Ornbaum renters - pole cats for pets
Source: Indianapolis News 26 June 1893 p6
A family moved into a tenement-house at Crawfordsville owned by Benjamin Ornbaum, and soon the neighbors discovered that it was not only a queer family, but that there were a number of queer pets. The children were the possessors of three full-grown pole-cats, which they loved and fondled as pets. The animals were quartered in a room off the parlor. The neighbors remonstrated, but the family claimed they were a sure preventive of cholera and declined to part with them. Then the police were called upon, and an officer shot the pets to death. The pole-cats defended themselves in the usual way, and the blue-coat is now camping out under quarantine regulations.