[SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CATS] (Midland Daily Telegraph, 28th June, 1895)
A society for the protection of cats! No-one with humane instincts will quarrel with the growing desire to prevent brutality and to encourage kindness, but it would appear to most that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was sufficient in its operations and scope to protect "poor pussy." However, the Society for the Protection of Cats is to be called into existence at a forthcoming meeting, and the aim of the new body will be ‘‘to secure the reception, feeding, and shelter of cats found starving, lost, deserted, and unclaimed." Special attention is to be devoted to those unfortunate creatures "forsaken by thoughtless, if not heartless, persons in empty houses." All this is very praise-worthy, and pussy will doubtless benefit much. One is inclined to express a hope that when once secured in these asylums means will be taken to improve the pussy's mind on the subject of music; for there is little doubt that some of the ill-treatment she often receives on a fine moonlit night is to be largely set down to her utterly mistaken ideas as to harmony. When pussy on such occasions becomes involved in a shower of boots, hair brushes, and other things that hurt, it is almost invariably a case of administering punishment where punishment is due. The Society for the Protection of Cats can hardly expect to obtain a verdict against anyone thus demonstrating a desire for peace and quietude during the hours generally given up to slumber.

SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CATS. (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 6th July 1895) - A meeting was held last week at the residence of Mr. A. B. Squire, 24, Weymouth-street, Portland-place, W., at which a number of ladies and gentlemen were present; and it was resolved to found the Society for the Protection of Cats and members were enrolled and a committee elected. Mrs. W. Gordon, of 7, Nevern-road, S.W., was appointed hon. treasurer. Like the Dublin Home for Starving and Forsaken Cats the primary object of the society will be to endeavour to take steps to secure the reception, feeding, and shelter of cats found starving, lost, deserted, and unclaimed (such as the poor cats who are often forsaken by thoughtless, if not heartless, persons in empty houses), until they can be humanely disposed of. However, the precise lines on which the society will work will be discussed at the next meeting to be held on July 9th at 3 p.m., at the same address as before. Any friend who may sympathise with the movement will be welcomed at the next meeting, for which tickets may be obtained free, of the hon. secretary, Miss Rees, the Alexandra Club, 12, Grosvenor-street, W.

IN THE CAUSE OF THE CAT. A TALK WITH MRS. W. GORDON. (Westminster Gazette, 18th July 1895)
It will be surprising to most people (writes our representative) that tabbies have remained so long without a society organised for their special protection. Calverley painted their woes long ago in immortal verse:-
Should ever anything be missed,
Milk, coals, umbrellas, brandy,
The cat's pitched into with a boot
Or anything that's handy.

Naturally, then, when I saw the announcement in the papers that the day of deliverance was at hand, and that a society for the protection of cats was in process of formation, I wrote, asking for an interview, to Mrs. W. Gordon, the hon. treasurer of the organisation.

"We're quite an infant society, you know," said Mrs. Gordon, in answer to an inquiry of mine, "and our objects are in the first place to establish a Home for Cats similar to the Battersea Home for Dogs, and, in the second, to have local receiving houses where cats would be boarded, so as to save us from the miserable spectacle of cats being abandoned when their owners go away to the seaside. We should naturally expect any case of cruelty to be reported to us, so that we might take steps to invoke the activity of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Only yesterday I heard of a cat shut up in an empty house, not far from here. The people had gone away and left it. Yes, it was a lovely cat, and, when found, was expiring. Such people, I think, ought to be dropped upon.

"Another thing," continued Mrs. Gordon, "that I should like to mention in connexion with the Cat Society is this. We hope to arrange with some of the local societies to have an exhibition of cats annually at the same time as the Deanery flower shows, I think they call them. We should give medals and prizes to children who had been kind to cats, and exhibit such animals as had been well cared for. We want, of course, to utilise all existing organisations. We have only been three weeks started. We have not made any public appeal yet, but are on the point of doing so."

