We had a witch hunt on cats in Briatian once ( because they were the
familiars of witches and the christians were hunting them down!). The
result was rats , mice and plagues which killed millions of humans
because
the plague was carried by the rats and mice whose populations were
normally
kept down by the cats. In the grat Plague of 1665 cats and dogs were
destroyed as stupid humans flayed around looking for someone to balme
their
ills on. as the cats were killed, the plague increased.

So presumably before cats were introduced to this country it must have been
wall to wall with rats and mice. Funny, I don't recall reading about that.

Steve