These telling images accompany Frances Simpson’s article describing cats and dogs in London in the nineteenth century. The images alone describe the extent to which cats’ and dogs’ lives (and deaths) became of deep interest to bourgeois Londoners.
Homeless cat shelter.
Lost dog shelter (the famous Battersea facility).
Street seller of pet food (likely made of horse meat), attracting the local clientele. Where do these cats keep their moneys?
In the late 19th and early 20th, dogs and other live animals were still usually sold out on the street, not in fancy-schmancy pet stores like we have now.
Dog cemetery in Hyde Park.
Source: Simpson, Frances. “Cat and Dog London.” Living London. Ed. George R. Sims. London, Paris, New York & Melbourne: Cassell & Co., 1902.
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