"And you expect considerable support?"
"Yes; I hope we shall gain the sympathy, not only of the friends, but of the enemies of cats, because neglected animals are naturally a nuisance to many people. In our cats' Home we shall have a lethal chamber, where diseased cats or animals, which cannot be otherwise humanely dealt with, may be destroyed. Then we shall see how far we can bring the law to bear on persons who deliberately leave their cats about. It's not a mere fad, I assure you, if we are not to continue to have our streets disgraced."

"And from what standpoint do you regard cats and other animals, Mrs. Gordon?"
"I have a theory," said the hon. treasurer of the Society for the Protection of Cats, "that when we have an animal living with us, our mind acts on the mind of the animal, and that we raise that animal by thought transference, so that it is an animal raised to a higher level than when it came to live with us."

The President pro tem. of the new society is Mr. Balmanns Squire, of 94, Weymouth Street, and the Hon. Secretary, Miss Ellis, of the Alexandra Club. It has already evoked manifestations of sympathy.

SOCIETY FOR PROTECTION OF CATS (The Los Angeles Evening Express, 8th September, 1896)
The Society for the Protection of Cats, founded a little over a year ago in London, has recently had a formal opening under the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. An isolated stable on a quiet street has been secured for the lost, maimed and sick felines and the plans for the near future include four rooms upstairs and two stables, coach houses and a yard. As soon as possible a lethal chamber will be constructed, where poor cats which are on the verge of death from abuse, accident or natural illness may be painlessly removed from this vale of tears. One part of the building has been put aside for the use of boarders, who in the absence of their owners, will be cared for at moderate prices, The home will be opened for inspection at stated periods, but no cat will be allowed to leave the institution until an ample guaranty is given of a safe and comfortable home in the future. Especial efforts will be made to keep any cat from falling into the hands of a vivisector.

SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CATS (The Queen, 30th October 1897)
This useful and much-needed society, of which the Duke and Duchess of Bedford and Lord Warkworth, M.P., are the patrons and active supporters, was started two years ago with the object of seeking to rescue starving and forsaken cats from the streets of London; to procure good homes for such as are healthy, and to painlessly destroy those that are diseased and for whom no homes can be found. In order to efficiently carry out this humane work it is necessary to establish homes in the outskirts of the town, which, it is hoped, may in course of time be partially supported and managed by local residents, and where, also, it is purposed, in addition to the objects already stated, to provide accommodation for boarders during the temporary absence of their owners. The society has already opened one such home at 5, Wendell-road, Askew-road, Shepherd's Bush, to which any stray cat, packed securely in a ventilated basket, may be sent by Picford's or Carter Paterson's vans, a postcard being at the same time sent to the caretake of this home. Visitors are admitted any day, except Sunday, between 2.30 and five o'clock. Any further particulars will be gladly supplied by Mrs. W. Gordon, hon. Treasurer, 7, Nevern-road, Earl's Court, S.W.

POOR PUSSY. (Englishwoman's Review, 15th July 1898)
The London Society for the Protection of Cats. - The Annual Meeting of this Society was held on June 4, at the house of the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. W. Gordon, 7, Nevern Road, Earl's Court, W. The chair was taken by Lady William Lennox, and interesting speeches were given by the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Gordon, Mr. Colam, Secretary to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and others. The Society has established one home at 5, Wendell Road, Askew Road, W., where lost and deserted cats are received, and pet cats taken as boarders in their owners' absence. Every effort is made to find good homes for the strays; where this is impossible they are mercifully destroyed, as well as the hopelessly diseased and suffering. The home is under the charge of a caretaker, who is responsible for the good order and care of the animals. The cause is truly worth the support of all who desire to effectively protect dumb creatures from the agonies of starvation, or the wanton cruelties to which homeless cats are too often subjected. It moreover appears that the cat, by reason of its extreme nervous sensibility, is an especial victim of the scientific cruelties of vivisection. "We have no wish to harrow the feelings of our readers by the repetition of terrible details; but we feel certain that if what we have heard at the Society's meeting could be generally known, the cats' homes would not lack support, even from those who may not be enthusiastic admirers of pussy, but who wish to defend all helpless things from torture. Other homes with a similar object are Mrs. Williams, at 80, Park Hill Road, Hampstead, N.W.; and one at College Park, Harrow Road, Willesden; also one started thirteen years ago by Miss Swift, in Dublin. Miss Swift, we may remark, is actually the pioneer of the work, and has carried on her benevolent efforts on behalf of the cats, in the face of much undeserved ridicule and difficulty to the present time. It is hoped soon to start another home in connection with the London Society, if sufficient funds can be procured.

