Come get your hats and coats, and let us all go
To see the fancy creatures at the great Cat-Show—
Scratch cats, Thomas cats, pussy cats, and all,
Yellow cats, and cats that shriek upon the garden wall;
Cats that sing in alto notes which pierce the list’ning ear,
Loud enough for people half a mile away to hear;
Pet cats, and tabby cats, and cats that love to fight,
Cats that wander through the streets very late at night;
Big eats, stout cats, cats that fiercely squall,
Little kits that seem to be almost no cats all;
Maltese and tortoise-shells, and cats with green eyes;
Fat cats, lean cats and cats so wondrous wise;
Speckled cats, striped cats, with coats sleek and nice;
Sly cats of rare skill at catching rats and mice;
Bob-tailed, squirrel-tailed, bow-legged beasts,
Cats that make of stolen meat the most majestic feasts;
Cats with fur like buffalo or hair as fine as silk,
Cats that fatten cheerfully on rich condensed milk.
What a strange elastic beast our ordinary cat!
Drop him from the housetop, and you'd think he'd fall flat;
See him light so gracefully on all his four feet,
And scamper like a lightning-flash away down the street;
Whatever woeful accidents this animal befall,
You can't hurt a Thomas cat any means at all.
You hit him with a shovel or a poker on the head,
And leave him stretched upon the ground appearing to be dead;
Then he gathers himself and calmly walks away,
And goes play with other cats, and spends a happy day.
On throws and blows and kicks and cuffs the creature simply thrives,
For every cat, as is well known, has just nine lives.
- New York Paper.

OVERWHELMED WITH SICK CATS.
The New York Times, March 30, 1884

"I have a complaint to make, your Honor," said Henry Lange, of No. 34 Gansevoort-street, to Justice Gorman, at Jefferson Market Police Court, yesterday, and he then unfolded a manuscript, which he proceeded to read with much deliberation. It was his complaint, and stated that the Schroeders, his neighbors and rival grocers, had been annoying him and threatening him with bodily harm. He asserted that they habitually threw half-starved cats into his store, and the animals hid behind his barrels and boxes, and crept into his molasses barrel, and rendered his life a burden by their unearthly noises. (other acts of vandalism and annoyance are detailed) The defendants denied all the charges, but the court warned them severely against annoying Lange any further.

NEW YORK JEALOUS OF PHILADELPHIA CAT SHOW
Saint Paul Globe, April 5, 1884

New York is jealous of the Centennial City, and the “cat show” in that town has aroused especial envy. The ‘World ‘caterwauls the affair thus: “The national cat show in Philadelphia is spoken of with great pride by the press of that city. The ladies of that city, it seems, have long been celebrated for their cats, and we learn with deep interest that the breed by intelligent care has been so much improved there that there is no need of a stranger carrying broken bottles into his bedroom at night. This shows the superiority of moral suasion over force. In New York we hunt cats and they are more plentiful than sparrows and quite as tuneful. In Philadelphia they pay prizes for them and find them scarce at that.”

COURTING A CATASTROPHE
Philadelphia Press, May 1884.

“Can I make ’em sing?” said Mr. Kyle, the manager of the Horticultural Hall cat show, the morning before the doors were opened to the public. “Why, that’s a very simple matter. A little instrumental music will do it. A violin or a yellow clarionet is the greatest incentive. Perhaps a piano will serve; I never saw it tried.” The hall piano, which had been wheeled out on the floor, was opened, and Francis Wilson, the comedian, of McCaull’s Opera company, who was one of a little party of spectators enjoying a private view of the show, was induced to seat himself before the instrument and perform a seductive air. But the music of the piano failed to awaken the cats to melody, and each of the party began to guess where the yellow clarionet could be borrowed. Then Mr. Wilson, for the amusement of the company, and not for that of the cats, began singing in a low soft tone a selection from “The Beggar Student.” Scarcely had the first few bars been struck, before a moan of sadness reverberated through the hall, and 400 cats seemed to protest in wails of grief against that music which theatre patrons have been enduring for month after month from every orchestra in town. As Mr. Wilson closed the piano and stole past the coon cat’s cage the feline gave him a look that said plainly enough, “What strange things we hear when we haven’t got a gun!”

A SUMMER HOME FOR CATS.
The New York Times, July 14, 1884
(From the Boston Advertiser)

A lady who has, previous to leaving the Modern Athens for the summer, carried her cat to board at the cat hostelry at Brighton (Mass), is vastly entertained and entertaining in regard to it. She found the building delightfully finished in hard wood, while a statue of Mercury keeps guard in the front hall. Why mercury, she is not able to explain, rejecting with scorn the suggestion that as Mercury is the god of thieves, it is appropriate that his image keep guard in a home for cats. The attendants seemed cheerful and fond of their charges, although, perhaps, inclined to be a thought too ceremonious in such matters as insisting upon letters of introduction before making one boarder acquainted with another. The lady in question allowed her young charge to be introduced to two elderly and sedate tabbies with whom she seemed to fraternize admirably and then came away with a feeling that she must entirely re-order her manner of living, lest when her cat came home in the Fall things would be too plain and simple to suit her educated tastes.

DEAD CATS AND DOGS IN THE THAMES.
The New York Times, August 9, 1884
(From The London Truth)

Bad as is the state of the Upper and Lower Thames, it is not worse than the state of the Middle Thames in London itself. One day last week, as the tide was flowing up, it bore upon its bosom the following precious burdens: One dead pig, three dead dogs, seven dead cats, and a small army of dead rats. Interspersed with these specimens of the animal world were to be seen half-decayed lettuce, cabbages, and other vegetable refuse, while manufactured products were represented by horrible-looking rags and pieces of garments and baskets. All these pleasing objects were following one another in one continuous line of black filth, and were noted by me in the short space between Lambeth and Charing-cross. Nothing can be better calculated to waft cholera or any other disease into the middle of London.

FOUR STRANGE KITTENS
The New York Times, August 9, 1884

SHELTON, Conn., Aug 8. - Frederic H Coates, a grocer, of this hamlet, is the happy possessor of a quadruple monstrosity which, handled with the skill of a Barnum or Bunnell, ought to bring him a snug little fortune as a star attraction at a dime museum. Recently the cat attached to his store gave birth to four kittens, which are too all intents and purposes one kitten, as they all have to move about as one. The reason for this is that they are tied together fore and aft by means of a fleshy ligament which connects the fore feet of one kitten with the hind feet of another. The strange family, which rolls over its mother like a link of sausages, excites much curiosity.

INTELLIGENCE IN CATS.
The New York Times, August 10, 1884
(From "Nature")

About 20 miles from this, in the town of Larne, there resides a gentleman in the possession of a cat, which is so great a favorite that every day a plate and chair are placed for her beside her master, whose repast she shares with supreme content. One day for some reason the dinner was postponed, but the cat came in at the usual hour. She was evidently much disconcerted at seeing nothing going on, walked once or twice disconsolately around the table, then disappeared. Shortly afterward she returned with a mouse, which she laid on her master's plate, then going away, she came back with a second mouse, which she put on her own plate. She postponed further proceedings until her master returned, when she immediately began to purr and rub herself against his legs, as much to say, "See how nicely I have provided for you."

Between this town and the village of Holywood there is a country house which happened to take fire last week. The cat of the house, which had access to the servant maid's apartments, ran up and pawed the young woman's face. Being very drowsy, the girl turned to sleep afresh. The cat, however, after some interval returned and proceeded to scratch the girl's face to such purpose that she rose, and smelling the fire, wakened the other members of the household and the flames were extinguished.

A nephew of mine who is fond of cats generally keeps three of four, and teaches them a variety of tricks. I saw one of them sipping cream from a teaspoon which it held between its two fore paws.

AVENGING HER KITTENS.; AN OLD CAT KILLS SNAKES IN A SCIENTIFIC MANNER.
The New York Times, August 19, 1884

HAWLEY, Penn., Aug. 18.- Andrew Bellas, a car runner on the Pennsylvania Coal Company's gravity railroad, lives at Plane No. 4 on the line of that road. One day last week a couple of small kittens were missing from his house, and he started out to look for them, as they were great pets with his family. As he was going through his back yard he saw the mother of the kittens stealing along through the grass. Bellas stopped, and looking ahead of the cat, saw a large pilot snake lying in the grass, about six feet distant. There was no doubting the fact that the cat was stealing on the snake and it was equally plain that the snake knew it and was ready for the attack. At first Bellas thought he would kill the snake at once, but he changed his mind and watched to see what the result of the impending fight would be.

The cat crept to within a foot of the snake, which was ready to strike at the proper time. The cat stopped, and raising her left fore paw cautiously held it out toward the pilot. Like a flash the latter struck at the paw, but the cat was quicker still, and bringing her right paw into play dealt the snake a blow on the side of the head that knocked it back a foot or more. The reptile, evidently greatly surprised and maddened by the cat's attack, returned to the fight. Again the cat presented her left fore paw, and again the pilot struck viciously at it, only to again miss and to receive the violent right-hander alongside the head. This was repeated four times, when the snake, weakened and thoroughly dispirited, turned and tried to drag itself away. Instantly the cat sprang upon the retreating reptile, and with two or three strokes of her sharp claws tore it to pieces. She carried the remains of the dead snake to a distant part of the yard, where she dug a hole and buried it.

Bellas went on to a rocky hill not far away thinking the kittens might be there. He saw a crevice in the rocks which loooked like a snug hiding place for them, and he thrust his hand into it. Instantly he felt a sharp, stinging pain in his finger, and it quickly shot up his arm to the shoulder. A rattlesnake had sunk its fangs into his fore finger and retained its hold with such tenacity that Bellas could scarcely shake it off. He killed the snake and hurried home. An old woman named Bailey sucked the wound, while Bellas drank plentifully of whisky. After sucking the bit thoroughly Mrs Baily applied table salt to it. This and the whisky was kept up, and after 24 hours Bellas, who had passed into delirium, was restored to consciousness. At the end of three days he was pronounced out of danger.

The old cat has killed several snakes since the disappearance of her kittens. She never hunted snakes before. From that circumstance it is believed that her kittens were eaten by snakes, and that she knows it and is avenging their deaths by killing snakes.

