Blakemore and Co. found that at the end of 1903 the assets exceeded the liabilities by £412! All this made it sufficiently clear that the financial statements previously issued were utterly fictitious, and that Mrs. Morgan had been receiving thousands of pounds per annum which had not been properly accounted for, and the expenditure of which upon the business of killing cats in a lethal chamber was absolutely incredible.

When a charitable institution supported by public subscriptions has once been subjected to an exposure of this kind, it can have no claim to public confidence until its constitution and management have been entirely reformed, and the receipt and expenditure of money placed in different hands. As I have already said, nothing of the sort has been attempted in connection with Mrs. Morgan's institution, the lady still remaining in uncontrolled charge of the funds, and still being the legal owner of its property. After what has happened in the past there can be no security to the public for the proper administration of their money as long as this state of things continues. For this reason, I do not think it necessary to spend any time trouble in investigating and discussing in detail the present position and doings of Mrs. Morgan. But there are one or two observations which at once suggest themselves on looking at the last report.

The most important point is that the expenditure still bears a most extravagant relation to the work done. This work still consists almost exclusively of collecting or receiving and killing cats. A few cats are taken in as "boarders," but very few. The charge for boarders is 2s. 6d. a week if they are of British and 3s. 6d. if of Persian origin. The amount received for boarders in 1907 was £87 5s. 8d., or about 33s. per week, which would account for an average weekly household of about thirteen animals - twelve Britons and one Persian would cost 33s. 6d. per week. The number of boarders received per annum is therefore insignificant by comparison with the total 15,316 alleged to have been dealt with. More than 15,000 must have been killed if 15,316 were really admitted. Yet the year's operations cost £2,264. Comparing these figures with those given above, it will be seen that the expenditure has jumped up again surprisingly. In 1903 14,002 cats were disposed of for £1,484; in 1907 15,316 for £2,264. To kill a cat in 1903 cost Mrs. Morgan about 2s. 3d.; in 1907 it cost nearly 2s. 11-and-a-half d. On p. 7 of the report we have the instructive statement that if an owner has the curious taste to desire to see her pussy destroyed in a separate box all to itself, a special fee of 2s. 6d. is required, "as the cost of destroying one cat separately is as much as twenty in the chamber." This implies that the actual cost of killing is 2s. 6d. for twenty, or 11d. each - about what one might expect. If, then, Mrs. Morgan's expenditure works out at 2s. 11d. on every cat, it costs 2s. 10d. to take the animal to Ferdinand street and keep it till it is killed - probably only a few hours, for there is no accommodation for a large number of cats on the premises, and no object in keeping them. This calculation is incidentally confirmed by an item in the accounts of £55 7s. for " chloroform and carbonic acid gas." This would allow less than one pennyworth of the mixture for each pussy. The process of destruction is obviously quite inexpensive. Nor is there, so far as the accounts show, any outlay in the nature of funeral expenses. Presumably dead cats in bulk have some commercial value, and the inference from the accounts is that somebody is willing to relieve Mrs. Morgan of the carcases free of charge for the sake of what they will fetch - in some market unknown.

How, then, is the expenditure of £2,264 accounted for? There is £137 for interest on the mortgages, practically rent, and another £91 for rent pure and simple, but against these items has to be set off £137 in the shape of "rents received." The premises, therefore, really cost a little over 30s. a week. But look at the following items:-
Wages and salaries - £724 13s 3d
Meat - £74 2s 2d
Fish - £25 4s 1d
Milk - £37 12s 9d
Horse hire and van repairs - £107 16s 0d
Cleaning - £20 7s 11d
Postages (including postage of reports) - £110 1s 8d
Printing and Stationery, General - £62 6s 4d
Printing and Stationery, Reports - £72 1s 0d
Legal Expenses - £98 17s 0d
General Expenses - £25 11s 11d
Miscellaneous Expenses - £17 8s 9d
Uniforms - £16 5s 1d

What is the meaning of an expenditure of £136 on provisions? The "boarders" are presumably taken at a profit, and £87 was paid for them. Is another £50 spent on feeding cats prior to popping them in the lethal box, or do the items for meat, fish, and milk include the meals of the staff? Out of the £724 odd for wages and salaries Mrs. Morgan herself draws £200 as manageress; this I have from Messrs. Blakemore, to whom I referred for enlightenment. Her assistants, therefore, receive £524, or over £10 a week, besides £16 5s. for their uniforms. One understands that she must have a book-keeper, a man to drive the van, and one or two assistants to look after the animals while alive and work the destructor. But £10 a week is a very large allowance for such a staff, especially when it appears that a further £20 a year has to be paid to somebody for "cleaning." The expenditure of £134 on printing and stationery and another £110 on postage speaks for itself. But what is the meaning of £98 for legal expenses? Such an item calls for explanation, but not a word of information on the subject is vouchsafed to the subscribers in the report. Finally, observe the mysterious system of classification which lumps in £25 for "general expenses" after no less than twenty-eight specific headings have been filled in, and after that finds another £17 odd to be entered as "miscellaneous expenses." Yet when everything that could be thought of in the way of expenditure, specific, general, and miscellaneous, has been put down, the year's income still exceeds the expenditure by £226. Before leaving the account, I may mention that Mrs. Morgan appears in the list of subscribers as a contributor of the handsome sum of £250 - £50 more than what she drew as salary. It seems a strange operation to put in £250 with one hand and take out £200 with the other; and it seems to me that the state of the case would have been more fairly represented to the subscribers had the lady either put down the manageress as receiving £200, or put down Mrs. Morgan's subscription as £50. In view of all that I learned a few years ago respecting her history, I confess to some surprise at learning that she is now in a position to give away even the smaller sum.

It is difficult to feel much sympathy with the people who waste their money on a ridiculous caricature of a charity like this. It seems a mawkish and misplaced sentiment that can raise £2,264 a year for the purpose of killing superfluous cats, while all around us are men, women, and children suffering the worst extremity of poverty and want; and if the money subscribed for that purpose is to a great extent wasted or misapplied, I cannot feel very indignant. But I should always do my best to prevent any one subscribing to Mrs. Morgan's institution, and it seems to me that if the Metropolitan Police were asked for their advice on the subject they ought to do the same. It certainly cannot be right that a charity conducted in such a manner should come to the public for money with any sort of official recommendation or countenance. That is what has happened lately, and it ought not to happen again. Nor can I conclude these remarks without saying that a very serious responsibility rests upon the numerous duchesses and countesses, and other titled ladies, as well as the two earls and the bishop, whose names are advertised as patrons of the institution. What form does their patronage take? Not apparently that of subscribing. Possibly Mrs. Morgan has had the honour of introducing their pussy-cats to another and better world. Be the "patronage" what it may, it implies that these ladies and gentlemen approve of the constitution and management of the home, and allow Mrs. Morgan to use their names in that sense as an inducement to the public to subscribe. That being so, it may be doubted whether so many distinguished ladies were ever before exhibited to the public in a position so little to their credit. Their position seems the more equivocal, seeing that five years ago the list of patronesses was headed by the name of her Majesty the Queen, which was withdrawn immediately after the TRUTH articles on this "Royal" Institution, as it was then called. Are we to infer that the patronesses who remain consider that her Majesty was wrong in withdrawing? If not, how can they be right in remaining?

VOLUNTEER CAT DESTRUCTORS. Truth, 25th November 1908
In a recent article in TRUTH some criticism was directed to the finances of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand-street, Camden Town, which is run by a lady calling herself Mrs. Morgan. The article, which merely reiterated similar criticism directed against the same institution some four years ago, dealt chiefly with the extravagant expenditure incurred at this establishment in the process of killing stray cats. The conclusions which I drew from the published accounts have since been confirmed in the most forcible way by an interview which I have had with Miss Kate Cording, who runs an institution of the same class in Trinity-street, Islington, in connection with an organisation called the Feline Defence League. Miss Cording entered this section of the humanitarian field some years later than Mrs. Morgan. She began in a small way, prompted by the affection which so many ladies entertain for the feline race, doing the rescue work herself at first, with the assistance only of any financial help she could get from personal friends. But, like Mrs. Morgan and others, she has found the calls upon her energies and resources increasing from year to year and has obtained for the last few years considerable support from the public, chiefly by means of collecting boxes. She now has a cottage at Islington, and three women assistants, and during the last year she received there and disposed of, chiefly by means of chloroform, no less than 10,458 cats and 320 dogs. Her work, therefore, affords a fair basis of comparison with that of Mrs. Morgan, and I will now show how the two stand from a financial point of view.

Mrs. Morgan obtained from the public in subscriptions and expended during 1907 about £2,464. According to her reports she received during the same year 15,316 cats, the bulk of which were destroyed - a few only being kept on the premises, either as boarders or as pets, or for advertising purposes. The expenditure per cat consequently works out at close upon 2s. 11-and-a-half d. On the face of it this is a monstrous expenditure on killing a cat, as I have already pointed out. On the other hand, Miss Cording received in subscriptions during the same year £418 3s. and ha'penny, and she expended £21 18s. 3d. more than this amount, bringing the total expenditure to £440 1s. As already stated, the number of animals - practically all cats - which she dealt with during the same period was 10,778. Miss Cording, therefore, did more than two-thirds of the work that Mrs. Morgan did at less than one-fifth of the cost. Had she received the same number of cats as Mrs. Morgan, she would have disposed of them, on the above basis of expenditure, for about £620, against the £2,264 which Mrs. Morgan spent. The killing of a cat, which costs 2s. 11-and-a-half d. in the hands of Mrs. Morgan, is performed for 9d and one farthing by Miss Cording. And in future Miss Cording is likely to be able to do it somewhat cheaper. Her accounts include an item of £19 12s. for the removal of dead cats and dogs. She has discovered, however, that so far from it being necessary to pay for the removal of the corpses, there are merchants who are willing to pay for the privilege of removing them, and she now has a contract with a firm for this purpose. If this item of £19 12s. is deducted from the expenses, Miss Cording's expenditure per cat is reduced to a fraction under 9d. No similar deduction, however, has to be made in the case of Mrs. Morgan's establishment. That lady had discovered at an earlier date that defunct cats possess a commercial value, as was suggested in my last article; and I learn from her auditor that the receipts from this source are duly entered in the accounts, although they do not appear under their precise name. It would seem that both these good ladies for some years innocently paid an enterprising firm in the East End - l cannot, say what their precise line of business is, but the name suggests something German - to relieve them of the dead cats; and a very good thing the firm must have made out of it - l mean, of course, financially. They may have made other good things besides money, but that is not a matter for me to pry into. In course of time, however, a firm of chemical manure manufacturers at Rotherhithe seem to have got scent of the other firm's good thing, and made an offer to Mrs. Morgan, the result of which is that she now gets 1d. per adult cat - kittens thrown in [i.e. kittens free]. The news of Mrs. Morgan's good fortune spread to Islington. Miss Cording in her turn discovered that something can be made out of dead cats, and now she has a contract for removals on the same terms as her rival.

The object of my last article on this subject was to call the attention of the Metropolitan Police to the financial side of Mrs. Morgan's institution, in view of the fact that she has been permitted of late to collect money systematically in the streets of London. If on that occasion I did not convince the Commissioner of Police that the Camden Town cat destructor is not the sort of charity that should be allowed this valuable privilege, I hope that what I have now said will have the effect of convincing him. Miss Cording, it appears, has for years been allowed by the police to occupy a collecting station in Trafalgar Square. There is no reason why she should not continue to do so. But there seems to me every reason why this privilege should be withheld from Mrs. Morgan until the management of her institution is put on a satisfactory basis, and until it can be shown that the work which it does bears some more reasonable proportion to the large sum of money that was already contributed by the public before the street collections were started.