Mrs. Gordon's benevolence towards animals extended beyond cats, and sometimes aided people who had rescued animals and who, in her view, had been treated unfairly, as this cutting demonstrates: Mrs. Alice Gordon, of 7, Nevern-road, Earl's-court, S.W., the Hon. Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Cats, asks us to state that she has received subscriptions, amounting altogether to £5 6s., which will be forwarded to the working-man Aries, who was recently fined at the Worship-street Police-court for not having taken out a dog licence. It will be remembered that Mr. Aries rescued the dog, which was homeless, and finding it was suffering from a broken leg, attended to the injured limb, and kept the animal for five weeks, at the end of which time it had recovered, and a home was provided for it. Whilst it was under treatment, however, an Inland Revenue officer discovered that Mr. Aries had no licence for the dog, which he had merely taken to his own home out of compassion, and for this innocent and technical breach of the law he was subjected to police-court proceedings and fined. Mrs. Gordon's list contains the names of some 23 subscribers, whose contributions will be acknowledged privately. (The Standard, 6th April, 1900.)

WHERE TABBY IS SAFE – Detroit Free Press, 1st October, 1899
London has a House of Refuge for Cats and a Palatial Boarding Establishment for Better Favored Felines.
By Curtis Brown

LONDON. September 22. - "Chinese" Gordon's sister-in-law, Mrs. William Gordon, a kind-hearted, business-like woman, who was 60 on her last birthday, mounts her bicycle every morning and spins from Earl's Court out to Shepherd's Bush, one of the western suburbs of London, to superintend an enterprise that has no parallel in England, and for the like of which benevolent persons In America yearn in the public prints every summer. The Shepherd's Bush establishment is a cat's boarding house, which from modest beginnings has grown to be entirely self-supporting. With this is combined a semi-official cat's poorhouse. The boarding-house gives first-class accommodation to ultra-fashionable tabbies whose owners have gone out of the city. Here, the cuisine is unexceptional, and the most exclusive cat will not lack congenial society. At the "house of refuge." however, pussies who have met with reverses are received and provided with good food and lodging scot free.

According to the municipal statistics, about 5,800 cats are killed in London every year, most of them either homeless ones pure and Simple, or abandoned pets found diseased and dying in empty houses or out-of-the-way places. It was in the hope of amending this state of things that Mrs. Gordon founded her Society for the Protection of Cats - of which Lady William Lennox Is the president - in July, 1896. Her plan then was simply to provide a place where these poor forsaken mousers could be cared for until homes were found for them, but the boarding-house branch was added soon, and now the latter Is crowded with refined cats and is rather more than paying expenses, while the shelter is so popular with the masses that the woman who takes charge of it and its tenants told me she never had any time to herself "at all, at all."

Everybody in Shepherd's Bush knows all about the "boarding house" and the "home." Everybody seems to take a good deal of justifiable pride in the institutions, too, for dignified policemen and ragged gamins alike vied in directing me to the "shelter." It was unmistakable, even if it had not been for the gay sign outside, the sight of which probably has cheered the heart of many a broken-spirited puss, and which read "A Home tor Starving and Forsaken Cats."

The long room was a bewildering array of padded wicker baskets and bowls of bread and milk. Mrs. Foster said that the cats get milk for breakfast and bread and milk for luncheon, while another milk course in the afternoon serves them as a sort of 5 o'clock tea, and at 7 In the evening there is meat all round. Bedtime comes at 8 o'clock and Mrs. Foster sees that every cat is in its basket after "taps" have sounded.

"Indade, It's a great reform we're bringin' about," said Mrs. Foster, "an' sure we expect both the frinds and inimies of cats to be wid us, for who won't be glad to hear that they're gradually bein' cured of their prowlin' around at night. I'd like to know."

