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Audio of the Show

Date: 09/30/2007

Size: 9 items

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Question of the Day

Question:
"Dr. Hal, dogs are OK, but what use are cats? Did a cat ever do a damn thing to help anyone like dogs are always doing?"
Answer:
I detect a certain prejudice here, just one of those things where people are divided in allegiance and in opinion, like Red and Blue states. Yes, there are many tales (and well-authenticated accounts) that dogs have, like Lassie, performed absolutely heroic deeds in the service of humans. The Faithful Hound's bona fides are too widely known to doubt. But cats, too, have in their own way earned some glory for their species throughout human history. There's the story of Dick Whittington's Cat, for example. In the reign of King Edward the Third, poor-but-honest apprentice Dick Whittington donated his pet cat, which was all he had, to a merchant expedition to a distant land, one where house cats were unknown, as it turned out, so that mice and rats ruled unchecked. When the Cham of Tartary, or whoever it was, saw Dick's cat go into action against these pests, he bought the creature from the captain for an ostentatiously huge sum (think Oriental potentate). This money made it back to Dick, who, to make a long story short, eventually became Lord Mayor of London. Of course, there the cat was just acting true to her own nature, which happened to benefit a human. But how about this-- when Sir Henry Wyatt, an ancestor of mine and a noble at the court of Richard III (1452-1485) was sent to the Tower of London for (trumped-up) "political crimes" (I don't really have the time to go into it now), he was condemned to die the horrible death of starvation. But Sir Henry's faithful pet cat, Flea-Wee, followed him to the Tower and every day crept down through the chimney and brought him a freshly killed pigeon. You can eat them-- when you're hungry enough you can eat just about anything. In this way, Wyatt sustained life for months until the King, hearing of the miracle (of an altruistic cat), relented, indulging royal caprice, and ordered Wyatt released with a full pardon and the restoration of his estates, his lands and cattle. So there you have it.

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