How to be poor

Ginger was chucked out by my
neighbour. Now he did not even have a place to sleep, so he slept rough during
the summer and early autumn. Then a severe cold spell descended upon us and
Ginger’s health — indeed his very life — was in danger. I built him a little
house of cardboard — I could not obtain a wooden box for the purpose — and
filled it with old clothes and rugs to keep him warm. Anyone who knows anything
about my manual dexterity will not be surprised to hear that my architectural
skill was not enough to protect Ginger from freezing to death. So I had to take
him in. This caused tremendous friction. Jealous Tsi-Tsa’s territory had been
invaded, she was robbed of her monopoly. Ginger was fully aware of this. He was
reticent, modest and apologetic. Now, years later, the two cats are devoted
chums, they love each other and they sleep — sometimes on an armchair,
sometimes on me — embracing each other fondly. Ginger loves Tsi-Tsa with true
Christian love; Tsi-Tsa loves Ginger with the devotion of an ageing female for
athletic youth.

    I could not make a man rich; but I
could make Ginger pretty well off. His life has changed. He has a home; he has
central heating as well as all the emotional warmth he needs. His hair has
become silky, his sores were healed long ago. But memories and the habits of a
deprived childhood linger on: having consumed a huge and epicurean supper with
gluttonous greed, he will sit around while I am having my supper, watching me
with the heart-breaking, hungry look of a cat who has not seen food for a week.
    There is another survival from his
poverty-stricken youth. He is utterly uneducated. We all learnt at school that
cats are carnivorous. Ginger, however, was never taught this. So he eats up all
the vegetables he can find: peas, cauliflower, beans, corn on the cob and
everything else. Tsi-Tsa — a cat with a happier childhood — would not even look
at such things.
    Ginger has also provided a clear
example of how riches can change someone’s character — be that someone a
man or a cat. Tsi-Tsa fell ill and had to spend a longish time in hospital. I
thought Ginger would be upset, missing her badly. I saw very few signs of that.
He was happy as a lark. And when Tsi-Tsa came home at last, Ginger was as
jealous of her — now losing his monopoly — as she used to be of him.
That is how a little money in a saint’s pocket can deduct from his saintliness.
    So much for the poverty of cats. The
poverty of minks is even more of a cautionary and moral tale. This is a complex
story, in three acts.
    There are not too many mink-farms in Britain but there is one in Essex, owned by Mr John Morley. One of the do-goody organisations formed
for the protection of animals decided that the suffering of the minks must be
intolerable. The minks, as we shall see, were not consulted, but these people
knew that minks had been born free and held that they must not languish in
captivity. One night the animal-lovers broke into Morley’s farm and freed
several hundred minks who disappeared in no time in the neighbouring woods.
This caused the greatest possible alarm.
    Not that they behaved badly. Not in
the least. But their reputation proved to be truly awesome. The RSPCA told
people that the act of those so-called animal-lovers was highly irresponsible.
Minks, they said, were dangerous animals — some of the most dangerous of all
animals, in fact, they belong to the ferret family, the wildest and most
vicious of creatures. Taking the ferret’s weight and size into consideration — the
RSPCA explained — the minks were more dangerous than tigers. The ferret — and
the mink — does not only kill the unfortunate otter, which is dying out in any
case, but might attack and kill children.
    This is the first act of the story.
This indubitably well-meant but extremely stupid act, this blow struck for the
Freedom of the Mink, created wild panic in the neighbourhood and mothers lived
in fear for the lives of their children.
    Then an unexpected twist occurred.
The minks failed to attack the children in Essex. A few hours after their
release, when their morning feeding time approached, the little beasts mildly
and obediently returned to the farm. They queued up for a renewed term of
captivity. They came in large groups. Mr Morley refused to believe his own
eyes. But the attitude behind the minks’ decision was only too obvious: they
preferred good room service, proper heating and sufficient and tasty