Many of the cats are brought in by children, but more arrive by express from all directions. A contract has been made with the two great express companies of London that any cat delivered to them shall be conveyed to the home for sixpence. This makes it easy for anyone who sees a forlorn cat wandering about to befriend without actually adopting it, and Mrs. Foster says that the public is beginning to take an interest In the work. Letters and telegrams regarding suffering and needy pussies reach Mrs. Gordon in shoals every day, and each case is looked into carefully. Of course, a good many persons who simply want to get rid of their pets dump them upon the society, but admission to the home is never refused, and the society does as much advertising as its means will permit that more people may know of the home. Every effort is put forth by those in charge to provide homes for the cats that are taken in, and in the last year over one hundred pussies have thus been "assisted" from the gutter to the family hearth.

How high the hopes of Mrs. Gordon's proteges reasonably may rise will be judged when it is known that one of the "strays" was bought for a handsome sum by Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford, and the once homeless one is leading a life of luxury at Woburn. Mrs. Gordon makes it a rule to investigate carefully every family that offers to receive one of the rescued tabbies, and no cat goes out of the home until Mrs. Gordon is convinced that it is going to be happy.

The society is aiming in time to solve the stray-cat problem by striking at the root of the trouble, and to this end, when kittens are born at the home, only the males are kept. The females are put to death painlessly in the lethal chamber just behind the large room where the cats live. Here, too, injured cats are put out of the way, also those having contagious diseases. To the departed is given a decent burial in a cemetery set apart for the purpose, grave-digger and undertaker being combined in the person of a large man who for a salary attends to these last sad rites.

The boarding house, in another part of the village, proved to be much more pretentious, and here also cats were the first thing that met one's eye. All of what in America would be called the "front yard" of the house at No. 5 Wendall road has been inclosed with wire netting, and inside the creme de la creme of fashionable catdom were on parade. Vastly different from their poor brethren were these sleek, well-set-up tabbies, tortoise shells, Russian blues, with here and there a haughty Persian, manifestly conscious of the fact that 75 cents a month is paid for their board instead of the 60 cents which is the usual rate at the boarding house. Almost every cat here wore an ornamented collar, or at least a bit of ribbon; there were no torn ears here, and the coat of each was smooth and glossy.

These pampered cats have the entire attention of a caretaker and her daughter. Each cat has a cage to itself, and all their food is cooked on the premises. There are fifty-eight cats in the boarding house, and they have come from all over the United Kingdom. When a cat comes in his or her name is entered in a formidable-looking day-book, and the owner leaves full instructions as to care, which are followed to the letter. The cats are usually homesick at first, and refuse to eat. The nostalgic tabby is tempted with the most alluring dainties, such as thick cream, chicken, fish - even beef tea.

"The veterinary surgeon calls twice a week," the caretaker said, "and one of the rules of the house is that we shall be allowed to expend $1.50 for treatment, if necessary, while waiting to hear from the owner. The disease with which we have most trouble is influenza, and as soon as a cat takes it it is removed from the others and put in the hospital. Come and see."

The hospital was in a smaller room, the temperature of which was about 90 (Fahrenheit). A fire was burning merrily in a small stove in the center of the room, and three baskets containing cats were not far from it. As we came in one of the cats coughed like a New Yorker in an elevated train, and Mrs. Bryant, the caretaker took down a bottle from a shelf, poured out a teaspoonful in a businesslike way and gave it to the cat who took it down without making a face. The label on the bottle read "Cat medicine - one spoonful every four hours." Besides the cats near the fire, there were several others in cages, all of them looking rather doleful.

"They have the best of everything," Mrs. Bryant went on. "I have used twenty-four newly laid eggs for them to-day. They take them best when they are beaten up into a froth. We give brandy, too; it's the most strengthening thing they could have; it brings them right along. We give it to them mixed up in a little essence or extract. Our doctors give their services free, charging only for the medicine which they supply."

"A cat's just like a child – you spoil them just as easily. The sort of cat that is ugly and that I have the most trouble with isn't the cat that has lived in a big family and that the children have played with; it's the cat that some old maid has had and petted and coddled until it thinks there is nothing good enough for it. And some of the cats here are really exclusive and won't mix with the others at all. I make it a point to learn each cat's name as it comes in, and to make friends with it. Some of them are wonderfully homesick at first. There's one. He's been here two days now and hasn't eaten a thing."

