Though cats, like many human beings, do not understand financial systems, there was one feline government employee who took a paw in the making up of the national budget with excellent results to himself. That was Rufus of England, familiarly known as Treasury Bill, who wangled a pay raise of two cents a day in perpetuity out of Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the MacDonald ministry, and said to be the most ruthless, icy, tight-fisted guardian of the state funds that ever ruled in the old Treasury Building in Whitehall, London.
There has always been a cat in the Treasury of England since the days of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry, VIII’s great chancellor, who, being of course a bachelor, made a great companion of his cat. But these cats have something more than social qualities. That rambling block of buildings at No. 10 Downing Street, with paneled walls and shelves stacked with old papers, is a Mecca for rats and mice. It was the job of Treasury Bill and his predecessors to keep the hordes down.
Bill was a noble ratter, but there came a time when he declined. Sir Warren Fisher, Permanent Secretary of H. M. Treasury, noted that he was thin and languid. The matter came up at a meeting of departmental chiefs, and a minute went to the Lords of the Treasury, submitting that Bill’s prewar pay of four cents a day was insufficient to provide a hunting cat with food now that the cost of living had gone up. An increase of at least fifty per centum was recommended.
Their lordships replied that after giving “careful consideration to the case” they were “unable to approve a raise.” Then Bill took charge. Finding Mr. Snowden’s door ajar he walked in and exercised some of those blandishments that cats know so well how to employ. The Chancellor looked at Bill, and his hard gray eye softened. He turned to his desk and made a note: “Treasury vote: approve increase in cat’s pay.”
A well-known London cat was Mike, from 1909 to 1929 one of the keepers of the gate at the British Museum. Black Jack, one of the old-timers, brought the kitten to the Museum entrance in his mouth and left it there without any explanations. Mike lasted, and became a fine ratter. He was not paid in money but in good red meat.
Of course British official cats are not all males. Perhaps Mrs. Pankhurst saw to that, but at any rate lady cats have played their part in official London. There was, for example, Emily of the Home Office, who was picked up in the street by a charwoman, but became so wise and engaging that she always sat in at conferences with the Home Secretary.
The United States Congress makes a special appropriation for the maintenance of the feline guardians of Uncle Sam’s mail. There are many of them, engaged in catching rats in post offices throughout the country. For nearly a score of years Champion Tom, the finest of them all, was stationed in the post-office building at Washington. Tom is dead now, after slaying so many rats that had they been laid in a row they would have stretched across the continent, or so it was said by his admirers.
There are cats in the Department of Agriculture, too, and recently Uncle Sam paid a great compliment to their fastidiousness. He subpoenaed sixteen of them to sit in judgment on some relief beef, the recipients of which had complained that it was not good. When the cats ate it and miewed for more the authorities ruled that the meat was all right.
There were of course many cats serving during the World War, as ratters, or as camp followers providing a little touch and semblance of home for the nostalgic soldiers. Once the British government drafted five hundred cats and sent them to the trenches to be used as barometers to give warning of the approach of gas. Such is the sensibility of cats to all poisonous odors that gas overcomes them before human noses detect it. It was not a pleasant job for the five hundred, and it seems that some of them should have received decorations or some special honor; but perhaps the poor things all perished. The army records do not say.
Prince Edward Island offers a highly specialized career for cats. Only lady cats need apply. This little Canadian province off the coast of Nova Scotia has many fox farms, producing silver fox skins, but the mother foxes have a habit of killing their young. This is where the cats come in. They make admirable wet nurses. The sad thing is that their own babies are drowned, but they get very fond of the little foxes, and they lead pleasant lives on the farms, supporting their husbands in idleness.
I suppose the highest-paid cat known was Bobby, a self-made film player, who died not very long ago of old age at the home of his guardian, Miss Charlotte Delaney, in Los Angeles. Bobby’s mother was just a stray that Miss Delaney picked up on the street fifteen years ago. But Bobby showed talent from his earliest kittenhood, and from the moment that he went on as an extra there was no doubt that he would succeed.
He played beside Gloria Swanson and many other stars, and Miss Delaney watched and guarded his career, as well she might; Bobby drew a good salary, but he remained a simple, unassuming cat.