Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-28 | Page 14 | Hunnish Cats are Put to Death at Local War Prison

Hunnish Cats Are Put to Death at Local War Prison TWENTY-TWO internes in the Third war prison compound at Fort Douglas were executed by the military mil-itary authorities yesterday. The internes were German cats, however, not German men. The executions execu-tions were h,umane in every respect, and this measure was taken as a preventive against the spread of influenza contagion among the human prisoners of war held within the big camp. Cats are known to be carriers of the influenza germ, and the presence of a large number of these animals in the barracks of the German prisoners was a menace which the military mili-tary authorities decided nust be removed, re-moved, and the only method of accomplishing accom-plishing this lay in execution of the cats. As result an order was issued and Captain Cap-tain Earl Price supervised the legal and proper execution of the cats. They were given painless and humane deaths by the us of chloroform. The German prisoners were very fond of cats and every barrack in the compound com-pound had its full quota of "interned" feline pets. l"hese pets crawled over beds permiscuously ,-and became a menace men-ace in view of the influenza situation.