Shortly after the cat was innocently mentioned in a newspaper article, riots erupted across neighboring Pakistan, where the feline’s name was taken as an insult to Islam. American facilities were stoned, U.S. personnel were attacked in the streets, and mullahs across the country called for Galbraith’s head. “I do not think the Pakistanis were particularly sensitive,” Galbraith wrote in his memoirs. “In the darker reaches of our Bible Belt, there would have been criticism of a Pakistan ambassador who, at a moment of friction between our two nations, had, however innocently, named his dog Jesus.”
The crisis was finally ended when the diplomat explained, repeatedly and at great length, that the kitten was in no way, shape, or form named after a person—especially a religious prophet. Furthermore, to defuse any subsequent misunderstandings, it had been renamed Gujarat. Thus, with a meow rather than a roar, the incident faded away. “Amateurs will never understand how much can turn on the name of a kitten,” an amused Galbraith wrote.
SMUDGE
THE CAT WHO JOINED A UNION
In Europe, it can be very hard to get ahead without belonging to a union. Such was the case for one beleaguered employee of the People’s Palace, a museum and indoor conservatory located in Glasgow, Scotland. The worker in question was a former stray cat named Smudge. From 1979 until her retirement in 1990, she worked as the facility’s mouser. Smudge became a celebrity, serving as the spokescat for various local groups and issues and lending her face to museum gift shop items ranging from ceramic statues to T-shirts. In 1987, when she vanished for three weeks, pleas from local dignitaries, including the Lord Provost of Glasgow, led to her discovery and return.
But Smudge’s greatest claim to fame was her union card. First the museum staff put her up for membership in the National and Local Government Officers Association as a blue collar worker, but she was rejected. So instead she signed on with the General, Municipal and Boilermakers Trade Union, which happily included her in its ranks. She remained a staunch supporter of organized labor until her death in 2000.
HUMPHREY
ENGLAND’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL CAT
English prime ministers have a long history of sharing No. 10 Downing Street with felines. There’s more to it than mere affection, however. The sprawling government complex has something of a rodent problem, so the cats have always earned their keep.
A mouser named Humphrey was no exception. Found by a civil servant and named after a character on the popular British television show Yes, Minister, he started work in 1988 during the Margaret Thatcher administration, replacing a recently deceased tomcat named Wilberforce. For a government stipend of 100 pounds per year, Humphrey made life as hard, and as brief, as possible for the building’s vermin. He served throughout the Thatcher administration and straight through that of her successor, John Major.
It was good that Humphrey had work to serve as a distraction from the numerous crises and controversies swirling around him. In 1994, the press accused him of killing a nest full of robin chicks that occupied a window box outside Major’s office. The government, adopting peculiarly strong language, called the charges “libelous.”
That was nothing compared with what happened in June 1995, when Humphrey suddenly vanished. The situation grew so grim that on September 25 the prime minister’s office issued a memo lamenting the cat’s assumed death. But shortly thereafter he turned up at the Royal Army Medical College, where he’d been adopted as a presumed stray and renamed PC (short for Patrol Car).
The most serious dustup took place when Major’s conservative government was replaced by the administration of Tony Blair. Rumors quickly spread that the new prime minister’s wife, Cherie, either didn’t like Humphrey or was allergic to him. Finally, in November 1997 it was announced that the cat had been given to an anonymous elderly couple so that he could enjoy his “retirement.” This in turn sparked stories that Humphrey had been euthanized—a tale that was squelched only when photos of him standing beside some current newspapers were taken at his new (and secret) residence.
The various controversies faded when Humphrey went to his final reward in March 2006. Happily, throughout his eventful tenure, the veteran mouser remained blissfully oblivious to it all.
BLACKIE
THE CAT WHO COULD TALK—AND SUE
U.S. law books are filled with groundbreaking civil rights cases. One of the most entertaining concerns a talented black cat from South Carolina. According to his owners, Carl and Elaine Miles, they acquired him at a rooming house in the late 1970s, when a girl with a box of kittens asked if they wanted one. “I said no, I didn’t want one,” Carl recalled during court testimony. “As I was walking away from the box of kittens, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘Take the black kitten.’ I took the black kitten, knowing nothing else unusual or nothing else strange about the black kitten.”
But things would soon get very unusual. A few months later Carl, inspired by what he called “the voice of God,” became convinced that the kitten was attempting to talk to him. So he tried to help the process by developing what amounted to a speech therapy program for cats. First he taped the sounds Blackie made, then played them back to him. He also encouraged his pet to watch his master’s lips as he spoke.
This effort paid off. The cat began, haltingly, to “talk” at six months. Shortly thereafter it could utter a grab bag of phrases clearly enough to become of interest to promoters. He talked (for a fee) on radio and television, and even made an appearance on the network program That’s Incredible.
But then the feline thespian’s fame subsided. By May 1981, the Mileses were reduced to exhibiting Blackie on the streets of Augusta, Georgia, where he would say things like “I want my mama” and “I love you” to passersby in exchange for handouts. Unfortunately, the local constabulary was less than charmed and insisted that the couple purchase a $50 business license. They complied, but then sued the city, stating that the law didn’t specifically mention talking animals. This was enough to make the case interesting. But then the Mileses went on to assert that the fee violated their right to free speech and association. Not just theirs, but Blackie’s too.
It was an interesting argument, to say the least, and one that might have eased the lives of noisy alley cats and chatty Siamese everywhere had the courts agreed with it. Unfortunately—though, perhaps, predictably—they didn’t. The couple lost their case in district court, which stated that even though Augusta’s business ordinance didn’t specifically mention talking animals, what the Mileses did was certainly a business, and therefore in need of a license.
The case was then kicked upstairs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District. It, too, agreed that the couple needed to pay Augusta the contested $50. And in a footnote, the three-judge panel saw fit to address the issue of Blackie’s free speech rights, such as they were—or, in this case, weren’t. “The Court will not hear a claim that Blackie’s right to free speech has been infringed,” they said. “First, although Blackie arguably possesses a very unusual ability, he cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights. Second, even if Blackie had such a right, we see no need for appellants to assert his right jus tertii [as a third party]. Blackie can clearly speak for himself.”