`Sickening spate of poisoning’ leads to death of pets

A woman wrote to the Observer in January 1920 to complain about a sickening spate of poisoning leading to the deaths of her pets.

Jessie Miller-Stirling, Glentirran House, Kippen Station, said between December 31, 1919, and January 6, 1920, no fewer than six cats belonging to her household had been poisoned. Five had died `agonising and lingering deaths’, she said in a letter to the paper.

Two goats - kept for the benefit of a `delicate child’- had died in mysterious circumstances some time earlier, she explained and added: `For the past 18 years, no domestic animal in my possession has been permitted to die a natural death.

During that time my poultry has suffered, many of them dying from the effects of poison, although confined on my own premises.

`I have repeatedly found poisoned meat and other poisoned entrails of rabbit, etc, on my doorstep and also laid in my garden.

`It is difficult to believe such a state of affairs exists in a Christian community. It is no ordinary death that is inflicted on these poor dumb animals but a death as diabolical in its cruelty as any ever perpetrated by the much execrated `Hun.’’

Ms Miller-Stirling said the poisoning had for an 18-month period stopped. She attributed the pause to the military’s use of the village station during World War One.

`The soldiers on guard, patrolling by night, rendered it by no means safe for the poisoner to carry on his usual practice,’she added.

However, it was now `business as usual’as the poisoner had resumed their deadly work and Ms MillerStirling asked if something could be done to `protect the community from this wholesale slaughter of inoffensive creatures in their own homes’.