Cat Let’s Face It, I Was Crazy Before The Cats Shirt

Dead cats are sometimes found behind walls in old house, and this isn’t the only mummified moggy in the museum’s collection. Traditionally, it was thought that cats warded off evil spirits, and some may have been deliberately entombed when houses were built, to protect the future inhabitants. Another theory is that dead cats were placed there to frighten off vermin such as mice. No doubt a number of cats, like this one, were either walled up by accident or chased their prey into inescapable spaces.A cats meat man, circa 1900. The cats meat man sold cheap meat as pet food. The meat was unfit for human consumption and often too rotten for pets.Woman walks into a cat and dog’s meat shop, Bishops Bridge Road, Paddington.Cat & dogs’ meat shop, 1935Bishops Bridge Road, Paddington. © Wolf SuschitzkyHere’s another sign of the changing status of cats, from working scavengers to pampered pets. From the mid 1800s, “cat’s meat men” wandered the streets of London, hawking food for cats and dogs door to door. They sold mostly horse meat, rendered down from the hundreds of horses slaughtered in the metropolis every week, once they were too old or sick to work. These feline provisioners bulked out their product with meat too old or diseased to sell to humans, selling it for about 2 and a half pence/lb (about £1.29/lb in 2017 value).

Cat Let’s Face It, I Was Crazy Before The Cats Shirt

Victorian social researcher Henry Mayhew estimated there were 1000 cat’s meat sellers in London in 1861, serving about 300,000 cats, one for every house (allowing for multiple cats in some homes, plus strays). Each cats’s meat seller walked a particular route serving a few hundred households, their approach marked by mewling cats who knew it meant dinner time.he first commercial cat food was sold in London from 1860 by American entrepreneur James Spratt. His “Spratt’s Patent Cat Food” was filled, according to the company’s many advertisements, with nourishing “meat fibrine” sourced from North American buffalo. However, cat’s meat sellers remained a common sight in London into the 20th century, both street hawkers and better-off vendors who could open their ownshopsRoger Mayne.© Paul Trevor. All rights reserved.A boy rubs noses with a dog he holds in his hands. A cat is also zipped up underneath his jacket, BrickLane1980. © Paul Trevor. All rights reserved.s the 20th century went on, Londoners became ever more cat-crazy, even as the city shrank and the industries that had once employed professional mousers declined.