Death of a Columnist

In the Villager, a prosperous (circ. 26,000), country-style weekly published in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, appeared a sentimental eulogy last week of its star columnist. "I shall always think of him," wrote Reader Katherine Caldwell, "as one of the great ... He had the lofty detachment of a genius and the warm friendliness of a child. When he stared me down with a frigid hauteur, as he sometimes did, I could have been swept up in a teaspoon. But when he moved in on me grandly and condescended to occupy my lap, I felt as though I'd made the Social Register." Death had taken Scoopy the Cat, the most celebrated literary feline since Don Marquis discovered mehitabel.

For nearly 14 years, Scoopy, a tiger-striped torn, had made his home and office in an In box on the desk of Publisher Isabel Bryan, a seventyish spinster, in the cluttered basement office of the Villager. Scoopy's byline and photograph had graced a widely read column of jottings and musings ("Scoopy Mewses") on the editorial page. Artists painted Scoopy's portrait, photographers snapped him, the Christian Science Monitor sang his praises.

He was only a kitten when he first padded into the Villager's office in 1935. In three months, lithe, quick-moving Scoopy rid the office of rats. Such energy won him a home, a byline and the editorial assistance of Clara Bell Woolworth and later Emeline Paige, two Village ladies with a passion for anonymity. Scoopy plumped for neighborliness and civic betterment, supported the Greenwich Village Humane League, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the United Nations Children's Fund. His fan mail was the Villager's biggest.

At week's end, Publisher Bryan had cheering news for column readers. After interviewing numerous applicants, she had taken on another young tomcat with the same tiger markings and haunting eyes as her late staffer. His name: Scoopy II.

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