One is tempted to laugh at, these pussy-cat charities, of which there are a great many in existence; but the state of things which they disclose is deserving of serious public attention, and I have been much impressed by what I have heard from Miss Kate Cording. I asked this good lady a few questions with a view to discovering how upwards of 10,000 cats can be collected in London in the course of a year - about thirty a day all the year round, Sundays included. A considerable number of them are brought to the home for destruction by their owners, but more often by people who have found them at large and taken pity on their deplorable condition. But over and above this, Miss Cording, with her assistants, spends a large part of her days and nights in searching for ownerless and starving cats about the streets, and chiefly in the poorer districts, where they most abound. Some of her statements as to the number of such animals were really horrifying. She told me in particular that there are numberless back streets in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel and similar districts where the cellars or basements of the houses are empty and are largely occupied by stray cats. I suppose the fact is that our stricter sanitary regulations which now forbid the occupation of such places by human beings account for their vacant condition. The human waifs and strays have been cleared out, and the feline have taken their place. Miss Cording told me that she has seen basements swarming with cats. They are also to be found in the vaults under churches, and, of course, in the churchyards and any other places which offer them a refuge. One fact which came out incidentally in the course of conversation and seems to call for the fullest publicity, is that many of the deserted basements above referred to are used as receptacles for the refuse of the tenements above. Apparently shoots [chutes] are constructed for this purpose, for Miss Cording mentioned that on one occasion one of her assistants, while catching a cat in a basement, was overwhelmed by an unexpected discharge of filth from one of the upper floors. From the sanitary point of view this state of things seems only one degree better than the occupation of cellars by human beings. It seems to call for the attention of the local authorities, and should this meet the vigilant eye of the President of the Local Government Board, I hope he will direct their attention to it.

It will at once occur to every reader, as it did to me when I heard Miss Cording's statements, that, apart from all humanitarian considerations, these hordes of ownerless cats must be in themselves a danger to health. Not only are most of them starving, and many of them more or less grievously injured, but large numbers are suffering from diseases of one kind or another. Some of these diseases are infectious to human beings. Among such Miss Cording mentioned particularly diphtheria as very prevalent, and she has to take special precautions in consequence [it was wrongly believed that cats transmitted it to humans]. I do not know whether cats are susceptible to phthisis, but if they are, the conditions are highly calculated to breed and disseminate that disease. It is evident that we have here a real danger to the public in poor neighbourhoods, and especially to children. Its magnitude is sufficiently indicated by the figures already given as to the number of cats received annually in two establishments only. Mrs. Morgan and Miss Cording between them account for 26,000 stray cats per annum. There is another busy establishment at Hammersmith, two are run in London by Our Dumb Friends' League, 1263 and possibly there may be others. Yet judging by the, statements of both Mrs. Morgan and Miss Cording the number of stray animals at large far exceeds the existing means of getting rid of them. When Mrs. Morgan's institution was dealt with in TRUTH a few years ago, I suggested that the work of collecting and destroying stray cats is really one that ought to be undertaken by public authority. In view of the above statements it seems necessary to repeat that suggestion with the strongest emphasis. The matter is one that calls for the attention of the London County Council. The present Council appears to be concerned before all other things with avoiding expenditure; but the figures given above sufficiently show that the expenditure necessary for clearing London of its unwanted cats is quite insignificant. It is by no means impossible that the waste products of the lethal chamber may have a higher commercial value than Mrs. Morgan and Miss Cording have yet discovered, in which case the cost of the operation will be still further reduced; but anyhow it is pretty evident that if the work were systematically organised on a large scale by public authority, £2,000 or £3,000 a year would suffice to pay for it. Another remedy that has been suggested is to put a tax upon cats; but this is for various reasons almost out of the question, and even if it could be done, it is more likely to increase than to diminish the number of ownerless animals at large in London and other great towns. There will always, no doubt, be room for the benevolent labours of ladies whose hearts are moved by the bitter cry of the outcast tabby; but essentially the work of dealing with the superfluous cat population is a matter of public necessity rather than private sentiment, and it should be undertaken by public authority accordingly.

[FALSE USE OF PATRON'S NAMES] Truth, 9th December 1908
In view of all that has been recently said regarding the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, a very considerable responsibility rests upon the distinguished ladies and gentlemen whose names are advertised as patrons of the concern, and I cannot help wondering whether all of them are aware of the use that is being made of their names. I therefore append a few taken from the most recent list. It appears on a leaflet which was distributed by one of Mrs. Morgan's collectors a few days ago in Kensington High Street:

President : The Right Hon. the Earl of Haddington.
Under the Patronage of : H.H. Princess Alexis Dolgorouki. H.S.H. Princess Lowenstein-Wertheim. Her Grace the Duchess of Westminster. Her Grace Evelyn Duchess of Wellington. Her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland. Her Grace May Duchess of Sutherland. The Dowager Countess of Lindsey. The Countess of Dudley. The Countess of Warwick. The Countess of Roden. The Countess of Plymouth. The Countess of Alresford. The Countess of Annesley. The Countess of Kilmorey. The Countess of Westmorland. Alice Countess of Strafford. The Earl of Mexborough. The Countess of Mexborough. Viscountess Esher. Lord Hatherton. The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Durham. Lady Battersea. Lord Braye. Lady Algernon Lennox. The Lady Audrey Buller. Etc., etc.

Considering that her Majesty the Queen withdrew her name as a patroness of the institution five years ago, after the first analysis of Mrs. Morgan's finances in TRUTH, it would be interesting to know on what ground all these other ladies and gentlemen consider that the circumstances do not require them to follow her Majesty's example. By the way, although the Queen's name has been removed, Mrs. Morgan still retains on her appeals the imperial crown, which was there when she was able to speak of her cat destructor a's a "Royal" institution.

I feel obliged to remark once again that the Metropolitan Police are neglecting their duty in allowing Mrs. Morgan's collectors to continue their work in the streets of London. Many hundreds of pounds must have been collected from the public in this way during the last two months, and this on the plea that "funds are urgently needed," though the lady's accounts for last year show an income of £226 in excess of the year's expenditure, after money had been thrown away with the most reckless prodigality. The leaflet above referred to is on the face of it misleading. One paragraph states that funds are urgently needed "on account of the terrible increase of cats received"; immediately after which are given figures showing that the number of cats received in 1901 and 1902 was far in excess of the number in any subsequent year. The institution is described as a "home for lost and starving cats," the word "home" being doubly underlined; yet the fact is that practically every cat taken into it is at once destroyed. Finally, it must be within the knowledge of the police that Miss Cording, at her cottage in Islington, disposed last year of some 10,000 cats at a cost of about £400, while Mrs. Morgan professes to have spent nearly £2,000 more than this in getting rid of 15,000 animals.

[CASH COLLECTIONS] John Bull, 26th December 1908
Miss Kate Cording, of the Feline Defence League, is much concerned as to whether we are sound on the question of cats. She writes to say she has "heard from a stranger that we intended to bring out an article against the collections for cats now being made extensively in our streets." Let us relieve the lady's mind. Not knowing what articles we are going to bring out, or keep in, that stranger is naturally misinformed. Miss Cording is hereby assured that our intentions are strictly honourable, and that we have as little idea of "condemning," to use Miss Cording's own words, those who collect lost cats, or for lost cats, as we have of speaking disrespectfully of the equator. That there are too many cats in this world, that thousands of them are neglected, starved, and brutally ill-treated, is not to be doubted; and if it be any comfort or assistance to Miss Cording, we are willing to state here and now that the Feline Defence League, of Islington, is the one and only genuine humanitarian cattery in London; that the public should not be deceived by unblushing imitations; that Miss Cording is the original patentee of the idea of making public collections for funds to remove stray and starving cats to a happier land than this; and that the public, deceived sorely by a rival organisation, run for private profit, should stand by the old firm though the heavens fall. Now this is really very handsome of us, and we trust that Miss Cording will feel duly thankful.

There is, however, another matter raised by Miss Kate Cording's letter, peculiarly apropos at Christmas time. "I collect in 'Trafalgar Square," she says, "for the Vegetarian Association's Children's dinner, but where the public gives a penny to the children it gives a shilling to the cats. I stood for two hours to-day there, and I only got fourpence. They won't give to starving children, and that is the long and the short of it." That is a sweeping generalisation with which we by no means agree, though the recent aristocratic ball held in Dublin in aid of the local cat rescue league seems to lend weight to it. We do not believe that the public would rather give to a starving cat than to a starving child. Undoubtedly they are dead tired of the complex varieties of collecting-boxes which are pushed under their noses every day at every street corner. They know that, as often as not, the owners of those boxes are merely exploiting the children for the advantage of their own pockets, and that much of the money subscribed will never reach those for whom it is professedly collected.

[CASH COLLECTIONS] Truth, 5th May 1909
I am glad to hear that the Commissioner of Police has withdrawn the licence granted to Mrs. Morgan to collect money in the streets of London on behalf of her Institution for Lost and Starving Cats. The collectors have consequently disappeared from Trafalgar-square, where they have been stationed for some time past, and I suppose they will be seen no more about the streets. I hear, however, that the police have taken the same steps in regard to Miss Kate Cording, who also carries on a mission to cats at Islington. It may be remembered .hat Miss Cording's work stands on a very different footing from Mrs. Morgan's, and in a recent article I was able to show by reference to the amount of work which Miss Cording does on a very small income, the extent of the money which Mrs. Morgan must either waste or expend in a manner not contemplated by the donors. It is rather hard on Miss Cording, who was allowed to collect in Trafalgar-square long before Mrs. Morgan appeared on the scene, that she should suffer, and the cats with her, for the sins of the other lady; and I wish I could persuade the Commissioner of Police to extend her a little indulgence.

[CASH COLLECTIONS] Truth, 11th August 1909
This revelation about the attitude of the police particularly interests me, for it explains a point which I have been quite unable to understand in regard to the street collections on behalf of the cats' homes - especially Mrs. Morgan's. Some of my readers may recollect that a few months ago this woman Morgan had collectors posted all about the West End. In view of all that I know, and that the Commissioner of Police could equally well know, about the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, I repeatedly expressed astonishment that these collections should be permitted by the police. But, of course, if no steps are taken by the Commissioner to ascertain the bona fides of the parties to whom he grants permits, there was nothing whatever to be surprised at. Eventually, Mrs. Morgan's permit was withdrawn by Scotland Yard, but this step itself now becomes inexplicable, if the police do not concern themselves about the genuineness of the charity. Another inexplicable thing was that when the Commissioner withdrew Mrs. Morgan's permit, he also withdrew the permit which had been held for years by Miss Kate Cording, who runs a really excellent cats' home at Islington. It would seem from this that the police act on no principle at all.

LONDON KIND TO HOMELESS CATS The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 1910
Its Institution for Lost or Starving Felines Is Very Well Patronized. Sends Out Van to Gather in Derelicts Which Are Put to Painless Deaths
LONDON, May 7. — To save the stray cats of London from miserable deaths, from starvation or ill-usage in the streets, or from the worse end of the vivisector's knife, is the object of the London Institution for Lost or Starving Cats. Night and day, week day or Sunday, the doors of the home are ready to open to the cat for which the word "home" has no meaning — the cat which nobody wants. There, for once in its life, at any rate, a cat will find a kindly hand, good food, a warm bed, and, at the last, a painless release from its troubles.

The tale of London's stray cats, as revealed in the records of the institution, makes pathetic reading. Since the home was founded in 1896, nearly one hundred and seventy thousand cats have been cared for. Of these unfortunates some few have been saved, to become the pets of the institution. For the rest, nothing could be done, but to give them as painless a death as science can devise.

Often enough one may see in the streets a gaily painted van bearing on its side a picture typical of the friendless cats, collected from all parts of London, which it contains. The institution is well known; every day and at almost every hour of the day, news of starving and ownerless cats comes to the home by letter, telephone or word of mouth. Every morning the van goes out laden with specially constructed cat boxes, to return at night carrying twenty or thirty miserable animals. These numbers represent the average number of cats taken in every day.

Once in the chamber, there need be no fear of a cat undergoing any suffering in its death. Chloroform sends it into its last seep, and then carbonic acid gas is used to make matters doubly sure. Happier cats than those that are kept it would be difficult to find. They live in bright sunny rooms, their meals come with the regularity of a clock, and no pet of a palace could be better looked after. Many of the pet cats have quite romantic histories; two have lost their tails in some way not explained; another tailless cat is treasured because he is a Manx, and never had a tail to lose; and a great gray fellow, the official collecting cat, has collected great sums for the home.

Another animal befriending institution, which does no small amount of good, is the Animals' Hospital, in Pimlico, supported by Our Dumb Friends League. This hospital is for the animals of poor people and it proves a great boon to those who, like the coster[monger] with his donkey, depend to a great extent on an animal to earn a living. Horses and donkeys form a great proportion of the patients, but dogs and cats and birds also are found in the wards.

