Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Consider this to be a brief sequel to my recent post about Libelous Tombstones.  I found this story after that post was published.  And it's a goodie.  The "Washington Times," February 25, 1899:

Did you ever visit--when you were in London--the Dogs' Cemetery in Hyde Park? If you ever were there, you will be pained to know that the old custodian, Mr. Woolridge, died last month.

If you do not know the cemetery, listen to the story told by Mr. Woolridge to Mr. G. R. Sims.

It is a tale of petty and malignant vengeance, and we repeat it in Mr. Sims' own words. Over the grave of a cat you will find a pathetic statement to the effect that poor pussy was cruelly poisoned, and, in spite of all that veterinary science could do, died in a few hours in the arms of her broken-hearted mistress. Then immediately beneath this statement you will find inscription in the hieroglyphics of the Third Dynasty, or something of the sort. This will astonish you.

"What on earth," you will say, "has a cat's grave to do with hieroglyphics?" Listen and you shall hear. When the lady buried her beloved cat in the Hyde Park Cemetery, her. heart was filled with bitter hatred of its cowardly assassin. So she cursed that assassin in fine Biblical language.  The curse was carved on the tombstone.  It cursed the murderer in his uprising, and his down-sitting.  It cursed him on earth and it cursed him in hell.  As old Woolridge said, it was the sort of curse that made you blind and took your breath away. 

Now, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, was Ranger of. Hyde Park, and his attention was called to the curse, and George Ranger was shocked. So the officials communicated with the lady and ordered her to remove the cursing portion of pussy's headstone.  Eventually the lady yielded, and the headstone was to be altered.

When it was brought back and set up again the space which the curse had hitherto occupied was filled with ancient hieroglyphics.  But the lady had not abandoned her curse. It was that hardly anybody could read it. She had taken the headstone to the British Museum, engaged the services of a learned professor, and the professor had translated the curse into ancient Egyptian. And so pussy's murderer is still cursed upon pussy's tombstone in the Hyde Park Cemetery.