EVOLUTION IN CONNECTICUT. ITS EFFECT UPON THE DOGS AND CATS OF THAT COMMONWEALTH.
The New York Times, August 27, 1884

NEW-HAVEN, Conn., Aug. 26.--Evolution in the matter of dogs and cats seems to be making rapid progress in this State. New-Haveners have gazed with a sort of affectionate pride for a couple of years upon a good-sized black and tan rat terrier owned by John Lyons. It is one of the chief attractions of his Broadway establishment. The terrier is remarkable from the fact that he was born with but three legs, one hind leg being missing. Notwithstanding this omission the dog gets around as lively as any of his companions, and is remarkable for his skill as a rat catcher. New-London now comes to the front with a dot of the same breed, beside which New-haven's pet pales into insignificance. The animals is owned by Mrs Gavitt, proprietor of the Bacon House in that city. It has but two legs, the forelegs being entirely wanting. The dog does not seem to miss them, however, but jumps around the hotel, an object of great curiosity and the pet of the loungers in the bar-room. ...

Bowed down with shame as New-Haveners are by the superior evolution of dogs shown in New-London, they find cause for rejoicing in the possession of a most extraordinary cat. This cat inhabits a wooden building at the corner of St John and Olive-streets. It is owned by a German harnessmaker, who is filled with pride by the performance of his wonderful feline. "Tom," for that is the cat's name, came into the world with but two legs. Nature forgot to put any hind legs on the kitten, though - a singular fact, because the mother is said to have been a Manx, or tailless, cat. After much discussion in its kittenhood, the proprietors of the kitten allowed it to grow to cathood. A visit to the owner of this curious specimen revealed the fact that it had become "a blanked nuisance" because so many people came to see it. In response to a whistle the cat came to its master's workroom, bounding along on its two forefeet, with the rear part of the body and the tail elevated respectively at angles of 45 and 75 degrees. It was like an inverted kangaroo, and is certainly one of the most curious freaks of the animal kingdom ever seen. The cat doesn't seem to be aware of the peculiar exhibition it was making or its difference of construction from the ordinary well-regulated cat. Neither was it annoyed by the roars of laughter its appearance created, or those evoked when it followed its master down a narrow staircase to the street. The latter performance was a remarkable one, the cat's stern sheets, so to speak, swaying to and from with the regularity of the balancing pole of a tight-rope walker. Like the dogs alluded to, the cat is claimed to be a marvel in the line of rat and mouse catching.

FELINAE.
Globe, 11th October 1884

To the Editor of the Globe. Sir,—ln prospect of the approaching Cat Show at the Crystal Palace, a few remarks on cats in general may not come amiss, especially to those who are interested in these useful pets. How fully the well-fed Pussy repays its owner, not only by a glossy coat, but also by pretty ways and plainly shown affection and gratitude. Yet, alas! there is a reverse side to this happy picture, and we see them treated with neglect, semi or total starvation, terrible cruelties, as though they had not any feeling. Instead, therefore, of gentle purring, the air is penetrated with yells of anguish. Why this wanton cruelty? Sometimes, also. Pussy is left, nolens volens, in charge of an empty house, nominally with imaginary mice as food, who, however, at the first scent of Puss, wisely make themselves scarce. Now, if a human creature, even a child, were left locked in a deserted abode, would the police be blamed were they to effect entrance and release the prisoner. Could not this humane practice be extended to equally suffering poor animals? Not only should the police be allowed to release the imprisoned cat, but the householder ought to be heavily fined for such a cruel neglect, to say the least of this apparent forgetfulness. It you would kindly insert this letter in your valuable paper, you would much oblige. – Yours etc., O. J. V, October 10.

OUR CATS
Illustrated London News, 18th October 1884

It was recently announced that, in addition to the refuge for lost and stray dogs, and the accommodation for dogs temporarily placed by their owners in charge of the institution, hospitality would be extended at Battersea to an equally popular kind of domestic favourites, “our cats,” which too often suffer cruel neglect when London families leave home for a month or two in the summer and autumn holiday season. The illustrations furnished by our artist this week are designed to show the probable experiences of feline life in the deserted household upon those occasions, when the proper servants, as well the ladies and children, may be absent for many days, and there is perhaps only a “care-taker,” with a casual charwoman, to look after the premises, some indifferent strangers who will scarcely think of Pussy, and whom Pussy will be afraid to approach. Orders may have been given to take good care of the cat; hut, if the perplexed and timid creature does not come forward daily, at a convenient hour, to ask for what she wants, the cats’-meat man will have called at the house door in vain, and Puss will go hungry, prowling or dozing in out-of-the-way corners, in the cellar or on the housetop, believing that the new human inmates have no friendly intentions toward her. If a saucer of milk is placed for her the kitchen, it will not be easy to persuade her to sip it the presence of those in whom she feels no trust, and whose voices and manners are probably less gentle than those of the mistress and the maids to whom she is happy to belong.

Under these distressing circumstances, cats have been known to prefer helping themselves by stealth to the contents of the milk-can, or to skewered slices of questionable flesh brought in a basket for sale on account of their regular diet, and, in some rare instances, they have resorted to still more criminal depredations in the household larder. Wo not attempt to palliate the guilt of such practices, but would only plead for some consideration of the weakness and fallibility of feline nature, and the pressure of actual want resulting from defective social or domestic arrangements. It may be said, on the other hand, that the cat’s business and duty is to catch mice. If the mice would allow themselves to be caught, she would be glad to do so; but if they keep out of her reach, is that any fault of hers? Is that any reason why she should be starved to death? She has often been blamed, when Miss Clara was at home, for trying to catch the small birds in the garden; but she has seen that young lady’s Papa and brother returning from a country visit with pheasants or grouse which she understands were killed by them; so Puss does not think it can very wrong after all, and pursues her little game, but with scant success. What with one thing, and what with another, anxious, worried, and uncertain of her future prospects in life, missing too the affectionate caresses, the flattering praises, the winning glances and sweet speeches of her absent patronesses, this poor cat has been pining sadly; she is thin and weak, dirty and stupid, not fit to be seen - certainly not fit to be sent to the Crystal Palace Cat Show. It is thought she ill, she is going to die, she will be dead before they come home.

How different is the situation of the neighbour cat, belonging to Mrs. Jones! This animal is carefully provided for and constantly tended; everything done to make her happy, and she is as fat she can be, while no cat, so far as we are aware, ever becomes fatter than she ought to be. She cats heartily, drinks judiciously and discreetly, plays joyfully, cleans herself punctually, rests and sleeps most peacefully ; it is quite pleasure to see her. Finally, she wins a prize the Cat Show, and is crowned with glory and honour.

Excerpt from PETS IN THE FORECASTLE; CATS AND DOGS ADOPTING A SEAFARING LIFE.THE GOOD MORAL EFFECT OF A QUIET EXISTENCE ON SHIPBOARD UPON JACK'S DUMB COMPANIONS.
The New York Times, November 2, 1884

Although the sailor, while at sea, is obliged to do without nearly all of the home attractions which even the poorest landsmen indulge in, he is allowed to cultivate to a limited extent his fondness for domestic pets. The most hardhearted ship owner does not object to having one or two stray dogs or cats provided with homes on his vessel. And Jack is very grateful for this indulgence. He is warm-hearted. His tender bosom yearns for some gentle although dumb creature on whom he may lavish the natural affection which his Captain and even his shipmates refuse to accept. It affords him deep pleasure to hold in his loving though rough embrace the innocent creature who either by a cheerful wag of the tail or a responsive purr assures him that his attentions are appreciated, and the fact of his being lacking in personal attractions is not taken into consideration. The ship's cat may be lean and uninviting, but this does not prevent Hack from petting it.

The floating cat is also very different from the land cat. The former is obliged to confine itself to narrow limits, and its sins are sure to find it out. It has little opportunity for cultivating hypocrisy or treachery. The land cat does not scruple, having secretly dallied with the cream jug, or having personally tested the helpless infant's powers of respiration, to join the family circle as evening prayers and to purr as sweetly as if it were taking part in the devotions, whereas in its secret heart it is planning how it will soon proceed to quietly digest the pet canary, which operation will give it sufficient strength later on to mount the back fence and there set up a resounding howl with a view to making night hideous and rendering the neighborhood practically untenable. But the ship's cat never resorts to such unprincipled methods in order to amuse itself. A single voyage is sufficient to convince it that howling and thieving are sins which will not go unpunished on shipboard. It soon learns to content itself with what is given it. Like the marine dog it becomes a quiet and well-behaved creature, and it apparently does not regret the fact that a foray into the neighbouring country is impracticable. The decorous sea cat becomes in time very sweet-tempered. It is always ready to be petted, and does not object to being awakened from its slumbers in order to receive the kindly caresses of Jack. It does not scratch except on rare occasions, and it does not ruffle its back at trifles. It is ill at ease while the vessel is lying in dock, but when the ship puts to sea, leaving the bewildering shore sights behind, the cat resumes its quiet life of comfort. When there is a dog on board the cat soon learns to look upon the former as a fellow-creature, and although the two do not pass much time in each other's company they never indulge in unseemly brawls.

When a ship is provided with two cats, the finer of the two is expected to confine itself to the after part of the ship while the other feline limits its walks abroad to the forward decks. The two cats rarely display and feelings of dislike toward each other. The cabin cat is not over proud, while its more humble companion seems fully satisfied with its own lot. When the pair meet on the main deck they are friendly enough, but they seem to care but little for the society of each other. The cabin cat apparently feels lost when it is taken forward; while the foremast cat, when carried into the cabin, has the appearance of a casual sojourner in a strange land. The marine cat, like the marine dog, is usually of an ordinary breed. In assigning the acts to their respective quarters, the yellow cat usually finds itself thrust forward. A few years ago, while an American ship was at anchor in a Peruvian harbor, one of her sailors procured from a native a very young kitten which, owing to its extreme youth, had not yet found time to open its eyes. This kitten was introduced into the forecastle, and the sailors proceeded to bring up the little creature by hand. When it first opened its eyes it saw the homely forecastle and the rough but honest faces of its foster-parents. It had no idea that there existed anything beyond the homelike forecastle until one day a sailor took it out onto the deck for a little run. The poor creature was terror-stricken at the vastness of the boundless decks, the enormous bulwarks, and the mountainous deck-house. It trembled like a leaf and mewed piteously for its home. When it found itself once more in the forecastle, it seemed overcome with happiness. Several more attempts were made to reconcile the kitten to the vast world which lay beyond the forecastle, but each time it egged after its own way to be allowed to return home. The sailors felt flattered at these proofs of the kitten's attachment to them, and the result was that in time it became badly spoiled. Among other bad habits, it was given to howling whenever it felt in the humor for such exercise. A brutal sailor who had lost considerable sleep owing to the vocal efforts of the forecastle pet at length lost his temper, and seizing the kitten he ran to the bulwarks and gave it the greatest and last surprises of its life by throwing it overboard.