[ANNUAL REPORT] Truth, 19th October 1910
A correspondent sends me the last annual report of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, in the hope that its perusal will lead me to modify my opinion of Mrs. Morgan's enterprise. Unfortunately, it has had precisely the opposite effect. Details are given of the work of the society over a number of years. From this table I learn that in 1901 15,738 cats were received and £3,178 was expended. In other words, in 1901 it cost Mrs. Morgan 4s. to kill each cat. In 1909 £1,892 was the expenditure incurred in passing 15,944 through the lethal chamber, roughly 2s. 6d. a head. This shows a considerable saving, it is true, but it is still a most uneconomical method of killing cats. Besides, such an enormous variation in the cost of killing cats in 1901 and 1909 is not productive of confidence in the management of the institution; on the contrary, it suggests that Mrs. Morgan is prepared to dispose of cats and cash in any quantity that they reach her. In addition, it is evident from the report that the institution is still practically under the sole control of Mrs. Morgan, whom, for reasons which have been fully set forth in TRUTH, I do not consider to be quite the sort of person to be entrusted with the administration of charitable funds.

[THE CAUTIONARY LIST] Truth, 13th September 1911
A lady correspondent who has for the past six years been picking up cats in the streets and conveying them to Mrs. Morgan's lethal chamber in Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, sends me a lengthy and impassioned appeal to remove the name of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats from TRUTH Cautionary List. "I have sent and taken destitute cats to this place for some years, always paying for the executions," she writes, "and my only objection is that I have not been credited with the exact sums (above 2s. 6d.) paid to Mrs. Morgan." But as this question of financial irregularity is one of the chief reasons why Mrs. Morgan's establishment's name is to be found in the Cautionary List, Mrs. Morgan is hardly well served by her advocate.

[ILLUSTRATED PUFF] Truth, 25th October 1911
A copiously illustrated puff of Mrs. Morgan's "Institution for Lost and Starving Cats", appears in the current issue of the Woman at Home. I presume the editor of this publication is of opinion that he was doing a good turn to a deserving institution, at the same time affording his readers some specially interesting copy, when he allowed it to appear. It is, however, a pity that editors of journals that specially appeal to women do not trouble to make some sort of inquiry before giving their support to any institution whose objects appear to be worthy of support. An inquiry in any well-informed quarter would have prevented in this instance Mrs. Morgan getting a valuable advertisement. Even a glance at TRUTH Cautionary List should have been sufficient.

[ INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE ] Truth, 20th March 1912
A lady sends me an interesting correspondence which she has had with Mrs. Morgan, of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, respecting the charges made by the institution for its services. My correspondent afro takes an interest in strays and having collected a number she asked Mrs. Morgan to send a lethal box to destroy three of them, and to take four of them as boarders at the Ferdinand Street establishment. For the execution she offered to pay 10s. plus the railway fare of the executioner, and for the boarders 8s. a week, 2s. per head per week being the amount stated to be charged for boarders in the Institution's annual report. Mrs. Morgan replied that the charge for destroying cats would be 12s. 6d., and that she would board four cats for 12s. a week, a reduction of 4s. on the usual charge, which had been raised to 4s. a head for some considerable time. At these rates the Institution ought to be a highly profitable concern. The ordinary veterinary surgeon's charge for boarding a cat is only 3s. 6d. a week, and there ought to be a handsome profit upon three executions at 12s. 6d. Indeed, there seems no necessity why, if Mrs. Morgan can obtain such fees, she need appeal for charitable contributions at all.

[FURTHER BEGGIN] Truth, 28th August 1912
That redoubtable cat-killer Mrs. Morgan, of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats (No. 27, TRUTH Cautionary List), managed to get an appeal into the Evening News last week for funds for " "the poor little beggar cats of London, the poor outcasts of the gutter." Amongst the usual distressing pictures of cats, wild, gaunt, starving, hunted from door to door, and rescued from street accidents by the Institution's ambulance, one fact of interest appears. This is that boarders are no longer taken in by the Institution. Thus the last pretence that it is fulfilling any other function than that of executioner of unwanted cats disappears. Under these circumstances, there can be no particular need for any additional funds. Mrs. Morgan will now be able to get rid of the greater part of the property, cut down her establishment charges, and find the "ten guineas required to pay for the balance-sheet" without any difficulty.

CAT SKINS BEING USED.The Boston Post, 1st December, 1912)
High Price of Fur Causes a Demand for the Domestic Tabby. According to the Daily Mirror, with the steady rise in the cost of furs the demand for cat skins is increasing, and the manufacturer of imitation furs is casting a hunter's eye on the despised denizens of the back yard. Every year thousands of cats are reared abroad for their skins, while at home cat stealing is on the increase, for some cat skins are worth $2.50 each.

"The fur is often used to line motor coats," said a London furrier yesterday, "and I believe in a few cases the skins of white cats are used in making ‘ermine.'"

"About six persons a day inquire of us whether we have found their cats," said a member of the London Institution for Starving Cats, "and we have also had applications from people offering money for cat skins."

A Cannon Street furrier said that thousands of cat skins were imported by England every year from China and Holland, where cats are roared solely for their skins. He added, "There are some furriers who buy skins of the English domestic cat, but big firms do not deal in small quantities of skins. The skin of the English domestic cat is perhaps supplied to small firms. A good quality of fur from a white cat would sell for 50 cents, but the fur from a Dutch black cat sometimes realises $2.50.

"Every year sales of cat skins are held," said another furrier, "and sometimes as many as 7000 skins are sold."

Stray cats to the number of 14,223 were received at the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats during the past year. (Nottingham Evening Post, 11th January 1913)

CAT FAMINE STRIKES ENGLAND'S CAPITAL. The Indianapolis Star, 14th September, 1913
Lack of House Pets Due to Prevalence of Professional Thieves.
London. Sept. 13. There I a cat famine in London. Dealers in these domestic pets are unable to meet the demand. "With an increasing demand, the supply has been steadily diminishing during the last year," said a leading London cat dealer. "Twelve months ago stock of cats and any given time was twenty; it gradually dropped to ten, and today we have not a single cat in the place, while we have orders on our books which we are unable to fill. Why is it? The professional cat thief – it has recently become a profession among a certain type of men – could tell you better than any man in London.

"Cat catching has become a new art, and a very profitable one, too. There is a growing demand for furs in this country and there you have the secret of the approaching scarcity of cats. These men go about, chiefly at night, and sometimes with bicycle and basket. They usually know where good specimens of cats are to be found, and these they entice with meats and different foods. It is a tame and comparatively safe pursuit.

"Once caught, pussy is doomed. Its owner, after fruitless enquiries, may sometimes all unconsciously meet the late lamented pet's fur as lining of her motor coat of see it round the neck of a poorer class woman."

Mrs. Z.C. Morgan, manageress and foundress of the London Institution for lost and starving cats, said an enormous number of cats were being stolen at the present time for the sake of their fur. "We are receiving five or six times as many inquiries this year for lost cats as compared with previous years," she said. "For the last seven months of this year the inquiries for lost cats number 150, as compared with an average of twenty-five annually in recent years. It is very seldom that we have been able to find the lost cat, and there can be no doubt that the reason it is never seen again is that it has been stolen. Judging by the inquiries we receive, the proportion of the various kinds of pets stolen or lost is in the following order:

"Black cats, 60 per cent; white cats, 20 per cent; tabby, 15 per cent; other kinds, 5 percent. The black cat is undoubtedly the favourite with the cat thief; its skin is more valuable because it needs no dyeing process."

Another authority said: "Fewer people are keeping really good cats now, simply because of the difficulty of avoiding the cat thief. People won't pay high prices for good cats because of the fear of the present danger of their being stolen."

A striking commentary on the present decreasing number of cats is afforded by the figures given by a leading dealer in cat skins. At the biggest London sale of cat skins the comparative figures for this year and last year were:

Sins sold in 1912, 25,911; in 1913, 32,234. These of course represent only the house cat, or the domestic pet, and not the civet cat or wildcat. The prices for cat skins vary from 8 cents to $1 each.

CATS AND SOME OF THEIR FRIENDS IN LONDON The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 14th, 1913
$50,000 By New York Woman. Felines to Be Made Comfortable and Their Ills Treated. $400 A Year For Chloroform To Put Ailing Animals Out of Their Misery — Institution to Have Automobile Ambulance.
(Special Correspondence of The Eagle.)

London. December 6 — The announcement that Miss Caroline Ewen of New York has left by her will $50,000 to the Cats Home in London, has caused quite a flutter of excitement among cats and lawyers In the British metropolis. American lawyers are already busy preparing the legal documents that will place this magnificent legacy at the disposal of Madam Morgan, the foundress and manageress of what is grandiloquently styled "The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats." The cats, on the other hand, are seriously considering whether the good lady's benevolence is not calculated to restrict their liberty, and with feline sagacity are marking time and waiting for developments. Altogether, there is quite a noticeable change in the conduct of the ordinary London cat since the news of this remarkable legacy reached this side. He evidently realizes that a substantial bank balance at the Institution means a curtailment of his liberty and an earlier consignment to the lethal chamber unless he is able to carry about with him evidence of a distinguished pedigree. There is no secret as to the real objects of the Cats Home, but why it should be called a home is hard to understand. It might, more fittingly, be described a slaughter house. Here are its primary objects:

1. To collect and receive homeless and diseased cats, and such as their owners wish to dispose of, which shall be mercifully destroyed.
2. To provide a temporary home for a few of the best "strays," and a permanent home for a limited number for the inspection and amusement of visitors and as pets of the Institution.

Twenty-four hours is the usual time for keeping cats that do not belong to the "best stray" variety. The democratic cat, the product of the London slum, that does not care to go into genealogical details, is invariably dispatched to another world shortly after his captor places him within the gates of the institution. But the aristocratic gentleman who carries traces of a distinguished ancestry in the correct angle at which he rubs up against a visitor's legs, runs more than a sporting chance of escaping destruction. He is retained pending possible inquiries as to ownership, and if he is not claimed within a reasonable time, or a happy home found for him, he may, at the discretion of the committee of management, become one of the pampered pets of the Institution, to "amuse and entertain" visitors.

Considering that half the aristocracy of England, from marchioness down to ladies-in-waiting at the British royal palaces, are patrons of the "Home," there is no difficulty in finding a cat with good manners a comfortable habitation. Lonely spinsters and confirmed bachelors who desire something to remove the monotony of their surroundings send word to the Manageress, and in an hour or two a beautiful specimen of the Persian or some other distinguished breed is planted on their doorstep by a liveried servant from the "Home" It would be impossible, of course, to house even half the healthy cats that reach the Institution from one source and another. Two hundred to two hundred and fifty a day is regarded as a fair average, and when one realizes the propensity to increase and multiply among the feline tribe, it would, according to recent calculation, require a Texas or a Colorado ranch to accommodate the family at the end of a twelvemonth.

In the eighteen years that this charity has been in existence it claims to have received 250,000 cats, derelicts and otherwise, and, according to the yearly reports that are published, there is no reason to doubt it. The foundress admits that she invested $50 in the experiment of saving the homeless, forsaken "puss" from the brutalities of the human monster, who has no spark of feeling or sympathy for dumb animals, and that now, at the end of all this time, she is able to command a subscription list amounting to a figure approaching $10,000 a year. But this is not sufficient to meet current expenses, and so the New York legacy, when it materializes, will not only put the Home on a paying basis, but it will enable the committee of management to extend its operations. For Instance, cats, like human beings, like to conform to modern ideas. They object to be jolted along in ramshackle horse-drawn vehicles, and demand an automobile. When the late Miss Even's legacy comes along the first thing the London "Cats' Home" will invest in will be a luxurious auto in which no derelict tomcat will be ashamed to travel. By the aid of an auto cats can be collected at a more expeditious rate, and this is the idea that the cat with Bohemian views will not appreciate. There is another side to the activities of the institution which might fully entitle it to the designation of a "Home." Boarders are taken in, fed, nursed and professionally attended, to in case of illness, during the absence of the owners. They are invariably the pets of aristocratic women who "do" the Riviera, and perhaps a little Swiss mountaineering in the season. These have separate apartments and playgrounds, because it would be beneath the dignity of a cat brought up in aristocratic environment to associate with a poor thing that is living on charity.

