[In 1816] the interest in Napoleon and St. Helena was strong. A small paragraph in a local Chester paper told the inhabitants of that ancient and usually somnolent city that the British government desired to rid St. Helena of the rats and the mice which were understood to be leading the exiled emperor ‘such a life.’ Accordingly, said the paragraph, the government was offering large sums for cats–sixteen shillings for well grown males, ten for females, and half a crown for kittens. It was requested that all who desired to help in the good work by disposing of their pets at these prices should appear at a given hour at a given address.

At the time and place, an army of about three thousand generous and patriotic souls presented itself at the house designated. There were cats in baskets, cats in boxes, cats squirming restlessly in the warm clutch of children. The house was empty, and a little investigation soon proved that it had been unoccupied for a long time. Next morning more than five hundred cats were found drowned in the waters of the Dee; so that this hoax was not without its element of tragedy, and brutal tragedy at that.

— William S. Bridgman, “Famous Hoaxes,” Munsey’s Magazine, August 1903