She pointed overhead where a jet black cat was crouching on one of the highest beams and staring down at us with big yellow eyes. Then we went out, and I took a picture of the house with some of the big fat tabbies sunning themselves outside. They say care killed a cat once, but evidently it wasn't the kind of care that these cats are getting.

"Every morning," she continued, "each cat's cage is washed down with pure carbolic acid, and entirely fumigates with sulphur. Each cat has its breakfast, and then they have their faces and eyes washed, and their coats combed and brushed until they shine. They're not quarrelsome, but awfully jealous. After I've handled one of them and go to another's cage the second cat will snarl and spit fearfully just because he can smell the other on my apron."

We were interrupted by the arrival of a portly old Englishman bearing a wicker basket, and with two stylishly dressed little girls at his heels. They had just come back from the mountains and wanted Tom, who had been put out to board while they were away. Tom was duly looked up on the book, and as duly produced, to be greeted with shrieks of delight by the children, and was kissed and patted vigorously, apparently much to his disgust. However, he suffered a further loss of dignity by being put into the basket, against which highhanded proceeding he fought; and, the old gentleman having paid for his board, he was borne off in triumph.

"One of the best things that this home accomplishes," Mrs. Bryant said, "is in saving many a cat from vivisection. Probably half the pet cats that disappear from their homes are stolen to be tortured in this way, and the reason is that a pet cat is easier to catch than a stray one. We used to have the stray cats and those that we took to board all together, but one of the strays brought in a disease, and after that the home on Gransden road was started. Mrs. Gordon has still another home, though a smaller one, at Hempstead, and we are going to open another at Kilburn."

BOARD FOR PUSS. WHO WANTS AN INTERESTING AND PROFITABLE OCCUPATION? (Morning Leader , 18th July 1900)
Every year when preparations for summer holidays come round, the same old question crops up, "What can we do with the cat?" Years ago, it must be confessed, very few people minded much what became of their little pet and plaything daring the holiday. They shut up their houses, went off to the seaside to have a good time, and left poor puss to the mercy of a neighbor or to fish for itself, on the notion that a cat can always take care of itself. Often it died of starvation. This kind of thing, however, is gradually becoming past history. But the question what to do with the cat is still a difficult one. Mrs. Gordon, the hon. sec. of the society for the Protection of Cats, suggests that private people with a big sunny garden should take in a few puss boarders during the holiday months.

"The people must be real lovers of cats though," said Mrs. Gorden to a "Morning Leader" representative, "and they must not have too many. Six of eight would give no trouble to anyone fond of pets, and if the people were not well off these boarders might be a good help to them. All that is necessary is to wire off a part of the garden where the cats can run about or sit in the sun, and eat and sleep. Of course everything must be very clean and comfortable. Folks could have boarders in this way and the neighbors not know there were any cats about.

"I am now inundated with letters from people who want to board out their cats and Ido not know where to place them, for I have shut up the boarding house we had for cats almost solely on account of discase. I carried it on for four years and had as many as 50 there at a time, valuable cats, too, most of them. The trouble always when there are a large number of cats at one place, unless the spot is literally flooded with sun, is disease. Disease is latent in cats much more than in dogs and one cat will arrive and leave the place without showing any signs of disease, yet it will have left it behind for some other cat to foster and develop.

"You know cate are attached not only to their owners, but to their surroundings also, and when they are removed they get so depressed that they are generally in a ripe state to become ill at the slightest opportunity. I used tr charge half-a-crown a week for English cats and three shillings for Persians, and found folks always very ready to pay it."

In 1900, Mrs Gordon gave an interview that gives an insight into some of her personal belief, going beyond being kind to cats and strays into the metaphysical.
ARE CATS IMMORTAL? POSSIBILITY OF THEIR BECOMING HUMAN AS TIME GOES ON. (Dundee Evening Post, 8th December 1900)
Are cat immortal? Mrs. W. Gordon, who devotes a large part of her life to cats, sees no reason to doubt it. Mrs. Gordon is hon. Secretary of that excellent institution, the Society for the Protection of Cats. She is the organizer of the Home for Starving and Forsaken Cats (boarders taken), and she is the authoress of a treatise on "The Management of Cats in Sickness or in Health." Mrs. Gordon ought to know, if anybody does, whether cats live forever or whether they do no. The keystones of her faith in this matter are influence and the conservation of energy as applied to cats.