The "Home" gives employment to some twenty-five people, but, with the exception of the van driver and the accountant, men are rigidly excluded. Madam Morgan believes, rightly or wrongly, that men do not understand dumb animals — especially cats — and so she determined some time ago to run the establishment on "petticoat" lines. The women employed in rescue work are noted for their agility. They can negotiate a ladder with the ease and expertness of a telegraph linesman, and as far as climbing a tree after some frightened puss is concerned, no monkey could be half so handy. They will follow cats singing love serenades on the top of six-story mansions when the majority of London's citizens are in dreamland, and at 6 o'clock in the morning they will return to the "Home" with the result of their night's work. In spite of the fact that every one of them is a cat lover, the majority of their captures find their way to the lethal chamber, because they are either maimed, suffering from distemper, or in a condition of starvation from which It would be impossible to save them.

In the destruction of these cats the institution spends $400 a year in chloroform alone. Apart from the "strays" and "forsaken," which are the special objects of the "Home's" attention, cats of an objectionable nature, or those suffering from diseases will be called for on request, and no charge made, unless the owners feel disposed to defray the necessary expenses. The "Home" will also receive dogs, but only on condition that they are sent at once to the lethal house, so there is a decided feeling in the mind of the management that much of the sufferings of their own favorite animal is due to the over-zealous attentions of badly conducted dogs, and so there is no effort to try to cultivate a spirit of fraternity between him and pussy, as far as this establishment is concerned.

During the last, year or two a number of enterprising men and women have tried to run "Homes" competing with the London institution for Lost and Starving Cats, but up to the present there is no indention that they are in anything like a flourishing condition. The outstanding desire of Madam Morgan is to see her "Home" receive a government charter, and have its affairs handled by the department of the public trustee.

CATS ARE IN DEMAND Natchez Democrat, 26th February, 1914
Mrs. Z. G. Morgan, manager and founder of the London Institution of Lost and Starving Cats, says that an enormous number of cats are being stolen for the sake of their fur. Black cats seem to be most in demand, 60 per cent of those stolen being of that color. Tabbies form only 16 per cent. The black cat's skin can be used without dyeing. The skins sell for less than a dollar apiece, but nevertheless the business is a paying one, something' like 33,000 skins having been sold this year. The cat thief is now recognized as such a peril that many women have ceased to keep good cats.

[URGENT APPEAL] Truth, 18th November 1914
An urgent appeal for help for the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats has been issued by Mrs. Morgan. It contains some extraordinary statements. The Home, owing to the war, is in "a dreadful state of poverty," and has no capital to fall back upon. In view of this statement, subscribers ought to be informed what has become of the property which has figured in the balance-sheets of the institution, and the release of which from mortgage has formed the basis of many of Mrs. Morgan's appeals for funds in the past. Again, the statement is made that "the Germans in great numbers have left their homes and their cats and dogs behind to starve." [Meaning the Germans living in London] "We rescue both," declares Mrs. Morgan. Where has this extraordinary flight of aliens taken place? The rest of the particulars given by Mrs. Morgan are not precisely of the kind to suggest that additional funds are required. All the inmates of the home have been destroyed to save the cost of their keep, and the staff has been reduced. The address is still given as 34, 36, 38, 40, and 42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town - five houses in which to carry on the killing of cats! Mrs. Morgan appeals for help to enable her to "hold on," as she does not want to "close a home which for nineteen years has done such great rescue work." It must surely be apparent to any reasonable being that such extensive premises are wholly unnecessary. A modest stable anywhere could easily be fitted up as a lethal chamber and do all the work which Mrs. Morgan carries on at a tithe of the cost. I do not expect Mrs. Morgan to agree with this, but I trust the subscribers will, and if as the outcome of their good sense the war makes an end of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats by cutting off supplies it will have performed one useful service.

RESCUE WORK FOR CATS. Truth, 6th January 1915
For many years I have been under the painful necessity of warning the public against the appeals issued by a Mrs. Morgan on behalf of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, located at 36, 38, 40, and 42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, London, N.W. The necessity becomes doubly urgent when the calls on the benevolent are as pressing as at the present moment. When there are innumerable charities badly in need of cash to carry on useful and necessary work, waste on frivolous, foolish, and unnecessary enterprises needs to be checked, and particularly when the promoters seek to raise funds for them by means of misleading statements wrapped up in sentimental appeals. It is the manner rather than the matter of the appeal which turns on the subscription tap, and thus it has happened that in the past eighteen years Mrs. Morgan has managed to wheedle out of kind-hearted cat-lovers between £30,000 and £40,000 for doing work which could probably have been as efficiently and adequately performed for as many hundreds of pounds as she has expended thousands.

That work is simply the killing of cats. Needless to say, if Mrs. Morgan had thus described it, the £30,000 odd would not have been forthcoming. In her appeals she describes her institution as a "home"; she calls her business "rescue work." To help out the illusion she kept until a few months ago a number of cats in cages at the Ferdinand Street premises. These have now gone the way of the majority of the feline visitors to the establishment, in order, according to an "urgent appeal" dated December, 1914, to avoid cost of keep. Yet a Christmas card appeal asks that "the little beggar cats of the home beg earnestly not to be forgotten at this time of the year, sad as it is for every one." No one would gather from the latter appeal that all the little beggar cats were to get was a meal of carbonic acid in a lethal chamber.

It is, however, by examination of the annual report and balance-sheet that the claims of the institution for support may best be judged. The "urgent appeal" already referred to declares that the poor home is in a dreadful state of poverty," that it has "no capital whatsoever to fall back upon," that "the work is heavier, the receipts almost nil." In a special notice in the report Mrs. Morgan states that for the last five months she has sent out 300 circular letters daily at a cost in stamps, printing, and labour of £2 2s. 9d., or £669 a year, and that she has ordered 10,000 reports to enable her to carry on through the year at a cost, when posted, of £166 13s. 4d. Thus this bankrupt home is in a position to expend £835 in appealing for funds. Turning to the balance-sheet, which deals with the year ending December, 1913, and makes therefore a belated appearance, the first point to be noted is that the statement about there being "no capital whatsoever to fall back upon" is untrue, since a balance is shown of assets over liabilities of £1,050. The balance sheet is audited by a firm of chartered accountants, but following it is an income and expenditure account for 1913, to which the auditor's certificate does not appear to apply. I come to this conclusion because the figures do not tally with the amount of subscriptions and donations acknowledged in the report. Pages 48 to 79 contain the subscribers' list for 1913, with details of the subscriptions. The total of them is £1,614 16s. In the income and expenditure account the total received as subscriptions and donations is put at £1,395 9s. 6d., thus leaving £220 unaccounted for. Turning to the balance-sheet, there will be seen particulars of a loan account with the manageress, and from the report it appears that Mrs. Morgan finances the institution from day to day, and is repaid in lump sums as the subscriptions accumulate. This loan account shows a balance of £247 due to Mrs. Morgan at the beginning of the year, £208 wages due to her during the year, and £264 loans made by her during the year. Against this are payments of £485, leaving the balance of loan at £250. Obviously if the subscriptions unaccounted for in the Income and Expenditure Account had been brought into account, the outstanding loan would have been reduced to £30. There is another objection to this system of financing a charity by a person who is in practically uncontrolled charge of the finances. It was made clear to me years ago in connection with the finances of a hospital in which the founder and secretary was financing the institution by means of loans. Investigation revealed the fact that the loans credited to the secretary were, in fact, donations to the hospital, which were charged against the hospital funds instead of being credited to them. I do not suggest that this is the case with the loan account which figures in the balance-sheet of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, but merely to point out the fact that such a method of financing a charity lends itself to abuse, and to make clear to Mrs. Morgan the necessity for explaining what has become of the £220 subscriptions unaccounted for in the Income and Expenditure Account. A loose system of finance is not the only revelation made by the accounts. In the year 1913 the receipts from all sources were £1,729, while in the report the number of cats received is put at 14,895. I have no means of testing the accuracy of these figures, but even if they are correct, the gross cost of killing each cat works out at 1s. 7d. The net cost is something infinitesimally smaller. During the year the expenditure on chloroform and carbonic acid was £72 2s. 6d., or an inconsiderable fraction over 1d. a head. All the rest of the money, except some £80 spent in food for the inmates of the cages, went in collection and establishment expenses, the most important items being £210 for printing, postage, and advertisements and £664 for wages. These figures point only to the conclusion that the management of the institution is thriftless to the extreme. Granted that the collection and killing of unwanted cats is a useful purpose, there is absolutely no need to support such a cumbrous and expensive machinery for the purpose. The work could be as expeditiously and humanely performed in a shed as in the Ferdinand Street "Home," where Mrs. Morgan has acquired four houses and the ground-rent of a fifth for the purpose, and keeps up a considerable establishment, whose chief energies are mainly devoted to collecting funds.

There should be in the foregoing criticisms ample reason for any one to refuse response to Mrs. Morgan's appeals. To them I have only to add that ever since the Institution has come under the notice of TRUTH there has been much to inspire distrust in its management, and the present report only adds to that distrust. To all intents and purposes the venture is Mrs. Morgan's purely private enterprise. It is true that the names of four ladies are given as forming a committee, but the freehold property of the Institution stands in Mrs. Morgan's name, and the finances are controlled by her. It is true also that the Right Hon. the Earl of Haddington figures as President, and that many titled ladies figure as patronesses, including H.H. Princess Alexis Dolgorouki, H.S.H. Princess Lowenstein- Wertheim and their Graces the Duchesses of Westminster, Wellington, and Sutherland. But this is the mere window dressing of the professional philanthropist, and I have no doubt that when the patronesses and patrons realise how little the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats is deserving of support and its manageress to confidence their patronage will be promptly withdrawn.

[FALSE USE OF PATRON'S NAMES] Truth, 20th January 1915
I am informed that Millicent Duchess of Sutherland gave instructions for her name to be removed from the list of patrons of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats some years ago. From this it seems possible that Mrs. Morgan may be making free with the names of some of the other titled ladies which make such an imposing array in her report. She is quite capable of doing so.

[A MERE ‘CAT'S ABATTOIR'] Truth, 2nd June 1915
Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, Manageress, Foundress, and Proprietress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 36-42, Ferdinand Street, N.W., has issued a new appeal for funds to support her enterprise, giving fifteen reasons why it should be supported. If space permitted, it would be easy to supply more than fifteen reasons why it should not be supported, but three should suffice:- (1) Because the institution is a mere cats' abattoir, for the upkeep of which an expensive establishment is quite unnecessary; (2) because Mrs. Morgan is practically uncontrolled in its management, and her record is not such as entitles her to public confidence; (3) because in these times the saving of the lives of men and women is of more importance than the killing of cats.

[urgent appeal] Truth, 14th July 1915
Mrs. Morgan has issued a second urgent appeal within a few months for funds to enable her to carry on the slaughter-house which she calls the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats. The objections to Mrs. Morgan's enterprise have so frequently been stated in TRUTH that repetition is unnecessary. One can only hope that her statement in her appeal that her work is in danger of collapsing is true, and that the appeal will not produce sufficient funds to avert so desirable a result.

]MAUNDERING] Truth, 25th August 1915
"When every penny is wanted for the defence of the Empire, it is no time to maunder over cats" is the conclusion at which the Times arrived last week in a leader dealing with an appeal from an unnamed source on behalf of a cats' home. I have no difficulty in identifying the home as the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats in Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, against which and its proprietress, Mrs. Morgan, I have continually warned the public for many years past. Had the Times known as much of Mrs. Morgan and her enterprise as I do it might well have framed its remarks in a more forcible spirit, for whether in peace or war time the Home is just as undeserving of support as Mrs. Morgan is of being entrusted with the disposal of charitable funds. However, I am glad to see the Times has awakened to the undesirability of maundering over cats, though I could have wished that its awakening had taken place a week earlier. In that case it would not, of course, have published the appeal for the Cats' Shelter Fund of the Dumb Friends' League, which appeared in its editorial columns on August 11. The Dumb Friends' League does more maundering than any other institution I know. Its appeals have always been out of all proportion to its actual work. It is always ready to seize on an excuse to dip into the pocket of the sentimentalist.

