Belgian officials in Liège genuinely attempted to employ thirty-seven cats as official mail carriers in 1879 to deliver letters to surrounding villages.

A closer look

Belgian officials in Liège genuinely attempted to employ thirty-seven cats as official mail carriers in 1879 to deliver letters to surrounding villages. Citizens tied waterproof bags around the necks of these felines, hoping they would reliably trot back home with the mail like tiny, judgmental postal workers. Unsurprisingly, cats do not care about the efficiency of municipal services, and the experiment was an absolute disaster. While one highly motivated cat actually completed its route in under five hours, the rest spent days wandering around, taking naps in the sun, fighting, and generally ignoring their government-mandated duties. The service was swiftly abandoned, proving once and for all that while dogs might happily pull sleds and horses will drag carriages, cats firmly refuse to participate in human capitalism. We should all deeply respect their unwavering commitment to being entirely useless members of the workforce