"Everybody know," she was kind enough to say to a press representative the other day, "that by kindness and by taking pains you can train a cat to a high level of intelligence and affection. In other words, you endow that cat with a distinct personality. Don't tell me that when that cat dies the personality which it has acquired goes back into the common stock, so to say, of feline intelligence, that it is in this respect not different from a cat which has never experienced humanizing influence. Such a proposition is discountenanced by all that we know of the conservation of energy in the universe. Far more likely, it seems to me, is that the human qualities of intelligence, affection, and so forth which a cat has acquired are perpetuated an evoluted, so to speak, until they reach the higher plane, and in the course of ages reappear in human beings. I believe that the time may come when there are no lower animals on the earth, but only human beings, just as the ante-diluvian reptiles have disappeared."

SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CATS. (The Queen, 5th January, 1901) - TO ANYONE who has passed a summer in London and has been moved with pity at the sight of the neglected, hall-starved cats left to haunt, like dreary ghosts, their temporarily deserted homes, the raison d'itre of the above society is not far to seek. Its object, as the third annual report, just issued , states, is to protest by its existence against the ill-treatment to which cats have been cruelly, if thoughtlessly, subjected, by being turned out into the street when their owners are out of town. The effect of the efforts made by the society is, one learns with pleasure, beginning to make itself felt, judging from the number of applications received to house and provide for cats while families to whom they belong are away from home. This is done at the Home, Gordon Cottage, Argyle-place (near 118), King-street, Hammersmith, where homeless cats may be sent at any time without notice, and where stray cats are also received and cared for until it is decided that they should be put out of their misery, or till a home can be found for them. The work for stray cats has been very successfully carried on and, as it is now known that good cats are often to be obtained at the home, numbers are happily disposed of to kind owners. Visitors are welcome any afternoon between two and five at the home, and all information with regard to the society is to he obtained from the hon. secretary, Mrs W. Gordon, 7, Nevern-road, South Kensington, S.W., who will gratefully welcome any contributions towards the funds of this humane undertaking.

CAT THAT WASTED AWAY. UNFOUNDED CHARGE OF CRUELTY. (Nottinghamshire Guardian, 28th December, 1901)
(Mrs. Gordon was an expert witness)
At West London on Saturday Miss Elizabeth Surties Cook, who resided in Wingate-road, Ravenscourt Park, appeared for the third time to answer a summons at the instance of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for cruelty to a cat, the property of Miss Rose, of Windermere, who placed the animal in her care. Mr. Sidney Clark supported th summons, and Mr. H.S. Ludlow defended. The case for the prosecution was to the effect that three cats were places in the care of the defendant, who had a home for cats. One cat was a blue Persian called Bluey, and it was alleged that it died from starvation on the 3rd of November. It was also alleged that the cat was in a healthy condition at the time it was placed in the care of the defendant.

In opening the case for the defendant, Mr. Ludlow said the allegation against her was a cruel calumny, originating in petty malice. According to the expert evidence called by Mr. Ludlow cats were liable to wasting diseases precisely similar to that of starvation. One gentleman stated that cats were the "funniest animals" the profession had to deal with. Among the wasting diseases was that of "pernicious anaemia." The witness alleged that hy could not tell the difference between "pernicious anaemia" and starvation.

The defendant gave advice stating that the cat when it came to her was extremely thin and had a voracious appetite. At the time she had 14 cats in her charge. For breakfast the cats had prepared oats boiled with milk and water, or bread and milk; at mid-day, for dinner, cats' meat, a good meal, sometimes raw meat – beefsteak when the cats were ill. They were given milk and rice at five o'clock, and fish for supper. After a time she noticed that the cat was wasting away. She received no remuneration. The arrangement was that she should have the kittens.