[URGENT APPEAL] Truth, 10th November 1915
Mrs. Morgan has been unusually active during the present year in appealing for support for the cats' abattoir which she calls the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. She has just issued another "Urgent Appeal," in which she states that her "poor home is in a dreadful state of poverty" owing to "the cruel war." Such being the case, one would have imagined that she would have seen the desirability of cutting down her establishment, for there is not the slightest need to keep up a large "home" in order to kill a few cats a day. She, however, has come to the conclusion that the opportunity is a favourable one for replacing a horse and cart with a motor-car at a cost of £375, and she is accordingly soliciting guinea subscriptions to a special fund for this purpose. Cats indeed! Money may be much better expended on motor-cars for saving the lives of wounded soldiers in Flanders than on a car to collect cats for slaughter in London.

[COMMITTEE RESIGNATION] Truth, 14th February 1917
The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats seems to be on its last legs. I had an interview a few days ago, by deputy, with Mr. E. Bell, of the ‘Animals' Friend,' a gentleman who has consistently supported Mrs. Morgan's enterprise, and I learned that he has resigned his position on the committee. The reason was that one lady member having died and another resigning, he was the only member of the committee left, and since the premises were heavily mortgaged and subscriptions were falling off, he did not wish to stand the racket of any breakdown. I think he was wise in his decision, though I think he would have been wiser if he had withdrawn all countenance of the institution. There is no need for keeping up such wasteful and extravagant machinery for killing cats, and that is the sole work done at the Ferdinand Street establishment. Mr. Bell's resignation deprives this concern of the last shadow of title to public support that it could claim, for it leaves Mrs. Morgan in sole control of the funds and the finances. Enough has already been stated in TRUTH to show that she is not the sort of person to occupy such a position, and I may add that what has been said in TRUTH is far from all that might be.

[CHARITY-MONGERING] Truth, 9th January 1918
That disreputable old charity monger who passes under the name of Mrs. Morgan has just issued an "Urgent New Year's Appeal for 1918" on behalf of the abattoir which she calls "The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats." Like most of these documents it appeals chiefly to sentiment by painting heartrending pictures of the sufferings of deserted and abandoned cats and dogs, and since for some mysterious reason animal lovers are a particularly sentimental race no doubt she will receive a good many responses to it. The institution is described as being under the patronage of the Duchess of Westminster, the Duchess of Wellington, the Duchess of Sutherland, the Countesses of Lindsay, Dudley, Warwick, and Annesley, but I am quite sure that if any of these ladies were aware of the history of the institution or the character of the "Manageress, Foundress, and Treasurer" they would not allow their names to be used by her in touting for subscriptions. There is the less reason for subsidising Mrs. Morgan's eat-killing establishment, because there is a thoroughly reputable agency for the purpose in the Animal Rescue League, 397, Road, London, which is under the management and control of the R.S.P.C.A. The League's accounts are properly vouched and audited, while it is controlled by a responsible committee, and animal lovers who want to support a really useful work in collecting and disposing of unwanted cats and dogs had far better send their contributions to the City Road than to Ferdinand Street.

THE CAT KILLER OF FERDINAND STREET Truth, 15th May 1918
Mrs. Morgan, the cat killer of Ferdinand Street, has brought out another appeal for the abattoir which she calls the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cat and Dogs. It is very funny to any one who is acquainted with the record of the Institution and the history of Mrs. Morgan. The picture of this old charity-monger weeping over the fate of the cats and .dogs left derelict by the soldier lads who have gone to the war needs the pencil of a Hogarth to do it justice. But she has the touch that appeals to the sentimentality which seems to be an essential part of the animal lover's mental make-up, so that she may get subscriptions from people who cannot distinguish between real and crocodilian tears. To them I would suggest that they should discover what becomes of the cat skins. Furs are not cheap to-day.

THE CAT KILLER OF FERDINAND STREET Truth, 26th June 1918
The recipient of one of the pathetic appeals issued by Mrs. Morgan, the old cat-killer of Ferdinand Street, took the opportunity to seek an answer to the question which has been frequently asked in TRUTH as to what becomes of the shins. The result was the following admission: "Yes, we have for many years sold our animals' skins, and fifteen years' contract to run yet, which we cannot break. Unfortunately, we have to dispose of the animals as they are, unskinned, and the contractor has daily to send his cart and bins for some fifty cats upwards and dogs and take the dead animals away. If we had a tanner or skinning business we could get three times as much, but this is absolutely impossible for us, and is a filthy, loathsome business. We only get two-pence each cat, dogs one-pence, which does not cover destruction. It is the buyer from us who makes a profit, and a handsome one I should say."

Mrs. Morgan's story of the price she gets for the cats she kills by no means tallies with the information in my possession, and I should dearly like to see that amazing contract by which she is bound to dispose of all the cats she kills in the next fifteen years at 2d. apiece. As I have no hope of Mrs. Morgan showing it me, perhaps the contractor will oblige me by doing so. But apart from this, the admission that the cats have been sold raises the question as to what has become of the money received for them. It has never been acknowledged in the accounts, and taking Mrs. Morgan's own figures of 409,274 cats killed she has to account for close on £3,500 received for dead cats, and just about £100 for the 11,886 disposed of last year. The last income and expenditure accounts for the "London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats" were those for 1915, and it will be interesting to see whether Mrs. Morgan credits the proper amounts to her "charity" when the belated balance-sheets make their appearance.

THE CAT-KILLING ESTABLISHMENT Truth, 16th October 1918
Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, founder and proprietress of the cat-killing establishment, which she now calls "The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs," Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, London, N.W., is issuing a new appeal for funds. It is a tearfully crocodilian document, bespattered with doggerel verse, and presenting a thoroughly untrustworthy picture of the work which Mrs. Morgan has carried on for over twenty years. That work is nothing more nor less than the killing of cats, and from public subscriptions, and the sale of the skins, Mrs. Morgan has during that time made a good thing out of it. Like many another disreputable charity monger, she trusts to sentiment outweighing reason in those to whom she sends her appeals, and if her estimate of human nature had not been accurate the Ferdinand Street abattoir would have been closed years ago. Probably, however, that result has also been deferred by the continued advertisement of the patronage of the Duchesses of Westminster, Wellington, and Sutherland, and of the Countesses of Lindsay, Dudley, Warwick, and Annesley. These ladies ought to take steps to prevent their names being used to humbug the public.

LONDON INSTITUTION FOR LOST AND STARVING CATS Truth, 11th May 1921
While hospitals are closing their wards for lack of funds and any number of deserving charities are at their wits' end for the wherewithal to carry on, it is curious that thoroughly undeserving objects still get a good deal of material support. The "London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats," Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, is a case in point. This is merely an abattoir for cats, which has been carried on for many years past by an elderly charity-manger named Zoe Morgan. It has practically no claim on the public, and yet it flourishes. Mrs. Morgan trades on a sentiment for animals which is often stronger than sentiment for human beings.

MRS. MORGAN'S CATERWAULINGS. Truth, 2nd August 1922
A lady, who sent a contribution early in the year to the "London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs," Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, recently received an S.O.S. from the "Managing Directress and Foundress," G. E. Morgan, from which I extract the following: "As I am writing, a poor little pup brought in badly bitten by a big dog - l had to leave my letter to chloroform the poor little thing out of its misery. And so it goes on all day, a nerve-racking work, and with all we are so terribly hard up. ‘I plead for these dumb mouths which have no speech.' Dear madame, lot your kind heart, help us. I have here before me three demand notes. General half year's rates £61 2s. 6d., Land and Property tax £24, and Water Rates £6 13s. 6d. and I am £51 short on these three accounts. Please, please help us."

To the recipients of this and of all similar appeals I can only repeat what has been said scores of times in TRUTH for many years past, that the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats is nothing more than abattoir for cats run by Mrs. Morgan for her own benefit. This person is quite uncontrolled in her conduct of the establishment, the expenses of which are altogether out of proportion to the meagre work done. Accounts are not regularly published, and when they have been produced they have been demonstrated to be not merely unreliable but misleading. Under these circumstances a deaf ear should be turned to Mrs. Morgan's caterwaulings.

PUSSY-CAT CHARITY. Truth, 17th January 1923
A striking tribute to the soft-headedness of the soft-hearted animal-loving public is to be found in the fact that the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, is still flourishing. So long ago as 1893 the history and management of the institution founded and directed by a Mrs. Z. C. Morgan were fully discussed in TRUTH. Enough was brought to light to demonstrate fully to anyone capable of understanding figures that the concern was entirely undeserving of public support. Since then the work and pretensions of the institution have on various occasions been dealt with in these columns. Yet here in 1923 Mrs. Morgan is still raking in contributions from tender-hearted people in response to her mawkishly sentimental appeals, though the institution remains exactly what it always has been - a mere excuse for the "Foundress" to quarter herself upon the charitable. Here is a characteristic example of the appeals which she favours :

"DEAR SIR, DEAR MADAM-If you love animals, I beg you do not ignore this little card, but let your kind heart soften to the great and urgent need of our so merciful a charity. The dreadful unrest and high taxation in this country has rendered our Home so very poor, that we count on your generosity to save our Institution, after twenty-six y ears so humane a work from utter collapse. If only the crumbs from the rich man's table, if only a generous hand held out to us in our most dire needs. Do not leave it to others to help, but please do your little bit!
We have done our great bit for twenty-six years of such bitter struggle. Thanks, many thanks in advance.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the great God who loveth us
He made and loveth all. - Coleridge.
Yours gratefully, Z. C. MORGAN."

No one who reads this moving, though somewhat ungrammatical, appeal would imagine that the bulk of the funds subscribed in response to it would be expended in providing a home for Mrs. Morgan. Yet it is she who reaps the benefit. She is, so to speak, the chief tabby on whom the funds are expended. The other cats make no very great demands upon the resources of the institution. The buildings which house them were bought and paid for long ago out of money subscribed by the public. The two motor vans which collect them are a source of income. The driver of one of them informed my representative a little time ago that he was accustomed to hand over to Mrs. Morgan about £15 a week on the average, the proceeds of the contributions from the owners of the cats given him to be destroyed. The cats supply another source of income in the shape of their skins. They pass on the night of their arrival into the lethal chamber, and their only cost to the home is their last meal of chloroform. Their corpses are eventually taken away by a contractor, and the skins no doubt eventually appear in the sales as "kit-fox" and "kit-sable" sets.

For the chief tabby, however, the institution is a home in every sense of the word. She resides on the premises with a staff of four maidservants to look after her creature comforts. She has not always done so. When she first opened the institution she called herself Miss Williams, and posed as a lady of independent means conducting a cats' home as a hobby from purely humanitarian motives. Later she changed her name from Miss to Mrs. Williams, and later again to Mrs. Morgan. To none of these names can she make any legal claim. Eventually she took up her habitation on the premises, and she no longer describes herself as acting in any "honorary" capacity in connection with the institution. She does not, however, reveal what she gets out of the business. The accounts which she has published at irregular intervals have been discreetly reticent on the subject. She is absolutely uncontrolled both as regards the money she receives and its expenditure, and there is nothing and nobody to prevent her licking all the cream off the milk of human kindness that flows into the door of 34, Ferdinand Street, nor lapping up most of the milk as well.

The fact is that the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cate is nothing more than a business for killing Cats and disposing of their skins. Were it run honestly as such, I should have nothing to say about it. But to represent it to be a charitable or humanitarian work is simply humbug. Indeed, l am informed that on more than one occasion recently an insufficient dose of chloroform has been given to the inmates of the lethal chamber, with the result that some of them have been found to be alive in the morning when it has been opened. This is a matter which should interest the R.S.P.C.A., as well as the three duchesses, the marchioness, the four countesses, and the Right Rev. Bishop whose names appear on Mrs. Morgan's appeals as patronising her establishment. No doubt chloroform is expensive, but since it is all that the cats get from Mrs. Morgan, and since she gets so much out of them, she ought to see that they get enough of it to ensure them a peaceful end.

