We know you love a good truck spill story, and even better is a truck spill story involving cats. No, the truck didn’t spill cats, but a Brooklyn spill in 1907 drew every cat in the borough to the scene. The turn of the century brought trolley cars to the streets of New York, which were already crowded with motor cars and horse-drawn wagons. On June 29, 1907, a trolley struck Charles Wolfert’s milk delivery wagon in the Bedford Corners neighborhood, overturning it and breaking almost all the milk bottles. What happened next was thoroughly and delightfully described in the Brooklyn Citizen newspaper.
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Working their way inward from all the sides were cats of every description. Spotted cats, cats with Tammany stripes, cats of maltese color, cats of jetty black, and others of spotless white, cats whose outer skin hung close to their ribs and others who showed more plumpness; cats who eked out their daily sustenance by thievery and those which were cast on their own resources by the family leaving for the summer, all were busily engaged in stemming the flood of the white fluid.
The pungent sweetness of the milk permeated the air, and the house cats in the neighborhood sat up and sniffed. Sniffing brought temptation, and cats who had never before strayed from the paths of rectitude stole out to “The Great White Way.” Kitchen corners were deserted, the pussies came forth from under the bed and off the chair. The solaces of old maids forgot everything to wander out whence to the place where the smell arose. In all the finery of belled collars and pink and blue throat ribbons, they left their homes and joined other wayward Toms and Tabbies.
The story describes how the cats gorged themselves on the milk, even swimming in it, and the chaos that followed as vehicles drove through and sent waves of milk over the throng of cats. The newspaper account took up two columns, and the complete story of the feline milk orgy takes two posts at The Hatching Cat, interspersed with the history of the Bedford Corners community.
Source: neatorama