Mrs. Gordon, wife of Major General Gordon, and hon. Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Cats, was called to state that the treatment of cats by the defendant was satisfactory. Mr. Rose came to the conclusion that the defendant did not starve the cat, wither from wilfulness or carelessness. He dismissed the summons.

MR LOUISE WAIN AND CATS. (London Daily News, 29th May, 1902.)
That staunch friend of the cat, Mr. Louis Wain, was in his proper place yesterday in presiding over the annual meeting of the Society for the Protection of Cats, held yesterday at Mrs. Gordon's Home for lost and starving ones, 7, Nevern-road, Earl's Court. He complimented Mrs. Gordon on the patience with which she had gradually built up a real home for the poorest of London's dumb brute creation – the cat. The earliest efforts at animal rescue had, he continued, produced little better than animal workhouses, but it was by such whole-hearted work as Mrs. Gordon's that a more humane condition of things had been brought about. It was a common thing for people to say: "Why pay o much attention to animal life when there are so many people needing help?" The answer was very simple. All lessons in life teaching in any way the blessings of humanity helped to perfect the domesticity of our times, and to ennoble to finer characteristics of the people. The love of an animal brought people of different temperaments and professions together in their endeavours to protect and help their pets, and in this unconscious welding of different classes of society in mutual friendship and respect must in the end lead to a more happy and contented condition for all. If they looked ack twenty years, they would note that numberless charities and societies had been brought to life, largely through the personal efforts of the King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family, to foster and help all organized charity. He hoped that all present would see the importance of the good work, and would heartily join in Mrs. Gordon's efforts to carry the Cats' Home yet another step towards perfection.

MIAU-MIAU! (Pall Mall Gazette, 24th September,1902)
[BY A FRIEND OF FELINES]. It was a piteous little puss, with tousled fur, arched back, and humbly lifted paw, with plaintive mew – that plainly spoke neglect, in a word – one of London's many thousand dumb and plaintive waifs, that first led me to my acquaintance with Gordon Cottage, Argyle-place, Hammersmith, that haven of refuge, not only for many a poor, half-worried-out-of-its-life and starving cat, but one where "paying guests" may live in luxurious ease, or feline invalids recoup, as the case may be. It will soon be eight years since the Society for the Protection of Cats was quietly inaugurated at a drawing-room meeting. At the present time, however, its position is securely established, and its usefulness fully proved by the steadily increasing annual calls made upon it for succour and advice.

There was no mistaking I had "struct the right place" – no doubt about it, as, with poor puss sorrowfully mewing inside a hamper on a messenger boy#s back, I turned down a narrow lane off the King's-road. Cats welcomed us singly and in chorus, from a select "parlour boarder" of a Persian – seated with an air of exclusiveness upon the window-sill – to the common or garden "stray" that prowled about the wired-in enclosure, probably happier than he'd ever been in any of his previous lives.

Eighty cats, more or less, are here established in this cats' paradise/ "And yet," the kindly matron told me, "I have to destroy something like seventy and more a week – and, indeed, it often goe to my heart to do it; they are so clinging and affectionate, and have such loving ways!" Eighty cats! And yet the place is a sweet as possible, and as "swept and garnished" as the most fastidious owner could desire – that must surely mean some work? "Work!" laughed the matron; "we're at it from morning till night!" and she threw open the door of the "parlour boarders' " residence, wherein lodge in friendly unison priceless Persians and humbler feline folk, with special "cages" reaching from floor to ceiling for such as it is deemed wiser to separate during their stay. Here dwells the doyen of the establishment, severely black, of mien discreet, with manners dignified as befits one of his standing, for is he not a life-pensioner? Already thirteen years of age, it is true, but likely yo "prove tough," like the proverbial annuitant! Another cat pointed out to me as deserving of special notice belongs to a police-constable, who before departing on his holiday brought Thomas here, and besought the matron's care on his pet's behalf (and "Bravo! Man in blue," say I). The cages above mentioned are admirably constructed, according to a special design of the indefatigable hon. Secretary, Mrs. W. Gordon. Below is pussy's bedroom with some two or three shelves fixed above, to each of which she can spring from the other; these form spaces for her food or foothold for her antics, while all are wired in and airy, scrubbed out each day with disinfectants, and the floor strewn with sawdust, which, by the way, the matron advocates as a valuable antiseptic.

