Drunken Tomcat Leads Detectives to Liquor

1920

Officers Find Felines and Humans in Hilarious Condition

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Confounding those who say that cats will not drink "hard liquor," Harold B. Dobbs, internal revenue agent, avers that a tipsy "Tom," reeling along the street led him and brother officers to a cache of fifty gallons of alcohol and other intoxicating beverages in the cellar of a saloon.

In the place, according to Dobbs, were several more cats, and all hilarious. Moreover, there was a determined effort made by each cat to obtain a share of a dark brown liquid that had leaked from an overturned demijohn on the floor.

Thomas Fitzgerald, proprietor of the saloon, and his bartender, Hugh Leckey, were arrested and charged with violating the prohibition amendment.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.