Many of these pets do not appear to mind rough weather in the least, but others are extremely afraid if the vessel ships heavy seas. "I was very much struck by the behavior of a cat I had on my ship a few voyages ago," said an old sea Captain. "On the outward voyage, which was to Peru, we had a light cargo, and the ship behaved well. Our cat was as comfortable and contented a creature as I have ever seen. It grew as fat as butter. But at Peru we took on a heavy dead cargo, and when we came back around Cape Horn the decks were under water almost the whole time. The cat was frightened to death. Nothing would comfort it. The poor thing wandered about as disconsolate as a man condemned to be hanged. In less than a fortnight that cat grew as thin as a rail. But as soon as we got into good weather it was happy and grew fat again in no time."

Cats and dogs have been found on wrecks which apparently have been abandoned by their crews some time previous. In several instances when vessels have been abandoned, the crews have, at great risk to themselves, rescued their marine pets.

THE CAT CARNIVAL
The Great Feline Show at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham – Some Valuable Tabbies – How They Are Petted by Lords and Ladies.
From the London Correspondent of the Boston Herald, November 1884

“Me-ow, me-ow, me-ew.” This was what Jim, my landlady's huge black cat, reiterated over and over again. Jim was not hungry. Had not a plate of delicious sole, done a la fillet, been disdainfully scorned by this same James? It was evidently not hunger, but ampiety, which disturbed my uneasy four-legged visitor. While I vaguely wondered what all this portended, the boy with the evening papers rapped my street door. I always answer the door to this youngster, little Albert Bardy, who is a charming, neat little lad of nine, and the eldest of his youthful looking parents’ six olive branches. Indeed, young Albert, whom I call “my small prince,” and I generally enjoy a brief chat, to which his estimable mother tells me “Albert looks forward.” Have I not often told you, life in London is made up of little pleasures. This is one of his little pleasures.

When I opened the door I said, “Albert, come in and have a bunch of grapes, and tell me whatever is the matter with the cat, who seems possessed to me-ow." Albert demurely enters, and says roguishly: “Perhaps he is trying to tell you about the ‘cat show’ at the Crystal Palace, which comes off to-morrow.” I laugh, and resolve to know more of this same show. So next day in the early afternoon I hie me to the cat show at the palace. It is a glorious day, and Londoners say there never was inch an Indian summer autumn as now. I try a new route palace ward, and go by way of London Bridge, taking a ‘bus’* to the bridge from the Angel Inn at Islington. The palace reached, I enter through the beautiful, spacious grounds. There stands the “Rosary,” ivy embowered, which in June is a riot of rose blossoms. The Crystal Palace chimes are giving delightful anthems. I sit down nod listen, and smile at two lurking lads who wax wroth over the bells. One says, in pure cockney accent; “Oi say, wy don't them bloomin' bells stop, don’t you know, and old their row? I hate them beastly rotten bells." And the knicker-bocker-legged kids moved off, while the bells musically chimed on. The “Rosary” is a sort of open summer-house, with rustic supports for vines and roses, inside of which are rustic benches on which you can sit and gaze over the miles of gorgeous country on one side and at the glass-paneled palace on the other side as it gleams in the sunshine.

Having sat there, gazed and rested and dreamed to my heart’s content, I draw several long preparatory breaths, and begin the ascent of the long stairs leading to the show. The upper gallery reached, in which are 400 cats on view, I exclaim aloud to myself, “Cat show; this is the cat carnival.” “Ah!” retorts a little old maid (judging by her looks, and a regular little character), “this it is. Do you know much about cats, Ma’am?” Confessing my ignorance, she volunteers to escort me through the show and give me some information as to cats. On this I pop out my note-book, and directly my little “Miss Flite” looks scared to death. However, I reassure her, and give her my word of honor I won't put her name in the paper only as “Miss Flite.” “But,” she remonstrates, “they may find some Miss Flite in the city directory, and think it is the very one you mean.” “Not at all,” I insist; “it is only in the Dickens directory, and no one looks there much if they want to find people nowadays.” She has evidently never been a student of Dickens, so she only says: “Yes!” interrogatively. “Poor, little old soul, I dare say she knows a deal of cats,” I reason. And experience proves me right in my opinion. Cats with little Miss Flite had been the study of years. She always has a number on exhibition.

First of all, she says to me, “Cats are very knowing. Why, they spot a ‘cat's meat’ man a mile off.” “I think,” I reply, “it would be a capital idea to have a free day, while the carnival is in progress, in which the cats’ meat men should parade the corridors and give the cats a chance to pick out their favorite provender dealers.” She is not sure whether am chaffing, so she ventures no reply. “Do you know what cats are?!” she abruptly queries. Now I have always had a general idea that a cat is in some way a lineal descendant of the leopard and jaguar, and very dreadful when let loose in his native wilds. But beyond this and a comfortable reeling that a domestic cat keeps off nasty mice and slaughters poor little pet canary birds, I felt my knowledge of the cat question was rather below market par. “Please,” I meekly replied, “I don’t know much, but I should like to know more.” "Right yon are,” she chirrups forth, and seating ourselves on an empty box, she instructs me as follows:

“The domestic cat is a descendant of a native of the north of Africa, of the same size and of a mixed gray color. The cat of the ancient Egyptians also springs from this same ‘nigger cat.’ Some say the Egyptians took them over originally to the antique nations of Europe, but I can’t say; I wasn’t there.” “No, I suppose not,” I murmured in a perfunctory manner, though, to tell the truth, she looked old and yellow enough to have emerged from some Egyptian sarcophagus. “Now, I’ve often seen,” she resumed, “a grayish white cat, which looks in shape very like the Egyptian pets seen on mummies, etc. There is no doubt different nations have domesticated different small kinds of native cats which have produced, by mixing the breeds, all the numerous varieties of the cat family. Slight variety of color, however, does not necessarily imply diversity of origin. Some say the wild cat of Europe was the original stock, and the domestic cat has often been crossed by the wild cat, hence the short, thick tails and short legs of many specimens of the genus. But the domestic cat is very apt to become wild if let loose to shift for itself out of doors. Neglect and insecurity of their kittens drive them often to the woods, and after that good-by, puss, forever to come they’ll prowl and hunt and tear around as becomes their ancestors. Cats prefer flesh, but they will eat most things eaten by men and women, and they are often a deal cleaner over their food. I can tell you another thing, they naturally dislike water, and in this they are like the denizens of the “Seven Dials.” But they sometimes dive into the water to catch fish, especially a nice, tempting little globe of gold and silver fish. They love and hate as intelligently as dogs do, and though some say they are treacherous I don’t believe it.

The remarkable and valuable cats are the Maltese or Chartreuse cat, of a bluish gray color; the Persian cat, with long white or gray hair; the Angora cat, with very long and silky hair, most always brownish white color; and the Spanish or tortoise-shell cat, the most valuable and beautiful cat in the world. In Cornwall and the Isle of Man there are hundreds of cats without any tail, as there are tailless dogs. In the woods in Scotland and Ireland there are many wild cats, as there are also in the woods on the European continent. Wild cats are 33 inches long, with a tail of 11 inches. Their fur is long and very thick, but never shaggy. They are either yellowish or blackish gray; they are great climbers, and dine on small animals and birds, while they make great havoc among game. There are no genuine long-tailed wild cats in North America, the animal called a wild cat there being a species of lynx. There are several small cats in the East Indies, the Sumatran cat, the Bengal cat, Draids cat and the Nepaul cat.” “Dear me,” I burst forth, “what a lot you know of cats.”; “Yes,” she said, “I don’t know much else. But come along and look at a few I raised myself, and have taken many prizes for cats, for this is the sixteenth annual show at the Crystal Palace, and I’ve bad cats in every one of them. Before the 8th of October all entries have to be made, and you pay three shillings and six pence for each separate cat entered, and for each small group of kittens, which, if too young to be taken from the mother, may be sent with her. Each competitor must be packed in a separate basket. If a person don’t want to sell cats, yet don’t want to say so, they can put on a fancy price. Though, if sold, ten per cent is charged on all sales. The workingmen have really the finest cats on show ”

All this having duly been catalogued to me, we pushed through the crowds to look at the cats of all styles and colors. Little girls had been brought thither by their nurses. It was as good as a show to hear them exclaim delightedly at the various “kitties.” I never saw a youngster who did not love a cat, and “pretty pussie” was charmed ad lib. by the little folks. There were short-haired cats, long-haired cats, black cats, white cats, tabby cats, Persian, Angora tortoise-shell cats, and only one Maltese cat. Then there were cross cats, amiable cats, cantankerous cats, sleepy cats, and, as if by common consent and realizing that they were all on their good behavior, there was scarcely a “meow” in the crowd save from the throat of some tiny kitten who was being bamboozled out of its proper share of dinner by its pestiferous little brother or sister kit. “Three little kittens,” who possibly had “lost their mittens” for “they all began to cry,” were named Fluffy, Puffy and Tuffy, These were half Persian, and were 10 shillings ($2.50) apiece. In the next cage sat a dignified kitten, as black as a coal, named Tinker, only eight weeks old, priced $5. Lottie and Tottie, two little “swells,” one black, one yellow, gambolled about their proud mother, who winked knowingly at the scrutiny of the moving crowds. “Now,” said my funny little spinster guide, “here is one of my family,” and she halted before a pure Persian, which bore a price ticket £1,000, and had taken half a dozen prizes. Five, £10, £20 and £100 were frequent prices tacked on their cages: but when we came to Ossidine, late Tiger, lying on an embroidered satin cushion trimmed in English bobinet lace, and marked £100,000, or $500,000 I simply took a back seat metaphorically. Well, Ossidine was a pretty tabby cat, but I don’t think I’ll ever own him, unless he is raffled for at a shilling a try. One gentleman, evidently of a sorting turn of mind, who values his blue Persian at £1,000, gave his pedigree on a tinted card, as follows: “‘Dam Viola, by Miss Ackland's Tizza and Sultan; sire Rough, by Mrs Powell's Lady Flora and Shah, all winners of numerous prizes.” The owner of this rara avis, named Midget, 1 and a half years old, was a physician of South Norwood, who evidently is not anxious to sell his cat. “The idea of holding these annual cat carnivals was started,” says Miss Flite, “by Mr. Harrison Weir, who loves animals and know» all about them. Lately this student of natural history met with an accident, and could not take part as usual in the annual entertainment. His brother, as well as himself, are fellows of the Zoological Society. Some cats in the collection have seven toes on each foot. There is one cat which weighs twenty-five pounds, and its good nature matches its size. Another weighs about two pounds, and is as ugly as his satanic majesty. Having thanked Miss Flite, I made my exit.

