Tortured With Crabs

Aug. 4, 1902

Animal cruelty, unfortunately, is a permanent feature of the landscape. Cats in olden times were often the butt of mean pranks.

On a ferry from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to 23rd Street in Manhattan, a man who had been out crabbing took an interest in a fellow passenger’s striped feline, a “prize cat” that the owner was taking to his sister in the Bronx.

After convincing the owner to let him hold the cat, the crabber took a crab from his basket and “held it close to one ear of the cat.” The crab grabbed the cat’s ear. The man then attached crabs to the cat’s other ear, its tail, and its sides.

“Then he let the animal go in the women’s cabin,” The Times reported. “One of the wildest scenes ever witnessed on a ferryboat took place.”

The cat survived the ordeal. The crabber was arrested.



