FEATURE
Twice the food... As the 18th century saw Britain expand trade routes across the globe, the mass of shipping involved relied upon the ship’s cat to control the vermin on board the unwholesome sailing boats. In addition, with increasing populations to be fed at home, an agricultural revolution resulted in ever larger stores of grain and root crops. With food becoming such a valuable commodity merchants and farmers regularly employed a family of felines to ensure mice and rats didn’t eat into profit margins. Populations with a long heritage still exist on many farms today. However, as cats became more popular with the middle classes during the 19th century it was widely thought they would be better at catching vermin if already well-fed by their owners. In 1876, Gordon Stables said, “Oatmeal porridge and milk, or white bread steeped in warm milk, to which a little sugar has
been added, are both excellent breakfasts for puss; and for dinner she must have an allowance of flesh. Boiled lights are better for her than horse-meat, and occasionally let her have fish…” This highlights a social divide amongst cat owners. While cats of the upper classes might be treated to a little poached chicken or fish, a poor household would have to resort to the ‘cat’s meat hawker’ or cat’s meat shop where horse flesh was sold to families who would often feed the cat’s belly better than their children’s. It was said that a cat kept hungry would eat more of the owner’s larder than the vermin and if well fed a cat would ‘take many and eat few’. Whether milk and sugar, or even horse flesh, improved their ability to catch a rat is debateable but it certainly suggests that cats quickly recognised the benefits of submitting themselves to the company of humans.
The Cat Summer 2012
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