On the way home I muse (no pun designed) on the lives and labors of the cat. To think it was once worshiped as a deity! Though, for that matter, such worship is not even yet extinct in a certain way. Once upon a time, saith legend, a cat’s funeral enlisted the services of white-robed Egyptians, crowned with chrysanthemums, and who sang choruses from Isis on the way to the sepulchres under the rocks. To-day the taxidermist stuffs dead cats instead of spicing them. In the matter of prizes, in cats, beauty “moves us by a single hair,” for on their beauty alone are they receivers of prizes. To my mind a cat is the best one who believes "silence to be golden,” and who drives off mice daily. White cats are proverbially unlucky, while black ones are by all people regarded as symbols of good fortune. I saw an instance of wonderful intelligence the other day in Jim, our house cat, and I may add of marvelous generosity as well, if not self-abnegation. Jim has for months past fed on the crumbs which fall from my table, or, in plain English, my leavings. James dotes on underdone roast beef, like a true Briton. Indeed, Jim is such a “swell” that be scorns the vender of “cat’s meat” in the parish. On the other hand, Wiggle, another black cat we have, is quite satisfied with the cat’s meat, and is a wild little creature, seldom venturing indoors. But Jim is very chummy with Wiggle, though his coat is several degrees sleeker than Wiggle's. The day I speak of, Jim caught one of those noisy, vagabond little sparrows, which clipper about more deafeningly in London than in Boston even. Running swiftly over to Wiggle with the bird in his mouth, he laid it, half dead as it was, at his cat friend’s feet, the which Wiggle promptly devoured. Talk about horse sense, what was this but genuine cat sense!

Musing on this and other experiences I have had in the sagacity of cats, their faithfulness and affection and preference for one person over another, I soon reached my lodgings. Opening the door, I beheld Jim eying my canary, which is a fancy bred bird with a crested topknot, he looked as if he would like young Disraeli (Dizzie for short) on toast, even au natural. “1 was just in time, you little brute,” I cried, aghast, grabbing him out of the way by the scuff of the neck. But be only “me-owed,” He looked so benign that, relenting, I gave him a bit of cheese, and he began loudly to purr. “James,” I apostrophìzed, “I have been to the cat show, and shall I tell you what you are?” On this, James butted his black head under my arm lovingly. ”Well, Jim, you blessed old cat, you are of the genus felis maniculata!” On this, again he purred and uttered a few soft, dreamy “me-ows,” which, laugh if you will, sounded exactly like “cat carnival.”

"POOR PUSSY!" - The Graphic, 22 November 1884
Sympathetic people complain that proprietors of cats have been in the habit of going out of town and leaving their blacks, tortoise-shells, and tabbies to the tender mercies of servants or caretakers, with the consequence that the poor cats are neglected, or half-starved. Letters appear in the papers; various plans are proposed for pussy's benefit; but could that exasperating creature, the cat, understand, and did it wear any kind of costume but that given by Nature, it would unquestionably laugh in its sleeve. Let us ask a question. Did anybody, unless the creature was imprisoned, ever find a cat that was starved to death ? It is extremely doubtful. Poisoned, trapped, shot, drowned, run over, worried to death by dogs, killed by fighting, defunct from old age. These are the ways of cats; from starvation hardly ever.

For your cat is not a tame animal. It is domestic, but only half- tame, and retains all its savage instincts. Loving enough to the hand that feeds it, and provides it with a warm place at the fireside, it still retains all its savage instincts, and its teeth and claws are as sharp and ready for use as if it were wild, and self-dependent for its existence. We love it, and feed it regularly, but if we do not, it will steal enough for its sustenance either abroad or at home. No cat in London would ever starve so long as there was a dust-bin, a butcher's shop, or a fishmonger's, or poulterer's. Failing these it would do its duty, which it rarely does if it is fed : it would catch rats and mice, and relieve London of a pest that finds its way at night up every grating and drain large enough for its body to pass. As it is, tackling a rat is a kind of sport relegated to country outdoor cats which are not pampered and spoiled. Without these means of support, poor pussy would do as she does in country places: lie in wait for and make a meal off the sparrows before being driven to the form of cannibalism indulged in by Tom, who likes nothing better than a meal off a tender young litter of kittens, if he can come across the nest in the absence of mamma.

Therefore to talk of starving cats is to talk nonsense. That they are not so well fed in their owners' absence is often a fact, and that they will come and practice mendicity at strange windows from sheer idleness is true enough ; but they no more deserve to be fed on such occasions than do the human impostors who prey upon the susceptibilities of their fellow creatures. The first idea of cat keeping, we are taught, arose from their preying upon rats and mice ; so if a cat be kept in a house, that is undoubtedly its duty, and if it will feed as well upon that kitchen locust, the black beetle, so much the better; in fact, there are plenty of houses where the festive, night-banquetting cockroach would supply all its needs. Proof of the effects of well feeding the cat might be seen in any of the old happy-family cages, where rats, cats, mice, and dogs were in happy communion with birds; and nothing can be easier than to train a cat not to cat tender chickens. Plenty of food and one good whipping will suffice, so long as you keep up the food supply. If it were stopped, why then - unhappy chicken!

It is the purr that wins the way to the human breast, and has been a blessing to the feline family since the ancient Egyptians, and probably some people much more ancient, petted and made these savage little animals free of every house. The purr, and that peculiar rub given by a cat against the human leg - that rub that begins at the tip of a cat's nose, and is continued along its body to the end of its tail, and repeated on the other side - these two had much to do with the friendship between cat and man. Perhaps, too, the playful nature of the kitten and its so-called gambol took attention in the early ages of the world. They are very pretty to look at, but it probably does not occur to all who watch the playful leaps and bounds, the crouchings, the hidings behind chair legs and stools and cushions, that all these are Nature-taught lessons in the noble art of catching prey. "Deludher," as Samuel Lover called “a kitten with a string and a cork," and when the cork is seized it is with teeth and claw, as some hapless mouse or bird wilol be pounced upon someday. Puss plays with her kittens sometimes but the play is teaching to catch food, or to fight for pre-eminence in catdom. Change the string and cork for your fingers, and let the tiny kitten seize them. It will not hurt, because teeth and claws are feeble ; but it is the true death-dealing clutch of a savage beast of prey.

It is singular how narrow the line is between the domestic and the wild cat. Take, for instance, a cat that has become a vagabond and resorted to the woods, or some ruined or neglected barn. Come suddenly some day upon her progeny of kittens: tiny fellows that have not long ceased to be blind, and are so tender that they have not strength sufficient to make a rapid retreat. Try and catch one, and the mite of a thing will dilate its eyes, set up the fur of its arched back, roughen its tail, shoot out its claws, and spit and swear like an old Tom who, being a Montague, has found a feline Capulet in the road that leadeth to his lady's bower. Those who have seen the engagements between these gentlemen will endorse the account here given, that the cat is a savage, half-tamed creature. There is something very fierce in the encounter of a couple of bulls or suggested in the blows rams will deal each other go far to prove that the giver of mutton cannot possess much brain, or there would be concussion;- the fighting of clogs is not a pleasant thing to see, but these creatures merely bite. Your feline animal, whether cat or one of its great relatives, leopard, panther, lion, and tiger, gets well hold with teeth and claws, and then comes that hideous use of the hind legs, which rip and tear off fur, skin, and flesh in the most ghastly way.

If any one of an arithmetical turn of mind would take pencil and paper, and make a calculation of how many cats would be produced by one pair in five years - of course with the offspring of their progeny, and supposing that every lady cat were allowed to, raise her young without fear of the bucket of water or string and brick, the total would be so startling that the calculator would never side with the sentimental people who wish to provide against any accident happening to a cat. Their rate of increase is almost appalling; and were it not that many ways exist by which their numbers are thinned, and tons' weight go to fertilise certain market gardens, London would be overrun. Upon these means it is not pleasant to dilate, or to give more than a passing allusion to one. A lady once lamented that so many dear little squirrels were used to make a lining to a cloak. Has any sentimental person surmised the source of that Langtry tippet, and wondered what kind of animal it is that the French furriers call genet ? Possibly not, but who would have thought that a leader of fashion would cause a tremendous thinning of the ranks of the so-called domestic cat ? - G. M. F.

A CAT CONSPIRACY.
How a Maine Feline Gets Even with Her Human Enemy.
Boston Herald, December 1884

A certain well-known Lewiston (Me.) man despises cats. He and the family cat have nothing in common in disposition. The family cat despises him. No love is lost on either side. As it happened the cat has had several opportunities for revenge. Once it yelled up and down through the hall, waking up the lady of the house, who is an uncommonly good sleeper, and who, he believed, would have slept through his over late arrival home from down town. He has made no secret of the fact that he hates cats. The scriptural text: “Unto him that hath shall be given” has been exemplified anew in his case. A few weeks ago he received a cat by express — a dirty, crop-eared animal, who immediately made itself at home in the kitchen and in the parlor. Since then cats have been showered upon him. They multiplied in the back yard, were thrown over the fence dropped near the door-step and left by the groceryman, according to directions. The presence of so many felines attracted more, who gathered out of pure sympathy. He disposed of several and threw one or two over the fence. They were all the worst-looking cats in Christendom, yellow and bandy-legged, one-eyed and marked with the scratches of unknown and unnumbered battles. The deluge stopped a few days ago. It stopped in good season. In one day more the air would undoubtedly have been full of cats in that vicinity. It was a plot more fiendish than the schemes of the dynamiters, but the Lewiston man will make less public hereafter his hatred of anything or anybody, four-footed or two-footed. He met the scribe on the street Wednesday, and said that he was ready to send in any number of contributions to a cat-show anywhere —cats to be collected from a hungry horde surrounding his house.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPORTING TIMES. FELINE SAGACITY.
Sporting Times, 27th December 1884

Dear Mr. Corlett - As at the present moment so much interest is being taken in the sagacity of animals, I do not think that few lines relative to the intelligence of my cat would out of place your paper. At my office in the City I keep a large cat, who has been with us for years. Every morning the cat’s meat man calls with lump of meat, but on Saturdays brings two. The lump is always eaten at once, but Saturday’s extra one is religiously kept for the Sabbath, and no man staying the office as late as ten or eleven o’clock on Saturday night has ever seen it touched. Is this reason or instinct? - Yours truly, The Liar Who Owns The Cat. Paris, Christmas Day.