A DEALER IN LOST CATS. PATHETIC APPEALS AND CHLOROFORM DOSES John Bull, 17th February 1923
How much longer is Mrs. Morgan, of Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, N., to collect charitable contributions from the public on a large scale in respect of a concern styled the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats? Mrs. Morgan, alias Mrs. Williams, is an old hand at the cadging game, and knows the value of mawkish sentiment and "sob-stuff" in the compilation of her begging letters and appeals. She started her so-called home for stray and starving cats as far back as 1893, and has thrived on it ever since. Most of her windy appeals for monetary support conclude with touching verses. The following is one recently used:
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the Great God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.

It is difficult to imagine a more shameful way of making a living. For, to cut a long story short, the main object of Mrs. Morgan's appeals to the public is that she herself must live in ease and comfort. For her "home" for starving cats is simply a lethal chamber where dumb animals end their days under a dose of chloroform almost as soon as they arrive in the care of this unscrupulous female. Apart from the money this plausible woman obtains by her touching appeals, she also reaps a rich harvest in disposing of the skins of the poor animals entrusted to her care!

People who receive applications for assistance from Mrs. Morgan should give her a wide berth. Her establishment, painted in such glowing colours, is purely a business concerned primarily with the slaughter of cats, and the supply and disposal of their skins. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals states that the Institution is not worthy of public support. We strongly endorse that view. In misrepresenting her concern to the public as a charitable and humane establishment, where stray and starving animals will be properly looked after, this woman reveals herself as a charity-monger of the worst type.

THE CANT OF A CAT-KILLER LIVING IN LUXURY ON POOR PUSSIES' SKINS John Bull, 3rd March 1923
Our recent references to "The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs," 34 to 42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, London, N.W., have brought us many letters of approval, The "Institution" is run by a mysterious woman who lives in luxury on the proceeds of her poetic appeals to the soft-hearted. Who is this woman? Her latest appeals are signed "Z. C. Morgan." At one time she called herself "Miss Williams," and later changed her description to "Mrs. Williams," though she appears to have no legal title to any of these names.

It may not be without significance that at the head of her patronage list appears the name "H.S.H. Princess Lowenstein Wertheim," the notorious woman who was heavily fined during the war for a flagrant violation of the Regulations under the Aliens Restriction Order.

It is claimed that from the date of opening up to October 26th, 1922, no fewer than 468,430 cats have been received at the Camden Town slaughter-house. The number of cats received last year is given as 12,422, and the number of dogs as 697, an average of from 60 to 80 cats and dogs daily. In a prominent position above an illustration of a dog which has been injured by a motor-car and is about to be chloroformed by a man in uniform, supposed to represent an official of the Institution, appears the following:-

THE LAST BOON
To ease the pain of the world,
To follow the path He trod-
These are the things that become a man
Made in the Image of God.

This sickening cant is positively revolting in view of the evidence which we have collected. We do not know the value of the pelts of the half-million cats this callous, canting creature claim to have destroyed, but we do know that she lives in the lap of luxury with four maids to attend to her comfort the proceeds of her shameless exploitation of poor pussy.

A DEFENCE OF MRS. MORGAN. Truth, 21st March 1923
The effect of the sentimental flapdoodle with which Mrs. Morgan, "foundress and manageress" of the Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, feeds her subscribers is well illustrated in a letter I have received from one of them. The following is the gist of it: -

It has reached my ears that articles have appeared against the Cats' Home, Ferdinand Street. Now, I want to point out that this is absolutely the only place that sends out a cart on receipt of a postcard to collect diseased and unwanted animals. The poor people hive not time or money to take cats to the Dumb Friends' and R.S.P.C.A. shelters, and were this institution to close down it would be absolutely a calamity. Criticism on Mrs. Morgan seems to me beside the point. . . . I am a very old and very well-off subscriber to what I consider an invaluable boon. She does it gratuitously, and has no fat salary like the secretaries of all other societies for animals, and no fat retiring pension.

My dear lady, you should really not trust to hearsay to what has appeared in TRUTH, but read the articles yourself. If you had done so, you would know that Mrs Morgan's so-called home is a mere abattoir. You would know that neither poor nor rich people's cats are collected for nothing. You would know that, so far from Mrs. Morgan running the institution gratuitously, she has for years made a fat living out of it, and that the property bought with your contributions belongs to her. You would know that she grudges paying for the chloroform to give her live stock a swift and painless end. You would know, in fact, that she is a thoroughly disreputable person, who has for years imposed upon animal-lovers like yourself.

There is, however, one point in this lady's letter which is worth consideration. On previous occasions when dealing with Mrs Morgan's Institution I have suggested that there is a real need for a public service on similar lines. That it could be made to pay all expenses has been demonstrated by Mrs. Morgan's experience. Most people would readily pay a small fee to have their old and sick pets swiftly and painlessly destroyed, and the London County Council could, I imagine. provide such a service at no cost to the ratepayers. But failing such a service, I wonder that the R.S.P.C.A does not enter into competition with the Ferdinand Street lady. Mrs. Morgan's van is a first-class advertisement, and one which pays for itself.

THE DEAD CAT INDUSTRY. Truth, 28th March 1923
A good many people were horrified at the statement made by a witness in the case of Brown v. Rogers, heard by Mr. Justice McCardie last week, that ten tons of dead cats and dogs are transformed weekly into dog biscuit and chicken meal, and I am not surprised to find that the leading manufacturers hastened to assure the public that their products were not compounded on cannibalistic principles. Readers of TRUTH who have followed my criticism of Mrs. Morgan's London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats will have been aware, however, that dead cats have a commercial value, though they probably believed, with myself, that the value was chiefly in their skins. The discovery that the carcases also have economic uses makes it more feasible and more desirable that the execution and disposal of cats and dogs should be undertaken as a public service by the London County Council, as recommended in TRUTH.

DEAD CATS & DOGS. HOW CHICKEN MEAL AND DOG BISCUITS ARE MADE. Dublin Evening Telegraph, 22nd March 1923
London has a trade in dead dogs and cats amounting to 10 tons a week, it was stated in a case yesterday. They are boiled down for chicken meal, dog biscuits and such thing. One of the men who collects the carcasses is Albert Archibald Brown, haulage contractor, of Harrow road, Leytonstone . . . Brown said that one of his haulage contracts was to remove dead cats and dogs from various homes.
Judge - lt's a strange world we live in. I have never heard of this branch of vehicular traffic before. Don't tell me any trade secrets, but where do you take them to?
Brown – To slaughterers, who boll them down.
For what purposes are they boiled down?
I don't know. I have to clear them away from the homes every 12 hours, as soon as possible after they are killed.
Mr. Thomas Totten, analytical chemist, of Bow road . . . knew that 10 tons of dead cats and dogs were collected weekly in London. They were boiled down for manures, dog biscuits and chicken meals. Practically all the laying meal tor chickens was made from them.)

THE UNWANTED CAT. Truth, 4th April 1923
In referring to Mrs. Morgan's London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats recently I was under the impression that this was the only institution which collects diseased and unwanted animals to destroy them. Captain Fairholme, the Chief Secretary of the R.S.P.C.A., informs me that I am mistaken in this belief, since the Animal Rescue League, which was founded by Miss Kate Cording, does a great deal of work in this direction, last year having destroyed 54,323 animals free of any charge to the owners. The Animal Rescue League is now affiliated to the R.S.P.C.A. Its headquarters are at 397, City Road, and it has reception shelters in Shadwell and at Thornton Heath. A number of collectors go round with bags and baskets to collect strays, while owners can bring their animals at any hour to the League premises.

This information should be of particular interest to the lady whose defence of Mrs. Morgan I published in TRUTH of March 21. The main reason why that lady, who describes herself as "a hard-headed Scotswoman upon whom sentimental flapdoodle has no more effect than castor oil upon a graven image," continues to subscribe to Mrs Morgan's abattoir is that she believes the London Institution in Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, to be the only place where animals are destroyed free. I have pointed out that Mrs. Morgan does not do the work for nothing, and since the Animal Rescue League does, and is, moreover, under thoroughly reputable management, I strongly recommend her to transfer her Interest and subscriptions to the latter institution.

THE CHARITY CHEATERS John Bull, 7th April 1923
We have repeatedly called attention to the large number of unscrupulous characters who thrive on the proceeds of alleged "charity" organisations. Al last our exposures have roused the authorities into action. It is good news indeed to know that as a result of the persistent exposures in these columns, the authorities have at last moved on the track of the Charity Cheaters. For years past, our columns have given ample evidence of the systematic frauds that have been carried on in this country under the threadbare cloak of charity. So far, it has been a comparatively easy matter to make money in this way [. . . ]

We call attention, too, to the ingenious scheme of Mrs. Morgan, who has used such names as Mrs. and Miss Williams, and Madame de Longueville. Her address is Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, where she runs her home for "lost and starving cats." At least, she pretends she does. In return for a fee, this generous-hearted lady will collect your precious cat and take it tenderly to her home -where she promptly puts it into a lethal chamber and afterwards sells the skin! This skin-game of hers appears to be a paying one. For at least 30 years she has been living in the lap of luxury. In addition to this, she sends out poetic appeals for charitable contributions. Now she is feeling uneasy at our disclosures, and will certainly adopt another alias unless the L.C.C. make use of this information immediately.

THE SUPERFLUOUS MRS. MORGAN. Truth, 18th April 1923
The discredited London Institution for lost and Starving Cats in Ferdinand Street loses its only reason for existence when it can be shown that superfluous cats are dealt with elsewhere. I mentioned last week one institution where they are dealt with humanely as well as speedily. I have since heard of others. The Dogs Home at Battersea collects both cats and dogs if the owners are unable to bring their animal, and destroys them painlessly for 3s. "Our Dumb Friends' League" has cat shelters at Fulham, Tottenham, Chelsea, Spitalfields, Richmond, Plaistow, Edmonton, Paddington, and Hammersmith, where the same work is performed free, though the animals are not collected; and there is also a Society for Promoting the Welfare of Homeless Dogs and Cats at 21, St. Peter's Square, Hammersmith, which also collects and destroys unwanted animals free of charge. There can, therefore, be no reason why any animal lover should waste their subscriptions on Mrs Morgan's enterprise.

PUSSY-CAT CHARITY. Truth, 16th May 1923
Mrs. Morgan, foundress, manageress, and proprietress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats, 34 to 42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, has at last published a balance-sheet, or to be quite accurate three balance-sheets, after an interval of seven years, during which period nobody but herself has known what has been done with the money she has collected from the animal-loving public. She has also published a booklet which she calls a "Report for 1923." The report consists of some few particulars of the numbers of animals destroyed at Ferdinand Street, supplemented by the usual appeals and an odd attempt to reply to the criticisms of the conduct of her enterprise which have appeared in TRUTH. This report is supplied to any applicant. The balance-sheets are reserved for subscribers of a guinea, a reservation probably intended to prevent the accounts getting into the hands of journalistic and other critics, who might not be expected to spend a guinea in making themselves acquainted with the finance of pussy-cat charity. They are for the three years 1920, 1921, 1922, and are audited by a chartered accountant. The figures fully justify every word which has been said in TRUTH in regard to the claims of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats to public support.

Looking first at the income and expenditure accounts, it will be seen that in the three years Mrs Morgan has received an income from all sources of over £10,000. About £400 of this was produced by the sale of cat skins, £5,800 from legacies, collections, and subscriptions, and the balance by payments made [by owners] for the destruction of animals. The expenditure in each year varies but slightly. In 1922 it amounted in round figures to £3,188, and as the income was £3,255, there was a balance in hand of £66. From the report it appears that 15,266 cats and 792 dogs were destroyed at the Institution during the year. The cost, therefore, of destroying each animal works out at a fraction under 4s. In this connection I have worked out the total cost of dealing with animals at seven of the shelters of "Our Dumb Friends' League." - In these seven institutions close on 23,000 animals were dealt with, at a cost of £1,747, or 1s. 1d. per animal. Since, however, at the Dumb Friends' shelters a proportion of the strays are kept for a period before destruction, the expenses should be higher than at Mrs. Morgan's abattoir, where they are killed on the day of their arrival.

