Join the Navy--- And See The World!

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 26

Join the Navy--- And See The World!

Some Hard-Bitten Se&=Cats Who Have Followed the Policy c o o ""Pier-Jumpers” Known From Copenhagen to Nagasaki . . .

HAPTAIN RIDLEY TAYLOR, of the Fabre Line freighter Bankdale, first called the pierjumpers to my attention in Marseilles. We were walking along the docks near a weather-beaten British tramp, which had been loading general cargo for Bombay and was preparing to shove j off. The monotonous clanking of anchor chain forward stopped, and : from the bridge came the command: “Rig in your gangway and let go the head lines.” A grimy black-and-white cat emerged from a pile of crates beside me, darted across my feet, ran up the gangway and disappeared. The animal displayed such amazing agility that I stopped to watch it, and a sea captain friend, noting my interest, explained: “That was a pier-jumper, a sea-rover cat. These are the drifters of the cat family and they roam about the world, changing ships at will. “They are an amazing species. They seem to know instinctively when a vessel is leaving port. I have seen them disappear down the gangway a few minutes after we had docked, and never show themselves again until just before sailing time. And I have heard of them quitting a ship in one port and rejoining it at the other side of the globe. The Club “Sometimes in port you’ll see' a dozen of them congregated at the end of a dock, like sailors just home from a long voyage who have got together to swap yarns or compare the relative merits of their ships. I know of no other animal that hates constraint so much as a cat. In many respects they are remarkably like human <beings.” When the great ports of the world are sleeping these feline sea-rovers are gathering in the shadows of de-j

serted warehouses to celebrate shore leave, writes Warren Irvin in the New York “Times.” There are tabbies from Antwerp and Cardiff, toms from Frisco and Montreal, sly-eyed felines from Rio, Nagasaki and Hong-Kong, from Bangkok, Bombay and Aden. Grizzled and war-scarred veterans who have lost eyes or ears or tails rub noses with half-grown kittens spending their first nights ashore. Old cats, young cats, cats of all colours and breeds; cats who had stood in the cross-trees of barquentines and basked in the tropical sun; cats who have lied from the Arctic blasts to the welcome shelter of engine rooms. Own the Vessel At best, cats are but indifferently submissive to human will. Aboard ship some become great pets, while others behave as though they owned the ‘ vessel and “high-hat” everybody —that is, everybody but the cooks. Cats have been known to stick to one ship for many years and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, desert it for another. Sometimes they will bring companion cats aboard as temporary guests while in port, or as passengers for a voyage. Females sometimes take unto themselves a , tom; and, failing after one or two voyages to rid either the ship or themselves of him, leave that vessel flat. Stories of ship's cats are as plentiful as rats in the ships’ holds. Most ships want them and are glad to have them aboard, for they kill rats and mice which do vast damage to a ship’s cargo. The case of Minnie, the black-and-white pet of the Furness-Bermuda

liner Fort St, George, Illustrates the Stick-to-it-iveness of ships’ cats. Fit teen times Minnie has been ejected from the Fort St. George, principally because of her numerous offsprings but each time she has come back Once a sailor took her to Broadway and Seventy-second Street and bade her a fond farewell, but when the liner entered Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda, a few days later, Minnie appeared on deck. Home-Sick In Fogs Ben Fidd, the veteran watchman at the Cunard Line piers, used to sav that London cats were always home sick in foggy weather, and he would point to Cuthbert, at that time a leader in feline society on the Chelsea piers, as proof of this assertion. “It’s a funny thing,” Fidd would say, “how Loudon cats get homesick in foggy weather. Cuthbert hasn't been the same cat since the foe started here two weeks ago. He’s an homesick I c-an’t even tempt him to eat a nice breakfast of fried fish.” There have been many “pi CT jumpers” who have made for them selves a world-wide reputation. There was a Minnie who selected Montreal as her home port, and who shipped from there to many ports, but always came back. Large families were hei great drawback, also, and she seldom was permitted to make more than one voyage in a ship. No one ever knei what Minnie’s exact mileage was, bat she had been accounted for not once but many times in a score of ports in various sections of the world. How ever, in 1922 Minnie appeared in Mop treal after a long absence, and it looked then as if she would have to stay ashore for good. In fact, only the pleadings of the cook of the West Kir dar had saved her front a gunny sack and the briny deep. One-Eyed Mike

Another famous “pier jumper” was One-Eyed Mike, who showed a prefer ence for the China run from Frisco. Mike was a noted fighter in his day and fragments of his shaggy grey fur had been left behind at every port he touched. One of his ears had been half chewed away at Hong-Kong and an eye had been lost at Manila. While at sea ships’ cats usually sleep in a coil of rope, as if they know they are safe there during a hard blow. Besides the rope gives them something to cling to and the motion of the ship cannot throw, them about whiie they are protected by the encircling coil. Not every cat makes a good sailor. The “pier-jumper,” it appears, like the human sailor, must have a real flair tor the life. A cat that has ODce followed the sea will never be content with life elsewhere. Usually they are well fed and comfortable, for they arc free to go where they choose and select their own ships. Indeed, the lift of a ship’s cat cannot be said to be a dog’s life in any sense of the word.