FRENCHMEN AND CATS.
The New York Times, February 15, 1885
(From The Spectator)

Among French Ministers Cardinal Richelieu and Colbert always had kittens playing about their cabinets: Richelieu sent the kittens away when they were more than three months old and had ceased to be amusing. Louis XIII distinguished himself as a boy by begging for the lives of the cats, whom it was a custom - brutal enough - to throw into the bonfire on St John's Day. More interesting is the tenderness toward cats of distinguished soldiers like Gen Houdaille. As a Colonel he was suddenly ordered to lead his regiment across France from Toulouse to Metz, he was obliged to leave his cats behind, and he used his first leisure to retrace his steps to Toulouse for the purpose of fetching them back. Chateaubriand's love of cats is well known; for him, they were not merely an amusement, but a study. They were the companions of the many vicissitudes of his life; as an exile, as an ambassador, as the arbiter, for a while, of French literature, he was devoted to cats. For Chateaubriand, Buffon was to natural history, or at least to this department of it, what the encyclopedists were to theology, and the Jacobins to politics - a misleader. The cat Micette, which was presented to Chateaubriand by Pope Leo XII has been immortalized by his second owner. Chateaubriand's Memoirs abound in references to the animal, whose independent bearing - "the indifference with which it passes from the salon to the housetop" - reflected a quality which Chateaubriand could appreciate. Not that French cats are to be identified too closely with the Church of the Restoration. In a painting, by the Republican Prudhon, representing the Constitution, a cat sits at the feet of Liberty. Victor Hugo's favorite cat Chanoine, so called "on account of his indolence," is, or was, a living expression of feeling toward the church with which we cannot expect our clerical readers entirely to sympathize. Sainte Beuve's cat was allowed to walk over his table, amid an accumulation of notes and papers, which no servant would have ventured to disturb. M prosper Merimee's enthusiasm for cats was grounded on the "well-bred" manners, and in the anteroom of the great restorer of French cathedrals, who combined advanced Republican and Voltairian opinions with his love of mediaeval architecture - M Violiet le Duc - there was a mosaic of cats, which could hardly have been, professionally speaking, useful to him.

CAT WORSHIP, AND MODERN. North British Advertiser & Ladies' Journal, 21st February 1885
The notorious fact of cats having been worshipped in Egypt brings them little credit; it only makes Egyptian worship discreditable -
"Cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Egyptian dotards once did bow.”

Or again
“Lang syne in Egypt beasts were gods,
Sae mony that the men turned beasts
Vermin and brutes, boot house or hold,
Had offerings, temples, and their priests."
[“The Gods Of Egypt” – Allan Ramsay (1686 –1758)]

And then the poet goes on to say how one day the people of the Nile sacrificed a rat to the great glory of the cat, and next day a cat to the great glory of a rat. Not that their worship is by any means extinct. You have only to go to a cat show to be assured of this. The old-world dignities of priestly service, temple ceremonial, and posthumous embalming have no doubt been lost in the lapse of time, but their place has been filled by a homage which is certainly more intelligent and scarcely less sincere. The days are long gone by when, to bury a cat, processions of white-robed Egyptians, crowned with convolvulus, acacia, and chrysanthemum, trailed their effigies of water-beast and reptile, and images of dog-headed or hawk-headed gods, with the clashing of cymbals and the singing of the choirs of Isis, down through long aisles of reverent folk, from the Memphian temple gates to the catacombs under the rocks. But the modern taxidermist, as well as he can, has taken up the duties of the priests, and where the creatures of the Pharaoh's adoration used to be spiced, they are now stuffed. Instead of lying swathed in cloths and steeped in aromatic gums within a syenite sarcophagus, Puss steads in the back parlour, and fixes with her glassy eye the new tenant of the hearthrug, and from the cold neutrality of wires and wadding, gazes upon the domestic circle of which once pars magna fuit. - Home Chimes for February.

IT WAS THE CAT - The Graphic, 7 March 1885
“It was the cat," is the proverbial excuse of landladies and servants for household depredations and damages, but poor Puss has rarely been so ingeniously used as a scapegoat as recently by an American incendiary. Twice lately this man's shop was burnt down in his absence, and the insurance company, doubting his honesty, investigated thoroughly, and found out how it was done. The 'cute incendiary fastened tempting pieces of fish all round a wire hoop, put the hoop on a table, and placed a lighted kerosene lamp in the centre. Then he turned a few hungry cats loose in the room, locked the door, and went off to some place of amusement, so as to furnish a satisfactory alibi. The cats fought for the fish, and upset the lamp, the house was set on fire, the innocent owner was absent at the time, and the disaster was all the cats' fault.

CATS IN POSSESSION. North London News, 11th April 1885
A strange occurrence is reported as having taken place in London. It appears that Mr. Ashton, a law writer, residing in Holborn, heard a great noise in his passage, and on his going to see the cause, found his own black tom-cat and two others there. In his attempting to drive them out the whole three made a determined attack upon him, flying at him and biting him on the hands, arms, legs, and neck, and fearing for his life, he ran out into the street, and was met by two police sergeants, who finding him bleeding very much and nearly exhausted, conveyed him to the Royal Free Hospital, where his wounds were dressed, after which he was removed home. On the police entering the house they found that Mrs. Ashton, the mother of the wounded man, had also been attacked by the cats, and she had also to be taken to the Royal Free Hospital. The police-sergeants on their return to the house, finding the cats still in possession, set to work to eject them. The cats showed fight, although the constables were armed with their batons, and eventually two of them were killed and the third escaped. {There would have been a fear of rabies at this time.]

WISE TABBIES
Chicago Daily Tribune, April 12, 1885.

A HINT TO CHICKEN-RAISERS.
Omaha Daily Bee, April 21, 1885

It is easy to hatch eggs in an incubator but difficult to raise the chickens. According to an account given in the New York Times the cat makes a good mother for chickens. It says: An unusual sight that would have filled the expansive bosom of P. T. Barnum with delight attracted a crowd recently around the show- window of No. 83 Liberty street, where a large number of eggs are being hatched in incubators. About half a dozen newly-hatched chickens had been placed in the window when a fat black oat jumped lightly over the wire screen and landed in the midst of the brood. The chicks were not afraid of the cat nor did the cat show any inclination to gobble them up. On the contrary, she mewed lovingly to them, just as a cat does when calling her young, laid down, and when the chickens began nestling in her soft, warm far pussy curled herself up, licked the rumpled feathers of the chicks smooth with her rough little tongue, and sang them a lullaby in the form of a happy, contented purr. When the chickens had sufficiently warmed themselves they began running all over their adopted mother, “peeping” in her ears and pecking at her eyes and tall. The cat pretended not to notice them for a while, but finding that they persisted she got up, shook herself, and indulged in a gambol in the window, frightened the chickens, lay down again, and gathered her adopted children again to her bosom, “Hi! Tommy, come ‘n see de circus; beats Barnum ter blazes,” yelled a bootblack to a newsboy who was passing by. The newsboy alluded to looked on with eyes and mouth wide open, and exclaimed: “Well, dis is de best racket ever seen.' Several of the spectators walked down into the store and spoke to the proprietor. The cat had been around the store for six months past, and, when the first chickens were hatched the cat would look wistfully at them, but did not molest them. Then she became bolder, and approached them, smelling them all over. Gradually she became more familiar, and lapped the water out of the same saucer from which the chickens drank. Ono morning the proprietor, on entering the store, found the cat lying in the sawdust, performing all the maternal functions that a quadruped could do to little bipeds, and the chickens themselves showed great attachment to her. On taking up one or more of the birds the cat showed as much concern as though they were her own kittens, and kept mewing and begging until they were put back.

ONLY THE CATS WERE KILLED.
The New York Times, June 6, 1885

AMSTERDAM, N.Y., June 5.--Three farm hands were struck by lightning while in A.C. Phillips's barn, near here, this morning. The barn took fire, but the men were rescued. It is believed they will recover. Three cats within five feet of the men were instantly killed.

CATS GO TO HER FOR COMFORT.
The New York Times, June 9, 1885

An invalid Irish lady, who said she was Mary Miller, of No. 4 Birmingham-street, called at Sanitary Headquarters yesterday and said she believed her neighbors were about to complain of cats which she sheltered. Her object was evidently to forestall a complaint, and she denounced the complainants in posse as "bad keracters." She went on to say that at present she harbored 18 cats and three kittens, and that cats "took" naturally to her, and come to her for comfort and protection. She pays $4 a month for two rooms on the top floor of the house, and her pets are not in any way a nuisance. She was told that when one was made it would be time enough to put in a defense and establish the character of the complainants.

DUMB PETS OF FORTUNE; HOW DOGS, CATS, AND BIRDS ARE BOARDED IN SUMMER.
The New York Times, August 7, 1885

"Take good care of the darling, and write me every week about how he is getting on, won't you?" said a fashionably dressed matron as she stepped from an East Fourth-street combined dwelling and store to her carriage that was waiting at the curb. The lady had left her pug to be boarded while she was absent during the summer. "they won't have dogs in the watering place hotels," said the strictly-business little woman who kept the store and occupied the house, "....I'll have to write a long letter every week, going into all the details of Prince's appetite, voice, and general health."

"How many boarders have I? Lots of 'em. That's my business and has been for more than 20 years. I sell pets and rent dogs and cats to theatre folks. First I was down in Greene-street with my husband, who is a doctor of pets. But our business got so large and the class of customers so uncongenial that we had to seem more suitable quarters. Look at this reception room. Looks like a palace doesn't it? Here's where I receive my customers. There have been many notable women of New-York and Brooklyn here as well as from the Hudson River cities and towns clear up to Albany. We board small dogs, cats and birds. Here's what I call my happy family."

The woman led the way into a room fronting on an interior court. One side of the room was wire netting. About a dozen large cats, most of the white, were resting on cushions, playing with swinging balls, or walking about the room. In the centre of the court was a cage, in which were more cats, and across the court and opposite the room where the happy family was situated, was a series of [dog] kennels.