Then there is the hospital. Cages full of sorry, sad-eyed sufferers, many, however, on the way to health and riotous spirits once more. Cats are, however, far more delicately-constituted than is generally imagined, and the proverbial "nine lives" are indeed very much of a myth. Sometimes a petted cat will come to "board," and fret itself to a little "bag of bones." Sometimes it will die, and a post-mortem examination will prove that all its organs are sound – it has just "fretted for its friends;" and yet these are creatures many a thoughtless householder turns out to shift for themselves as best they can while he takes his holiday! The most frequent complaints that come to the home for timely treatment are canker, bronchitis, distemper, and gastritis. A valuable blue Persian – Zoroaster by name – a champion with the "blood of five champions" in his veins, a person in every way worthy of having his pedigree recorded in a cat's "Almanach e Gotha," was shown me, as suffering from the last of these maladies; he was, however, distinctly on the mend, as evinced by the basso-profundo roar in which he purred his courteous welcome.

And lastly, it is my painful duty to chronicle those doings in the "morgue," where pussies – mercifully and painlessly put to death – await removal for cremation, this last act to their little bodies being performed at a cost of threepence each! The "death chamber," a spacious box large enough to hold several poor things, has a glass lid. Puss enters fearlessly; there is just a little chloroform put in first, enough to engender "sleep." And when thus lulled in peaceful slumber, the box is gently opened and a stronger dose inserted. And so out little friends pass away from pain and sorrow, for who shall say that a cat has not its sorrows in a rather had-hearted world?

I could add many more items of interest respecting the work of mercy, but that my space is limited. Suffice it to say that the visitors book records the "Grateful thanks" of many a master as well as mistresses (for, as the case of our kindly police-constable conclusively proves, all cat lovers are not necessarily "old maids!"); while, furthermore, its humane efforts have the enthusiastic support of Mr. Louis Wain. Now, what more can any cat on the face of this earth desire?

A TAX ON CATS (Manchester Evening News, 13th August,1903)
"We should like to suggest," says the "Herald of the Golden Age," "to the executive of the National Society for the Protection of Cats, and also of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that much cruelty might be prevented by presenting a petition to the President of the Board of Agriculture requesting that the feline race should be taxed. This is the only method of really striking at the root of this evil, for whilst cats are allowed to breed in our cities ad libitum they will continue to swarm in the courts and alleys, to suffer starvation and maltreatment, and to destroy the nocturnal slumbers of ¢he citizens with their doleful lamentations. A half-crown tax would soon lessen the number and ensure better treatment for those who obtain responsible protectors."

LIFE IN A CATTERY (London Daily News, 8th April 1907) Not many people are aware that in one of the turnings off King-street, Hammersmith, within sound of the electric-cars, lies the headquarters of the Society for Protection Cats. Here cats of all ranks may always find a haven of rest. With her wants catered for by a caretaker who fully understands feline peculiarities, life at Gordon Cottage, as the cattery is called, is one long dream of bliss for pussy. Those who are in charge of the home take "boarders," but, apart from a better-appointed sleeping apartment, the "boarders" are accorded no special privileges.

One would think that with so many cats (there are dozens of them) the equanimity of Gordon Cottage would now and again be disturbed be slight differences of opinion, which generally end in an energetic display of vocal power, but this is not the case, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses are never rudely awakened from their slumbers by a touching moonlight serenade. At Gordon Cottage the guests rise between five and half-past six o'clock. At seven they partake of a meal of bread and milk, after which some promenade in a specially prepared recreation ground, and others indulge in a nap. At eleven there in another feast of milk, and an hour or two afterwards comes dinner, generally consisting of boned fish and rice. In the course of the afternoon, should pussy feel hungry, she may partake of cats' meat washed down with milk. No wonder the cats look sleek at Gordon Cottage. Cleanliness receives careful attention; every room is thoroughly disinfected, and pussy's bed of straw is changed frequently.