In this column recently, Alison Healy repeated a calumny against cats first uttered in 1952 in the House of Commons.
When asked by MPs why cats employed by the Royal Mail to hunt mice in sorting offices had not been given a pay rise for 80 years, the assistant postmaster general David Gammans said cats were “frequently unreliable, capricious in their duties and liable to prolonged absenteeism”.
We humans would be scandalised if such a description applied to us; to cats, it is a badge of honour. No animal is so practically useless and yet so indispensable to mankind as felis catus (the house cat).
In Chinese mythology, cats were appointed by the gods to oversee the Earth, but they preferred snoozing to organising. The gods grew tired of their chronic indolence and invited humans to take over.
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So, mankind worked itself to the bones, sweated and toiled while cats went back to sunning themselves while angling for the next treat. Cats have perfected the art of getting what they want when they want without lifting a paw.
Cats were not always regarded as useless. There’s an interesting, if disputable theory, that says cats were important in the transition of mankind from hunter gathering to farming.
The earliest farming communities emerged in the Middle East in the regions bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates river. When human beings began to store grain and grasses in barns, it attracted rodents, a pestilence and a nuisance. Fortunately, where rodents showed up, wild cats were not far away.
The near-eastern and African wild cats were excellent predators. Some time in the far and distant past, man and cat reached an implicit agreement that cats would hunt rodents in return for being spoiled rotten.
Over centuries, they became domesticated and spread throughout the world. There is ample archaeological evidence for this and genetics have determined that modern house cats all descend from a common ancestor which originated in the Middle East.
The Egyptians were so impressed by these low-maintenance but deadly killers that they gave them god-like status. The cat goddess Bastet was a benign presence associated with fertility and prosperity who kept householders safe. It became illegal to kill a cat in ancient Egypt. Dead cats were frequently mummified and put in family tombs.
Cats spread across Europe on the trade routes and became indispensable members of the ancient sailing ships.
Oscar, better known as Unsinkable Sam, exhausted at least three of his nine lives during the second World War
Rodents on board ships were not only a mortal threat to the food supplies but could gnaw through ropes and moorings.
In the late 15th century the shipping rules, Cosnolato del Mare (A manual of maritime law) stipulated that an owner would be held liable for insurance purposes if his cargo was devoured by rats, but “if the master kept cats on board, he is excused from the liability”.
Ships continued to carry cats on board even in the age of steam and their diesel-powered successors. Electricity wires were just as susceptible to rats’ teeth as mooring ropes had been.
Centuries of history came to an end 50 years ago when, in 1975, the Royal Navy banned its ships from carrying animals. By animals, the Navy meant cats primarily, as dogs are not suited to the confines of a ship while other small animals such as gerbils and hamsters were much rarer.
The Royal Navy cited concerns about hygiene as their principal reason for the ban. This was another calumny against cats as any owner will testify that they are among the most fastidious and clean of all animals.
There was a time when cats were not subject to the same international quarantine laws extended to other animals and even in some cases, to humans. The rise of rabies as a terrifying disease worldwide in the 1960s and 1970s made it untenable for cats to go ashore. Severe penalties were imposed on captains who let them out of their sight.
Cats were fondly missed from the lore of the Royal Navy. Oscar, better known as Unsinkable Sam, exhausted at least three of his nine lives during the second World War. He was rescued from the German battleship cruiser Bismarck, which was sunk in May 1941, and then from HMS Cossack, which sunk in October 1941. Sam was then transferred to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which sank a month later.
Coincidentally, both Cossack and Ark Royal were involved in the sinking of the Bismarck. What goes around comes around, but not for Sam. He was found, “angry but quite unharmed”, clinging to a piece of wood after the Ark Royal sinking.
Three sinkings in six months was enough for man or beast. He spent the rest of the war hunting for mice in the offices of the governor of Gibraltar. After the war, Unsinkable Sam was retired to a seaman’s home in Belfast. He died in 1955 at the venerable age, for a cat, of at least 15 years.