"I have cats here that I keep by the year while families are abroad. Some of these Angora cats are worth $150. Here is one from Paris that cost a cool $300. I suppose $500 wouldn't buy it. It's [sic] huge size and peculiar coloring makes it valuable. The board for cats is $8 to $12 a month. ... We feed our cats milk, fish, cornstarch, and a little raw liver and cut steak. We also give them boiled rice occasionally. We don't feed much meat in Summer. It heats the blood. ... Dogs are more apt to suffer from heated blood than cats. You must change the diet of all pets now and then just as you must that of human beings, or ill-health results.... If a dog or cat dies when the owner is abroad, I write the owner and have the animal stuffed and mounted and kept until the owner returns.... Do we supply coffins for cats and dogs? We have supplied one or two, but got them made by an undertaker" (she goes on to detail silk-lined coffins built for a dogs and a barber who did a sideline in dog-shampooing)

THE CATS OF DUBLIN - The Graphic, 19 September 1885
The cats of dublin have been in great request this week, and many a loving mistress has bewailed her pet tabby. On Monday an advertisement appeared in a Dublin paper asking for cats to export to New Zealand at a price of 1s. apiece for kittens and 2s. for full-grown cats, to be brought to Kingstown that evening. Numbers of young Paddies set to work to steal all the cats they could find, and in the evening over 150 people gathered at the Kingstown Pier with cats and kittens of every age and colour. They waited long for the advertiser, and finally discovered that the advertisement was a hoax.

Midland Counties Advertiser, 24th September 1885
Puss was recently made the means of carrying out a rather extensive practical joke. An advertisement appeared in a Dublin paper, as follows: " Cats - Immediate, a gentleman returning to Auckland offers 2s for grown cats, and 1s for kittens, to be brought in baskets to Carlisle Pier, at seven this evening." About 6 o'clock on Monday evening about 150 women, girls and boys congregated on the pier carrying boxes and baskets in which were cats of all kinds. To their dismay the advertiser did not appear, and they had at length, after waiting a considerable time to return home with their favourite, who expressed their opinions of the proceedings in that musical manner at which cats old and young are such adepts

INNUMERABLE QUANTITY OF CATS
Lawrence Daily Gazette, September 25, 1885

A celebrated M.D. of the city, F.C. Herr, caused many a female heart to flutter last night by advertising in “Caps” in our “local news” for an innumerable quantity of cats. It is the question of the hour, “what possible object can he have?” We object to this wholesale congregated of the Tabbies until we hear from the Doctor. If it is to be a “cat show” well and good, but the cats should be given a show. [he most likely wanted them for experimentation]

COUNSELLOR HIERS’ CATS
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 27, 1885
They are mistaken for an Abandoned Child, and Scare two Railroad Men

Counsellor Henry Hiers resides next door to the Eighth sub-Precinct Station House, on Third avenue, and shares the native Gowanus passion for dumb animals. Precluded by contiguity to the official quarters from keeping goats, Mr. Hiers has, until last night, kept three cats and a dog. The dog is a mongrel and the cats tigers, the former developing a disposition to bark at the cats and the latter to meouw at night. The very occasional prisoners in the cells complained that Mr. Hiers’ cats disturbed their slumbers, and as that gentleman has a “corner” on Eighth sub-Precinct cases he determined to weed out his cat farm. To administer poison he is too humane, and his consideration for the cleanliness of the waters of the bay restrained him from adopting the general method, in which a brick and a string play important parts.

Placing them in a bag he started out for Fort Hamilton last night, determined to release them when there would be no fear of their finding their way back. He boarded a car and informed the conductor of his intention, saying he would accompany the felines as far as the point where the cars change. He proposed to request the conductor who assumed charge of the cats after the change to open the bag at Fort Hamilton and let the felines free. A little later he saw a friend enter the first of the two cars, and, gathering up his cats, joined him, again depositing the bag under the set. After conversing with his friend he reached the city line and left the car, omitting to take the other conductor into his confidence. The car reached Fort Hamilton in due time and the passengers alighted as usual, the conductor walked the length of the car to close the windows and the starter entered to look at the indicator.

“ What’s that under the seat?” asked the latter, pointing to the bag.

The conductor glanced at it “ Hello, someone’s forgotten their bundle.” At this moment the bag moved. Conductor and starter Jumped back.

“ Why, it’s alive!” they exclaimed.

“ It’s a child being got rid of, I'll bet,” said the conductor.

“ Let’s call someone else,” suggested the starter. But as no one was near they approached the bag with great circumspection and pulled it out with an iron hook. Something inside moved again.

“ Child, I think,” whispered the starter. “ Guess ’tis; lot’s open it.”

This they did very cautiously, but Mr. Hiers had tied the knot very securely and it took some time.

“I guess we’d better call in Judge Church,” murmured the conductor.

Just at this moment the bag opened and two enormous tiger cats sprang out and scampered for the exit.

“ Bless my soul,” exclaimed the starter, “ what did you let them go for ? I’d like one of them there cats.”

It was too late.

PLAGUES OF NEW-YORK; SERGT. MEANY THINKS THEY ARE BOYS, CATS, AND SPARROWS.
The New York Times, November 22, 1885

"Boys, cats, and sparrows--these are the three plagues of New-York and of Central Park," remarked Sergt. Meany, of the Park Police, to a group of officers and reporters the other day. ... "As for the cats," added the Sergeant, "they're not any better. If you give them plenty to eat they will not catch any mice, and if you do not give them what they want, they will steal your meat and your pigeons."

Sergt England differed with his colleague, and thought that a cat when properly educated was a valuable animal. "Why, I had a female cat at home," he said, "and she was gentle that one day when she caught a young rat, and it began to squeak, she dropped it and then tried to lick it. Of course, the rat did not want to be caressed very long, lest pussy should change her mind. But her son Tom, he was a daisy. My, but he used to crunch the mice and rats when he caught them. There was no sentimentalism about him, as far as rats were concerned. But like all young fellows, he used to go on a spree once in a while. He would stay away from about a week, and when he turned up again you would hardly recognize him. You could see his ribs so thin he would be. One ear was torn, an eye half scratched out, and a piece bitten out of his leg. He would limp into the kitchen and lie near the stove until his wounds were all healed up and he was fat and slick again, and then he would go off on another bust. But he reformed as he grew older and became very fond of me, so I brought him once to the Arsenal and he became a favorite with all the men. His affection for me increased, and he began following me about like a dog. As soon as I would put on my uniform to make my rounds at night Tom would jump from the desk were he liked to sleep, and stretch himself. When I opened the door he would dash out, and then accompany me on my rounds. Sometimes he would stop on the way to play with a toad or frog for a while, but he never let me get out of sight. When I met one of the officers and stopped to speak to him he would stand at a distance, and then when I moved on he would follow. He never mistook any other office for me, although we were all dressed in uniform, and sometimes I would, after talking to a man, turn back and take another road.

"But poor Tom came to an untimely end one day. The cats were increasing in numbers in the Park, and had stolen several pigeons, and the Commissioners gave orders to kill them off. One evening Tom was playing with a guinea hen - he was found of playing with the hens, and the hens knew him and liked him. But the keeper mistook him for one of the strange cats and shot him. When he brought him into the Arsenal he recognized him, and then carried him tenderly into the office. Poor Tom, he moaned when he saw me, and gave me such a meaning look, as if to say, 'Help me!' But he had been mortally wounded, and we had to put him out of pain as speedily as possible. Poor Tom." And Sergt England turned his head and coughed, and hastily pass his hand over his face.

AMONG STRANGE CATS, A REPORTER'S VISIT TO A FELINE BOARDING HOUSE
Daily Honolulu Press, 8th February, 1886

The reporter groped his way up the stairs and knocked at a door, which was presently opened by a very hairy man with a swelled nose. In response to an invitation, the visitor entered the room, three sides of which were lined with wooden cages, piled on top of one another. Probably there were not less than sixty of them, each con¬taining at least one cat, and some two or three. Roosting about on top of the boxes or playing around the floor were fifteen or twenty pussies. Some were sleeping and others were making their toilets; but all looked sleek, well fed and contented.

“They’ve just had their dinner,” said the hairy man.

“But where do they all come from?” asked the reporter.

“Oh, most of them are left with me to board. People who are going out of town frequently wish to leave their pets in safe hands, and send them to me to be taken care of. I am somewhat out of the way here, but I have business arrangements with all the fanciers, and when a customer asks them to take charge of a cat, they let me know and I call for it. Then again cats are left with me to train. A kitten has to be taught good manners, just like a child. Mother cats which are well trained usually teach their offspring propriety of behavior, but kittens which are deprived early of the maternal care and those whose mothers are not lady cats have to be properly instructed in points of deportment be¬fore they are fit to be pets.”

“What do you feed them on?”

"Bread and milk, with some meat for the old cats. Meat is bad for kittens; it gives them indigestion, dyspepsia and fits. Cats will eat almost anything at a pinch; of fish they are extremely fond and oysters they are wild after. A full grown cat can eat as many oysters as a man anyway, if it has a chance. I give them fish sometimes, even the kittens. It does them good, I think, and makes them fat. Some of the cats I have here are my own. I have paid a great deal of attention to breeding choice vari¬eties for sale. Behind you is the most beau¬tiful specimen of the cat tribe that I have ever seen.”

The reporter turned, and saw for the first time, perched upon a box close by, a fero¬cious looking animal with flaming green eyes, which looked as if it was about to spring. It seemed fully twice the size of an ordinary house cat, its hair, which was nearly three inches long, causing it to appear larger than it really was. Its ears were long and pointed, and two tufts of hair growing out just in front of them produced very much the effect of horns.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the proprietor, “he is perfectly tame, notwithstanding the ferocity of his appearance. Come here, Monster.”

The cat leaped down from his box to his master’s seat, and then upon his lap, where he sat contentedly looking up into the face of the hairy man and purring loudly.

“This,” said the financier, “is what is called a raccoon cat. It is so great a rarity that in all my life I have seen only two. I am not astonished that you should have been alarmed by it, for its appearance is cer[tainly] extraordinary. It is not so much the size of the animal that is surprising nor the beautiful long red and black hair with which it is covered, nor yet the bushy tail, like that of a raccoon. It is the expression of the face. Perhaps at some time in your life you have seen the face of a human being with the expression of horror on it which some awful fright has produced. If you will gaze attentively at the face of this cat you will see that its natural expression is such just a look as that of course, the pointed ears, the horns, the black lower lip, showing the fangs, and, above all, the huge green eyes, wide open as with sur¬prise, have much to do with this effect; but there is something more that is not easy to analyze. When the cat fixes its gaze upon you, you cannot help feeling uncomfortable, for the horror which the animal ap-parently feels seems to be inspired by your¬self. The raccoon cat is a distinct variety; but, as I told you, extremely rare. I cannot say where they came from originally.”