The reason for this excessive cost of killing cats at Mrs. Morgan's Institution is seen on the expenditure side of the account. Wages and salaries amount to £1,275, cars £448, fares and carriage £127, postages £315, printing, stationery, and advertisements 184, gas and electric light £48, rates £141, general expenses £175, telephone £20, taxes £60, food and milk £113, chloroform and medicines £172, and interest on loans £65. In order to understand these figures the fact must not be lost sight of that the Institution is housed in one of a number of houses which are to all intents and purposes Mrs. Morgan's private property, though bought out of subscriptions from the public, and that she draws, according to an illuminating disclosure in the balance-sheet, a salary of £520 a year. The buildings are valued at cost at £3,384, and they are subject to a mortgage of £857. It will be seen, therefore, that I was not far wrong when I remarked that Mrs. Morgan was the chief tabby for whose benefit the Institution is run. She evidently possesses the feline instinct for finding herself a comfortable home. She pays no rent. The interest on the mortgage, the rates and the taxes, the gas and electric light bills, the wages of her maidservants, and her telephone are all met out of the results of her appeals as well as the £10 a week she allows herself by way of salary. She spends £500 in printing and posting her appeals to keep up the income, and the rest of the money received is devoted to the actual work of killing cats. The income and expenditure account indeed reveals quite clearly that were Mrs. Morgan's charges eliminated the Institution would be self-supporting. The payments made by people to have their pets destroyed amount to £1,541. The cost of collecting them is £575, milk and food for their solace while awaiting execution is £113, and the chloroform costs £172. The total for dealing with the animals is therefore £860, and the balance of £680 plus the £167 realised by the sale of the skins would be ample to provide all the office and management expenses necessary to do the work.

Naturally, Mrs. Morgan does not see matters in this light, and she makes an amusing attempt to justify herself in the report. She tells her subscribers that she has worked "with heart and soul, with might and main," that she has sacrificed her youth, her means, her social position, and her health to the welfare of her Institution. She informs them that she has spent £3,000 upon it out of "her own pocket," that for a number of years she "gave her services free," and she adds:-

"Till 1916 I had a committee and some years ago they voted me a salary, first £4, then £5 weekly. In 1916 the committee dissolved itself. . . . Through having been personally hard hit over the war, and having unexpected extra personal expenses, and being well worth the increase of salary, I considered myself entitled to raise my remuneration (considering everyone's was increased), and from the end of 1916 I paid myself a higher salary per annum, taking in driblets with one hand and lending with the other. . . . I hid dropped the prefix of hon. manageress when first the committee voted me a salary, therefore no one can say I sailed under false colours and pretended I was honorary. Every other animal society is salaried from the chief downwards, with the exception they do not lend their societies money or constantly help them out of tight corners. Why should I be abused because I pay myself a remuneration. At my death I have bequeathed the home to one of the three large London animal charities, making Mr. Ernest Bell, of the ‘Animal Friend', with a friend or mine, trustees and executors of my will. "

In regard to these statements, some of them must be taken with a grain of salt. When TRUTH first investigated Mrs. Morgan's claims to support she made the same assertion that she had contributed substantial sums out of her own pocket foundation to the Institution. The foundation for them was that she had carried on a running account with the Institution, and that various sums represented balances due to her. There was no evidence beyond her own word that she had ever paid a halfpenny to the Institution and it is interesting to note, now that a chartered accountant has come upon the scene, that though she still carries on the same system of lending to the Institution with one hand and paying herself out of the funds with the other, in the current year she has paid herself back £58 more than she lent, reducing the loan standing to her credit in the books of the Institution by this amount. As for her right to double her own salary, to dispense with a committee, and to bequeath the property to whomsoever she likes, these are matters upon which Mrs. Morgan shows a total lack of appreciation of what is required from those who constitute themselves stewards of charitable funds. Her view is that of the charity-monger who quarters himself or herself upon the public with the sole object of making a living out of the charity. This is in effect exactly what Mrs Morgan has done with her expensive establishment for killing cats at 4s. a head.

THE SUPERFLUOUS CAT. Truth, 29th April 1925
It would appear from the article "The Problem of the Unwanted Cat," which Miss Evelyn Sharp recently wrote in the Manchester Guardian, that both she and that newspaper have been grossly imposed on by the specious Mrs. Morgan, who has frequently received unfavourable notice in these columns for her management of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. Miss Sharp says, as TRUTH has said more than once in the same connection that "an important work of this kind ought not to be left to private enterprise, even to the enterprise of the woman who has worn herself out, in this case, in the effort to keep it going for twenty years." But I am afraid that Mrs. Morgan as the emaciated, large-hearted philanthropist does not fill the part. She has made a good living out of this abattoir - it is in no sense a "home" - for many years, both from subscriptions and from the standing contracts by which she sells the carcasses and skins. Two reputable organisations worthy of Miss Sharp's notice are the Animal Rescue League, 397, City Road, and the Dogs' Home at Battersea. They kill animals quickly and painlessly, and Mrs. Morgan does not always do even that.

MRS. MORGAN'S HOME. Truth, 2nd September 1925
Mrs. Morgan is once more sending out appeals for her so-called home for lost and starving cats and dogs at Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. The appeal is, as usual, garnished with sloppy verses and photographs of starved and ill-treated animals. But if those who send contributions to Mrs. Morgan think that they are helping to maintain a home for suffering dumb animals they are greatly mistaken. Such animals as go there are immediately put to death and their skins sold to a contractor under a long-standing arrangement. Mrs. Morgan runs her home for profit and does very well out of it.

PROFITS FROM SOB-STUFF. A SANCTIMONIOUS HUMBUG. WARNING TO ANIMAL LOVERS. John Bull, 12th September 1925
The time has come when the public should be made fully aware of the activities of a notorious woman who makes a rosy living by running an institution for dumb animals, and who is at present busy appealing for funds. She calls herself Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, and describes herself as Managing Directress and Foundress of "The London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs." This society is situated at 34-42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, London, N.W.1. Mrs. Morgan has been raking in shekels from the generous public since 1890. Although, at first, she may have started with good intentions, she has long since degenerated into a grasping and unscrupulous woman, whose methods of raising money are quite unwarrantable.

Canting and cadging. She sends round a printed appeal which is full of mawkish sentiment. She plays upon passages from the Scriptures and imposes upon the animal-loving public with moving, though often illiterate, verse based upon the sufferings of stray cats and dogs who have been run over by motor-cars. She also adorns her cunning appeals with illustrations of tortured beasts. It is difficult to find a more impudent way of making a living, for, after careful enquiries, we are in a position to say that it is she herself who reaps most of the benefit from the funds which come in as the result of her "sob-stuff" pamphlets. Apart from money obtained in this way, Mrs. Morgan, who is also known by the name of Williams, has some permanent subscribers who send her cheques regularly. If these people knew how much of their money was spent by Mrs. Morgan on herself, instead of upon the poor dumb animals she exploits, they would not send her a further cent. She is a very old hand at the cadging game. Many years ago, when she first saw the possibilities of tricking the public in the name of charity, she employed a number of young women to collect in the streets of London.

Nurses and kittens. These young women were dressed in nurse's attire and paraded the streets with collecting-boxes, carrying baskets containing cats in order to impress the good-hearted passers-by. This dodge came to an abrupt end when Mrs. Morgan was compelled by the Commissioner of Police to refrain from obtaining money in this way. During the last year or two she has adopted other tactics. She sends representatives to call upon houses to collect cats or dogs for destruction, and the owners are charged whatever sums they are willing to pay for the privilege of entrusting their dumb animals to the care of this so-called animal lover. Sometimes the fee is half-a-crown, sometimes 5s., and sometimes much more. People have very often been told that a receipt for their money will be sent on "shortly." Many are still waiting for it. One collector used to rope in as much as £15 a week in this way, upon which he was paid commission.

Some time ago a member of Mrs. Morgan's staff charged her with not supplying enough chloroform for the lethal chamber and stated that time after time animals had been taken out alive after hours under the drug. She has lived in luxury for years on the premises at Ferdinand Street. At one time she had no fewer than four maid-servants to watch her interests. When the public know that this person helps herself to a salary of £10 a week, with other useful expenses thrown in, they will understand how this woman can be kind to herself as well as professing to be kind to the dumb animals entrusted to her care. Mrs. Morgan's institution is, in our opinion, a commercial enterprise pure and simple. It has no reasonable claim to charity. After Mrs. Morgan has destroyed the cats and dogs - and she herself admits that she has dealt with over half a million since she started her animal-loving career - she disposes of their skins to furriers for good prices.

She is an old, unscrupulous, canting cadger. She is on the black list of the Charity Organisation Society. The Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tell us that they are unable to advise people to support her. Once she asked the society to take over her institution. They were quite willing to do it. The snag was that this old animal-exploiter wanted to remain in charge. The society knew too much about her to agree to this, and the proposition failed. There are many titled people given on her moving and mawkish appeals as "patrons." We advise them to investigate Mrs. Morgan's methods, and we advise the public to ignore her sanctimonious appeals, and to entrust their pets to more reputable institutions when the time comes for them to be put out of their misery.

MRS. MORGAN AGAIN. Truth, 6th January 1926
Mrs. Z. C. Morgan is once again sending out appeals for her discredited abattoir which she calls the London Institution for Starving Cats and Dogs, 34-42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, N.W.1. The appeal is, as usual, full of sloppy verses, the particularly execrable effusions being, presumably, the work of Mrs. Morgan herself. That antiquated philanthropic humbug phrases her literature to convey the impression that her institution is a real home for unfortunate animals, whereas it is, in fact, merely a place where they are killed immediately after admission, and then not always efficiently. Mrs. Morgan makes a fat living out of it, both from subscriptions and from a standing arrangement whereby she sells the carcasses to a contractor. Lovers of animals who want them to have a painless death should send their donations to reputable establishments, such as the Animal Rescue League, 397, City Road, or to the Dogs' Home, Battersea.

A PURPLE PAMPHLET. THE CAT'S CRADLE SANCTIMONIOUS SOB STUFF John Bull, 26th June 1926
Mrs. Z. C. MORGAN, managing earnestly directress and foundress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, has just issued her "Report for 1926." It is a pamphlet printed in purple ink, and containing many moving appeals for financial assistance from members of the animal-loving public. "The home is dreadfully poor," runs ‘the message. "Please, please help!"

A long and imposing array of patrons is given, and the mention of so many well-known names must incline many people to believe that the appeal is a deserving one. "Why should this charity be supported? " asks this purple pamphlet, and forthwith proceeds to supply fifteen reasons why.

It is said to be one of the largest feline institutions in existence; it is entirely free to the poor, it sends long distances for homeless and unwanted cats and dogs; it spares neither time, trouble nor worry to please the public and endeavour to save suffering to helpless animals. The fifteenth point is perhaps the most interesting. It runs: "Subscriptions and donations are earnestly and urgently needed and begged for. The more help the more work done, Very poor."

The pamphlet is interlarded with touching little snatches of verse. There is "The Little Angel Dog," a maudlin ditty about a little dog who wouldn't play with other angel dogs because he was waiting for his master to join him in "the Courts of Heaven." One verse will suffice to show how pathetic this remarkable poem is:
"and his master, far on the earth below,
As he sits in his easy chair,
Forgets sometimes - and he whistles low
For the dog that is not there.
And the little dog angel cocks his ears
And dreams that his master's voice he hears."

Another refers to a stray cat as "an aristocrat in her way," and runs: "Once she was the pet of the home; that home is gone. Broken by war - scattered afar - who now heeds her moan?"

This sort of thing would be all very well in some circumstances, but the animal-loving public should understand quite clearly that these appeals are being made by Mrs. Z. C. Morgan, whose concern has been on the black list of the Charity Organisation Society for years. Yet such is her plausibility that she has been able to build up a very remunerative business. A large section of the public has apparently listened favourably to Mrs. Morgan's appeals for upwards of thirty years.

It is true that she runs an institution at 34-42, Ferdinand Street, London, N.W.; but it is run on very profitable lines. All the cats collected for "painless destruction" pay toll with their skins, which are sold to the fur trade. Mrs. Morgan, alias Williams, gets it all ways. A fee is charged for collection in the first place, varying according to the circumstances of the owner, and money is received by way of "donations" from animal-lovers all over the country.

The pamphlet just sent out records the fact that the balance-sheet for 1925 is "now ready." One would have thought that if the institution was all it was claimed to be a copy of this important document would have been attached in support of the appeal. But no. Mrs. Morgan's balance-sheets are not available unless specially demanded, and then the recipient has first to qualify for the privilege by subscribing "5s., in one sum, and upwards." We would earnestly advise the public to ignore her mawkish appeals.

