[CAT] On Torontonian Harry Welton's cat circus

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist recently noted the historical contribution made by one Torontonian, Harry Welton, and his cat circus of the mid-1890s, to the position of the cat as darling of cutting-edge media.

Within months of its appearance on the stage of Yonge Street’s finest novelty-act theatre, Harry Welton’s cat circus took its act to the world’s first movie studio, Thomas Edison’s “Black Maria” in West Orange, New Jersey. In July 1894, W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise shot a short film of the boxing portion of Welton’s show, which was touring vaudeville theatres in the New York City area that summer. The result, Boxing Cats, was only one of a number of animal-centric films the Edison Company turned out for its Kinetoscope machines. Compared to the cockfights that the studio also filmed, a pair of boxing cats was far less violent. If title cards had been used, the film would have been the 19th century equivalent of lolcats.

The post's author, Jamie Bradburn, notes that the circus also included cats "trained to perform somersaults, ride bicycles, and walk through burning rings of fire."