“Asleep near the stove you will see a cat [of] the tailless species. It has only a rudi¬mentary tail, which curls up tight like a pig’s. In the box over there, in the corner, is a hairless cat. Its color is blue, you ob¬serve, and it is entirely bald, except for a tuft on the end of its tail. Some hairless cats have a beautiful flesh tint. They come from Japan, I believe. Tailless cats are sometimes called “Manx” cats, and come from the isle of Man and Cornwall. Angora cats, as you know, come from Per¬sia. They are said to be a cross between the house cat and the silver fox, but that is all nonsense, of course. They have long, silky white hair, and are worth about $50 apiece here. Unfortunately they usually die in this climate. Maltese cats are sup¬posed to come from the island of Malta, but, though I spent two weeks on the island once, and saw plenty of cats, I never saw what we call a Maltese; they were mostly tortoise shell. [note: Maltese refers to the colour known as “Maltese blue”]

“It used to be supposed that the house cat was the wildcat domesticated, but the absurdity of such a theory is at once apparent when we consider that of all beasts the wildcat is rated as the most ferocious and untamable. It is altogether probable that the domestic cat springs from a species which still exists in North Africa, a yellow¬ish grey animal, about two feet and a half in length. This is certainly the original or the domestic cat of ancient Egypt, skeletons of which have been found in the tombs, und pictures on the monuments."

A few moments later the reporter left the room, carrying under each arm a bright yellow kitten, which the hairy man had begged him to accept as a souvenir of his visit.

CATS AND DOGS
The New York Times, March 7, 1886
(From Temple Bar)

The Bishop of St. Davids shared his meals with his cats, gave each of them a saucer of cream before he sat down to his own breakfast, and he allowed them to snatch bits of meat from his fork. At a dinner party his favourite tabby had taken his place on his shoulder according to custom when he was alone. Finding that pussy took up too much of his attention, he told the servant in attendance to remove him. But this was easier said than done. Puss was so unwilling to vacate his exalted position that when the footman took hold of him a struggle commenced, and the cat set his claws into the Bishop's neck, and so scratched him that he had to leave the table to puts on a clean shirt and cravat.

This must have been the cat of which he wrote as follows: “I wish there was a cat post--1 could send you a lovely tabby. He was brought to me by Tom from Nantmel, having received his education from the daughter of a neighboring Squire, who taught him, among o her things, to scramble up your back and perch upon your shoulder. This enables him, if you are writing, to check any rash movement of your pen; and lf you are at dinner, to interrupt any morsel ‘which seems to him likely to go the wrong way-' ”

DOGS AND CATS SPREADING DISEASE.
The New York Times, May 23, 1886

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., May 22.--Complaint is made to-day to the State Board of Health that there are 16 cases of smallpox at Crossville, Ind., and that the people who own dogs and cats refuse to keep their domestic animals at home, thereby spreading the contagion. The authorities seek the aid of the law to destroy the disease-distributing felines and canines, or to enforce their restraint.

THE RUINED CAR STABLES.; ONLY ONE HORSE BURNED--RESCUING THE CATS FROM THE BUILDING.
June 14, 1886, The New York Times

The ruins of the car stables of the Grand, Houston, and Forty-second-Street Ferry line, which were burned Saturday evening, proved a great attraction to the inhabitants of the west side yesterday. Thousands of persons blocked up the streets in the neighborhood of the ruins all day. There were a few breaches in the walls along the river front and on Forty-third-street but the Forty-second-street wall stood intact. Two engines, one in Forty-second-street und the other in the street above, were playing on the smoking debris in the interior yesterday afternoon.

The fire began at the northeast corner of the stables; otherwise the cars, horses, and harness could not have been saved. Some or the stalls on the ground floor at the southwest corner had straw in them and were still intact yesterday, as was a roadway by which horses ascended to the upper floors. This was the only woodwork left. It was reported early yesterday that five horses which were upstairs in the hospital when the fire broke out had perished. One of the men who left the hospital at the last moment said the only horse which perished was a poor animal which had been placed in slings for treatment. Many or the horses were housed at the stables of other west side street ear lines. A few still remained in the coach yard near Eleventh-avenue. These animals had evidently not recovered from the excitement of the previous night. It is said that the car company will be likely to build new stables in some other part of the city, and that the old site may he eventually used by the West Shore Railway.

Rescued cats were a drug in the market at the Forty-second-street fire early yesterday morning. The car stables seemed alive with them when the fire was under control, and a half dozen firemen each got a cat. They were scorched, drenched, and thoroughly frightened animals when the firemen took them in charge. How they had managed to stay in the burning building for the two or three hours they must have been there before falling walls and floors sent them scurrying out of the doors into Forty-second-street without _being burned to death is a mystery that even the firemen cannot solve.

Of the dozen or more cats saved by the firemen, there was one more tenacious of life than all the rest. That one is now a pet of the members of Steamer No. 1 at their house, No. 165 West Twenty-ninth-street. This particular cat had a very lively experience. Just after the roof of the building fell in, Tabby loomed up from behind n chimney on top of the wall on the Forty-second-street front. The cat ran briskly along toward the river front, briskly enough to show that the bricks were very hot. She halted a moment as if about to try and jump from the wall to a telegraph pole. The bricks were too hot to allow her to stop and think long. Then she scurried along to the corner of the wall nearest the river, where the bricks wore the coolest, and the fire raging the least. The firemen discovered her, and with the intention of rendering her resting; place as cool as possible directed a stream of water against the wall below her. This frightened her, and she run along the wall facing the river and disappeared from sight in a jag in the wall. Barely an hour later the tire broke out in this vicinity and streams of water were directed there. Every one supposed the cut was roasted. Instead, when the water was directed against the wall, Kitty loomed up again and made another run to escape the water. Then she suddenly disappeared. Five 'minutes later a forlorn-looking cat with her hair well singed off, jumped from u window on the Forty-third-street front. Assistant Chief McCabe caught her, and, wrapping her up tenderly, turned her over to the care of one of Steamer No. 1‘s men. The cat was taken to the engine house at once, and yesterday burned and blistered paws were resuming something like their normal condition, thanks to the tender care and liniment of the firemen, who will call their cat “Hero." Even if she isn't that kind of cat.

CATS IN EGYPT.
The New York Times, June 27, 1886
(Reprinted from Phil Robinson. in the Contemporary Review)

The Egyptians, though they may not worship the little animal nowadays, have an inordinate liking for cats, a relict, perhaps, of an old-world sanctity. They are to be seen everywhere, not one at a time, but in half dozens, and in the less frequented parts of the town as many as 20 may be seen in a waste corner holding an afternoon converszione. When, therefore, the British shells knocked down the houses of Alexandria and the inmates fled, the cats found themselves homeless and friendless, and they gathered together in pathetic assemblies upon the debris of the shattered walls. How gaunt and dreadful they were! Charitable folk used to collect scraps for them, but the sufferings of the creatures must have been very great, and doubtless, if the truth were known, very few Alexandrian cats lived through the momentous crisis of British occupation without sharp apprehensions of cannibalism. All day long they prowled among the rubbish heaps of fallen masonry or sat about in groups pathetically mute and most unnaturally regardless of passers-by.

In Suakim also they are utterly callous to their surroundings, but there the similarity ceases. For in their case indifference is begotten of a preposterous prosperity. So consequential are they that they do not move out of the road, and the Arab, when he stumbles over them, swears at them, but never molests them. The bazaars are full of them, and they fight and make love in the thoroughfares in broad daylight as if it were the most natural thing in the world for cats to do so. Till then I had thought Grimalkin was a nocturnal beast. For in Europe we are accustomed to see them sleepy and lazy all day, and to hear them noisy and active at night. But this is only, apparently, a geographical accident. In the Soudan, at any rate, cats are diurnal and go to bed at sunset, while in Suakim in particular, where the people live so largely upon fish, and the refuse of their meals lies in heaps at every corner, the feline tribe have assumed much of the importance and something of the demeanour of dogs. They lie under the stalls or sit upon the bedsteads - which, after Oriental fashion, stand in the open air - as if in charge of the premises and property. For one thing there are very few dogs. It is true they are unclean beasts to the Moslem, but perhaps the cats have made it impossible for any dog of spirit to exist, Indeed, such an endless multitude of them is enough to break the heart of even and English terrier. But physically they have deteriorated into the merest travesty of their race. They are absurdly small and proportionately meagre, with sharp noses, flat, thin heads, and very short fur, while the shoulder blades stick up above the level of their backs in the queerest fashion. So when I came back to England I was at first surprised at the very large size of all the cats I saw, their extraordinary plumpness, and the thickness of their fur.

STRAWBERRYTOWN
The Lawrence Gazette, December 16, 1886

Everybody has heard of the “cat farm”; for miles around. The farm is situated a short distance from this place. It is not the most fertile place in all the land, but will produce cats of almost any size and color, from a Kilkenny to a Maltee. The proprietor is a whole soul philanthropist, and raises these particular breeds in almost any quantity. He is often quite fortunate in effecting a sale, and when he has an over production he sacks them and starts off for the city of Lawrence and distributes them on the way. There is hardly a farmhouse from the cat farm to town but some of his production can be found. Many a farmer’s wife has been disturbed in the dead hour of the night by the piteous cry of some poor kitten that had been snatched from the fond embrace of the old one and dropped by the roadside and had found its way onto the door-sill asking for admission. It sometimes happens that they are smothered in the “gunnie,” as was the case a few days ago nearly opposite the stone house north of Lawrence. It seems that too many of them were crowded together and it was necessary to overhaul them before reaching market, and in this overhauling one of them was literally tramped to death by the larger ones. Unfortunately for the proprietor of the load the poor cat was left by the roadside. This was an oversight, and the owner did not intend to have maltreated this unfortunate Thomas in this way. His remains can be seen where he was left by the roadside.

A DOMESTIC FAVORITE. HISTORY OF THE CAT FROM EARLIEST TIMES.
Origins of the Pet names “Tabby” and “Puss” – How the Ancients Worshiped Cats – Their Old Time Use as Retrievers – When TheyWere Not in Favor
The News, December 31, 1886

Of all domestic animals there is, perhaps, not one which possesses so many warm friends and at the same time so many bitter enemies as the cat. Nobody is simply indifferent to a cat. Every one either prizes this household necessity very highly or else very cordially hates it. It must be admitted, however, that the friend of the felis domestica very largely outnumber its enemies. A person not particularly interested in cats is not apt to have noticed the great dissimilarity in the general build and markings of various cats. Without a doubt, the type which is given below is the one most frequently met with. It is the animal whose midnight wailings are so conducive to profanity on the part ot the victims of the nocturnal serenade.