[URGENT APPEAL] Truth, 30th June 1926
Mrs. Morgan's Home. That lachrymose but hardly disinterested [meaning "with nothing to gain"] "lover of animals," Mrs. Morgan, 34-42, Ferdinand Street, London, N.W.1, has fairly surpassed her own highest efforts in the way of cadging sentimentality in her latest appeal for funds to her "London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs." As usual, it is full of execrable verses and smudged drawings which are meant to melt the hearts of animal lovers. Those unacquainted with the real character of Mrs. Morgan's home would imagine that she is an angel of mercy, who devotes her life to restoring animals to health or soothing their last hours. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The home is but a glorified lethal chamber, and one cannot help suspecting that the lady's love for animals is not altogether unconnected with the money that they bring her in subscriptions or from the sale of their skins by contract.

MRS. MORGAN'S HOME. Truth, 14th September 1927
Mrs. Morgan, who runs the London Institute for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, 34-32, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, N.W.1, is a curiously unbusinesslike lady with methods all her own. For instance, she is now sending out a brochure headed "report for 1927 and balance-sheet for 1926," but it does not contain the balance-sheet, which is only to be sent to subscribers of 5s. and upwards! She is equally ingenious with her subscription list, which she says contains 7,000 names, and is therefore too expensive to print. However, she makes one concession: she has had "three hand copies" made, and these are at the disposal of the members of the public who send her a donation of £5. Even then they must send their copies back by registered post. For a woman who is constantly expatiating on her "weakness" in a world of enemies she seems singularly well-fitted to take care of herself, especially financially.

Her appeal is, as usual, liberally furnished with lachrymose and execrable doggerel aimed at the pockets of animal-lovers. Great parade is made of the fact that this institution is "strong anti-vivisectionist." This boast has its humorous side. It is perfectly true that Mrs. Morgan does not countenance experiments on living animals, for the very simple reason that the moment a lost cat or dog enters the home it goes into the lethal chamber. This is a profitable form of mercy for Mrs. Morgan because she has a long-standing agreement with a contractor under which she sells the skins of all the animals which she puts to death. The revenue from this contract and from the subscriptions of a soft-hearted and undiscriminating public has enabled Mrs. Morgan to live a very comfortable life for many years past.

MRS. MORGAN'S HOME. Truth, 4th January 1928
Mrs. Z. Morgan, who runs the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, 34-42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, is following her usual custom of making the arrival of the New Year an excuse for appealing for funds. Her appeal is unchanged from when I saw it last, except that there is an innovation in the form of a booklet calendar containing "postal and general information." Needless to say, it is abundantly garnished with Mrs. 'Morgan's requests for money. It would be more to the point if she issued a balance-sheet. The "new balance-sheet for 1926 is now ready," she announces, but it is only forthcoming to those who give 5s. to the Institution, on the ground that "those who do not care for the animals can have no interest in balance-sheets." This statement alone is enough to make sensible people fight shy of Mrs. Morgan and send their contributions to well-accredited societies which issue financial statements without any conditions.

Mrs. Morgan gives some illuminating figures of the cats and- dogs received at the Institution during 1925 and 1926. In 1925 there were 1,945 dogs and 14,616 cats, in 1926 the dogs numbered 3,095 and the cats 15,568. Perhaps the difference in numbers it accounted for by the fact that Mrs. Morgan has a long-standing agreement whereby she disposes of the, cats' skins to a contractor., There is no market for dogs' skins. In any event, it is incorrect to call the place a home, because immediately an animal enters its doors it is put to death.

MRS. MORGAN'S HOME. Truth, 14th November 1928
Mrs. Morgan, the foundress and manageress of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, 34-42, Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, has published her balance-sheet for 1927. Anyone acquainted with Mrs. Morgan's past will not need to be told that this balance-sheet makes curious reading. Looking first at the income and expenditure accounts, it will be seen that for 1927 Mrs. Morgan received £4,779 9s. 9d., this sum being made up of £123 0s. B8. from sale of skins, £3,743 10s. 5d. from legacies, collections, and subscriptions, and £912 18s. 8d. from voluntary payments or destructions, whatever that may mean. The expenditure side of the account shows, inter alia, that wages and salary amounted to £1,727 2s. 1d., printing, stationery, and advertisements to £992 11s. 5-and-a-half d., rates to £102 3s. 2d., and taxes to £210 12s. 6d.

Mrs. Morgan is the manageress of the institution, and in the old days she used to draw, according to one of her balance-sheets, £520 a year in salary. In the balance-sheet for 1927 she announces that as a result of her long illness she has borrowed £407 5s. from the Institution. This statement also appears in a letter from the auditor to her. All this would be bad enough if Mrs. Morgan's establishment were really a home for animals, but it is nothing of the kind, being merely a glorified abattoir where the animals are killed almost immediately after they pass the door.

In times gone by Mrs. Morgan has made a great parade of her services to suffering animals, but she has done much better for herself. The buildings of the institution are to all intents and purposes hers. She pays no rent. The rates, taxes, gas and electric light bills, and servants' wages all come out of the public contributions, in addition to her own salary. She spent last year nearly £1,000 on printing and advertising, yet despite all this extravagant expenditure she is left with a balance in hand of £326 3s. 11d. Mrs. Morgan shows herself to be entirely unaware of what is expected from anybody running a charity, and on no account should any money be sent to her.

"CHLOROFORM MY CATS." WILL OF LADY FOUNDER OF INSTITUTE FOR ANIMALS. Liverpool Echo, 21st May 1929
Mrs. Zoe Constance Marie de Longueville Ruttledge of 36, Ferdinand street, Haverstock Hill, Landon, founder and director of a London Institution for lost and starving cats and dogs, left £3,271 (net personalty £301). The testatrix desired that all her photos, miniatures, family portraits, and family seals should be destroyed, "as I am the last of the family. In case my three dogs, two love birds, and two canaries be alive at my death." the trustees are to instruct Florence Boast, her caretaker, to chloroform them in a box specially constructed, she to receive £20. The trustees are also to see "that all animals and cats on the premises on the day of my death be chloroformed at once." She left the above-named institution to our Dumb Friends' League.

PETS DOOMED TO DIE. Directions in a Woman's Will. Home Founder. Sheffield Independent, 22nd May 1929
A direction that all her household pets should be chloroformed at her death is contained in the will of Mrs. Zoe Constance Marie de Longrevill [sic] Ruttledge, founder of the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs. Besides various bequests to servants, she left to Harold Percy Carter her automatic pocket revolver and 100 cartridges, "perfectly new."

She desired all her photos, miniatures and family portraits and family seals whatsoever shall be destroyed, "as I am the last of the family," [actually she had always been rather deceptive about what her family name really was!] and stated "In case my three dogs, two love birds and two canaries be alive at my death," the trustees are to instruct Florence Boast to chloroform the said animals in a box specially constructed for them and it the said Florence Boast shall painlessly destroy them she is to receive £20; the trustees to see "that all animals and cats on the premises on the day of my death be chloroformed at once."

She stated "whereas I have founded and devoted the greater part of my life and spent several thousands of pounds of own money on the maintenance of a Home for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs carried on by me under the name of Mrs. Morgan since 1896 which Home I have named the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs and as I believe the said institution has done a vast amount of good and whereas being desirous that after my death the said Institution shall continue to be conducted and carried on in the same manner as during my lifetime or as near thereto as circumstances will permit and in particular that no vivisection experiments upon living animals shall permitted on the premises or in any way connected therewith," she left the institution to Our Dumb Friends League, as she was satisfied that the aims she had in view would most likely be accomplished by the League, or if the League refuse this bequest the Institution shall form part of her residuary estate.

MRS. MORGAN'S HOME. Truth, 29th May 1929
Mrs. Morgan, who ran the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats and Dogs, 36, Ferdinand Street, N.W., recently died, and in her will, which received wide publicity in the newspapers last week, she requests that her "home" shall be conducted on the same lines as she herself followed. I sincerely hope that this will not happen, because Mrs. Morgan's undertaking was all that it should not have been. It was in no sense a home, but merely an abattoir, supported by heavy contributions from those ignorant of its true character. The skins of the animals were sold by a long-standing agreement to contractors. In addition, Mrs. Morgan herself made a good thing out of it for many years, drawing a heavy salary and, when she thought fit, borrowing from the funds. In 1927, for example, she had a loan of over £400, explaining this on the grounds of poverty. Nevertheless, she left £3,271.

I am not concerned to disparage a dead woman, but it is important that Mrs. Morgan's last will and testament should not blind anyone to the fact that her institution was run for her benefit and not for the sake of the animals. Money which was sent to her would have done much more good in the hands of reputable societies, which are run by committees, and which render an account of their stewardship by issuing proper balance-sheets. Mrs Morgan's balance-sheets, when they appeared, were very curious documents.

WHO WAS ZOE CONSTANCE MORGAN?

The Hon. Manageress of the Institution, Mrs Zoe Constance Morgan had a colourful life and several surnames. In her obituary in 1929 she was recorded as Mrs. Zoe Constance Marie de Longueville Ruttledge. She was born at Fort William in Calcutta and had a brother, Harry Brooke de Longueville. The Longueville Clark family (later "de Longueville") appear to have sailed between Calcutta and Hampshire for several generations.

Nineteen year old Josephine "Zoe" Marie Constance de Longueville (b. 1852) married 34 year old Lieutenant Samuel Masters Davies (an officer in the Military Train) on 2nd March 1871 at St Stephen's Church in Dulwich. In 1876 Davies filed for divorce, claiming Zoe had committed adultery with various men, names unknown, in various places including a cab on the road between Beckenham and Robin Hood Hill; in a railway carriage between Crystal Palace and Victoria Station; at the Charing Cross Hotel; in a house in Jermyn Street; in Brighton and with a man she'd met at London Zoo. She had also spent an entire month in 1875 cohabiting at a hotel in Portsea with John Knox Ruttledge (the only named co-respondent), an Irish army captain closer to her own age. Samuel was claiming damages from Ruttledge to the tune of £5000. Zoe made a counter-claim against Samuel of neglect, cruelty (he hit her when he was drunk, which was frequently) and adultery. His extramarital affairs took place at the Crooked Tree in Penge and in a field behind the Robin Hood Tavern, not far from their matrimonial home.

The divorce petition was granted. Davies wasn't awarded any damages as it couldn't be proved that Ruttledge had known that Zoe was a married woman. The Berkshire Chronicle, 30th November 1878 records the marriage "Nov. 25, at Holy Trinity Church, Gray's-inn-road, John Knox Ruttledge, formerly of the Bays and 3rd Dragoon Guards, to Josephine (Zoe) Constance de Longueville, only daughter of Col. de Longueville, of Langley Broom, Bucks." Ruttledge had been married previously as The Naval and Military Gazette of 25th January 1873 announced a birth on 24th December 1872 of a son to the wife of John Knox Ruttledge, Esq, 2nd (Queen's Bays) Dragoon Guards (at 46, Bessborough-street, Pimlico).

Capt. Ruttledge retired from military service on half-pay in April 1878. In 1880 he tried to divorce Zoe for her adultery, but failed. In 1883, he tried again, this time naming two co-respondents instead of one, and failed again. Mentions in a 1908 probate case and in a Zoe's 1929 obituary shows they were never legally divorced, but from 1898 Zoe called herself Miss/Mrs. Zoe Constance Morgan.

According to Frances Simpson, writing in 1903, the Institution was founded by Mrs Morgan in 1896. In 1896, according to the Westminster Budget, the manageress was the French-accented Mrs. Williams.

Why all the different surnames? After failing to get a divorce, I'm guessing the couple were estranged. Perhaps "Morgan" and possibly "Williams" represented common-law marriages - not uncommon at the time - hiding the fact that she was estranged from Ruttledge.

According to Lloyds Weekly Newspaper of 23rd January 1898, Zoe had been well-known in society until a bicycle accident rendered her "a cripple for life." She probably walked with a cane, or at least with a bad limp.

The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer of 22nd May 1929 reported that Mrs. Zoe Constance Marie Longueville Ruttledge, widow of Capt. John Knox Ruttledge, 2nd Dragoon Guards, left gross estate valued at £3,271.