Northern Whig, Thursday 7th April 1932
HE MUST GET BUSY ON THE RODENTS
The cat at the head Belfast Post Office is to have his rations cut down. This is not part of the Government’s economy campaign, but a sequel to a number of successful raids by rodents on postal packets containing seeds.
A large Belfast seed-merchanting concern has recently been receiving a number of seed envelopes gnawed through by rodents and the contents pouring out.
A “Whig” representative was shown a number of these postal packets, and, fearing that the rodents might later develop a taste for news correspondence, he went to the Post Office to see what was going to be done about it.
TOO MANY TIT-BITS
The first official whom he interviewed thought he had the solution to the problem at once. “It’s that confounded cat,” he said. “The cat is so popular with everybody that he is always getting tit-bits, and I suppose he is so well fed that he forgets what he is here for. He’ll get less in the future.”
Mr. A. J. Adern, the postmaster, put it like this: - “Special attention has been directed to the matter, and the usual measures for the extermination of rodents have been applied.”
Mr. Adern also said that exhaustive inquiries had been made, and that there were no grounds for the statement that extensive damage had been done to postal packets. Records showed that isolated cases of damage had occasionally occurred to packed containing grain or seed.