The two epithets most commonly employed in reference to cats are “Tabby” and “Pussy.” These pet names have been handed down from generation to generation for so many centuries, and have been so generally accepted without question, by “Kittie's” admirers, that they are now popularly supposed to have been originally applied by our forefathers to their domestic rat catchers as terms of endearment. This, however, is far from being correct. "Tabby” was formed by dropping the initial vowel of the Turkish word utabi (old Fiench tabis, Spanish tabi) a peculiar kind of watered silk, imported from Bagdad. The name was originally applied to cats on account of the strong resemblance of their coats to the Bagdad silk. This view is materially strengthened by the fact that the term “Tabby” was not employed in any of the countries where the (now) common type of cat was unknown. In such cases the domestic animal had, by crossing, come to so strongly resemble its wild relative that only a very fine distinction could be drawn between them.

The familiar title “Puss” has undoubtedly been handed down to us from the Egyptians, having been applied by them to their cat headed goddess, “Pasht,” several figures of which may be seen in the British museum. The name, however, which the Egyptians most commonly applied to their cats was “Maou,” which, being properly pronounced, is an almost exact imitation of the sounds produced by “Puss” when she wishes to show her affection for anyone.

There is no reliable record of the origin of the domestic cat, nor of the exact period at which it first became a member of the household. On monuments, drawings and mummied bodies, unearthed in Egypt, would seem to indicate that they were common there at least 500 years before the Christian era. They are also mentioned in some Sanskrit manuscript dating back to 200 B. C., but it is extremely doubtful that the cat was known as a domestic animal to either the Assyrians, Greeks or early Hebrews. The early Greeks, it is true, employed animals as rat catchers, but these have been shown by Professor Rolleston to bave been a variety of marten. Cats are represented on old Roman tombs and frescoes, tbe dates of which cannot be clearly determined.

Cats were regarded with great veneration by many of the ancients, and by some of them were actually worshiped. They were also, unquestionably, employed as retrievers, for on the tomb of King Hanna, in the Necropolis of Thebes, there is a representation of the king standing in a boat killing water fowl with sticks, while his favorite cat, Boubaki, stands at his feet, evidently watching for an opportunity to display his retrieving ability. A similar painting in the same city, shows a cat with a water fowl in its mouth.

In these days when cats are almost as numerous as horses, it seems strange that at any time it should have been deemed necessary to protect them by law. But such was the case in Britain, where great value was set upon cats, which in all probability were originally imported from Rome There were regular penalties for destroying the animals, graded according to the age of the feline.

One of tbe most common (although by no means strongest) arguments urged against making pets of cats is that they care nothing for persons — loving only places. This line of reasoning, it must be admitted, seems to lack the great essential of truth. Cases are numerous where a cat has recognized the stop of her master when returning after a considerable absence. Besides which, in almost every family, if one will closely observe, he cannot fail to notice that “Tabby” invariably has certain favorites in the family circle, whose slightest nod she will promptly and cheerfully obey; while the simple approach of other members of tho household, with whom she is just as well acquainted, will be sufficient to cause her back to arch and her tail stand erect as she sullenly backs under a convenient table or chair.

The cat, like everything else, has at different periods of its history been caressed and petted by almost every one, while at other times it has almost suffered extinction through its temporary unpopularity. But it is human nature to lavish affection upon some animal or some thing, and this probably accounts for the great mutual affection which seems to exist between a spinster (or, to use a harsher term, old maid,) and her cat.

It is not easy to obtain the full confidence of a cat, although it is a particularly light task to forfeit it. But, after having made friends with “Pussy,” you may, without any difficulty whatever, maintain your pleasant relations with her, provided you never attempt to “play tricks” upon her. One act of treachery is sufficient to forever alienate the affections of a cat.

GEORGIA SWAMP CATS.
The New York Times, August 8, 1886
(From the Americans (Ga) Recorder)

Muckalee swamp seems to be a den of ferocious cats. Sunday morning while Charlie Tiner, a little boy, was playing in the yard, a cat came from the swamp and bit him near the thigh. It was first thought to be a snake bite, but later was traced to the cat. The cat was found in the swamp up a tree. he ran a boy out of the tree and whipped two dogs. John Speight then cut down a sapling and went to it. The cat made a jump for him, but John floored him with his stick and killed it. Tuesday another cat was run down in the swamp and killed after a hard fight. (The type of cat wasn't identified, but it was evidently a small cat species)

[CATS, PARIS] Field, 9th October 1886
There is some talk of holding a cat show in Paris this autumn; and if the project comes to anything, I hope that we shall see among the entries some of the animals which have just had the honour of being dismissed by the Budget Committee in connection with the army estimates. Among the items in these estimates is one of £200 for the keep of a certain number of cats which are found useful in the different barracks, which would otherwise be overrun with rats and mice. The keep of these cats has hitherto been estimated at three farthings a day, and as the new Minister of War regards no reform as too small to deserve his attention he has proposed that the allowance shall be reduced by a farthing per diem. The Budget Committee has been gravely discussing whether a halfpenny worth of catsmeat is sufficient, and they have finally decided that it is, so the cats will have to go on rather shorter rations. There are several "colonies" of cats in Paris, which are not even so well off as this. It is astonishing how many people keep kittens as pets, and turn them out into the streets when they have grown up; and there are several places which have become so infested with cats that it is necessary to have an occasional battue [cull]. Among others is the large pavilion Among others is the large pavilion which serves as a corn market, the central markets, and other places where food can be picked up. The large bridge over the Western Railway, just outside the Gare St. Lazae was a well-known refuge for cats, and when it was demolished the other day hundreds of cats were killed. But the most singular place in Paris with regard to cats is the courtyard of the Prefecture of Police, as there is a regular colony there of about thirty, which are fed daily by an elderly lady, the mother of one of the ushers, who has taken them under her special protection, and makes a journey twice a day from a neighbouring market with food for them. She calls each cat by name and, if every now and then a fresh one comes, she increaser her daily portion of food. This has now been going on for three or four years.

A NEW USE FOR CATS.
The Boston Weekly Globe, November 3rd, 1886

Australians Employing Them As Rabbit Hounds. History certainly does repeat itself, and it is the part which relates to our old favorite. Dick Whittington, which is engaged in the process at the present time. Australians had nearly came to the conclusion, in their despair, that the only effectual method of exterminating the rabbits with which the country is overrun, was the one prescribed by the Italian mountebank with his high-priced flea powder. This consisted of catching each flea gently but firmly between the forefinger and thumb, placing him stomach up on the ground with your foot on the stomach, opening his mouth and putting the poison in.

Dick Whittington to the rescue! They now purchase cats at a shilling a head, and 250 of them have been let loose on the rabbits in Victoria's most infested districts. These “rabbit hounds” were first enclosed in a limited space by a wire netting and fed on rabbit’s flesh for a while. Then they were released in batches. Food is supplied in a rough shed for those who do not begin to hunt immediately. Not a cat has returned to her original home, and that country is strewn with dead rabbits. The only thing left to be desired now is the lord mayor’s coach of the old tale.

A VALUABLE CAT.
Thanet Advertiser, 4th December 1886
Mr. Walter Stratford, head keeper at the Hall-by-the-Sea Menagerie, baa a good friend in cat (which formerly escaped from the cat show held there some few years ago), who not only supplies some of the birds of prey and small animals with a “dainty morsel," but also destroys a great pest to that establishment. The cat has now a litter of kittens, over which she watches with the greatest care, and endeavours to make good provision for their sustenance. During the past three weeks Mr. Stratford has taken from the kittens the large number of seventy-five rats, which the mother has killed and carried to them. On two occasions the keeper took from the kittens ten rats at time. The cat appears to have been very watchful over her family from the first, for every time they were discovered she would move them, and sometimes to long distance ; she once carried them on to the top of a rick, but the wind blowing rather cold, she shifted them into a secluded spot in the Menagerie, where they have been ever since. The other day she sallied forth with her family, but as soon as they caught sight of Stratford they ran like mad, "being of wild nature.” The mother is docile enough, but does not like be confined, and would bolt through the window if shut up in a room.

CATS AND DOGS IN THE SAME BOAT.
The New York Times, December 23, 1886

HUDSON, N.Y., Dec. 22.--In a number of localities in Columbia County cats and dogs are afflicted with a disease resembling epizootic in horses. Veterinary surgeons say that they do not know what to make of it. (Note: Epizootic was the colloquial term for Equine Influenza, which had a devastating outbreak in the USA in 1872)

THE LATEST WRINKLE
The Des Moines Register, 20th March, 1887

The cat has been elevated to the high place of the fashionable pet of the season. The girl who does not own a cat is indeed in the rear of the day. A handsome cat with a rib¬bon and bell on its neck stretched luxuriously before an open fire conveys an intangible something of home comfort, ease and prosper¬ity. Young ladies who have discarded dogs and taken up cats instead declare that justice has never been done to the mental capacities of the domestic feline tribe. Certainly it is that pussy has been and is now an ill used, much persecuted, greatly slandered and little understood animal.

A young lady win has made cats a study for several years declares that no animal is more sagacious. “Think of the cat’s peculiar habits, its many enemies, and how it often has to struggle for mere sustenance, and I’m sure anyone will be convinced that no other animal is so clever,” she says. “Even the commonest cat is a wise creature. Now, one of mine — I have five - has found out that she is good-looking. She has also ascertained that she can see the reaction of her beauty in a mirror. If it were merely a cat she wanted to look at, there are her four compan¬ions for her to see. It is herself she wishes to admire, and she does not let an hour in the day pass without taking a peep in the glass. She will lick her hair, wash her face, and turn her tall first one way and then another, as if trying the effect, and talking to herself with short 'meows.' One of the other cats — big gray and black Nicholas - always acts, when he discovers her before a Mirror, as if he is scolding her. Once when Sallie, that’s the vain cat’s name, couldn’t get her tail arranged to please her, she turned around with her back to the glass and looked over her shoulder, switching her appendage which occasioned her so much trouble from side to side. Nicholas had been keeping up a continual impatient growling for some time, and had walked back and forth near the table on which Sallie was seated, casting disdainful glances at her. Suddenly he jumped up, caught her by the neck and hauled her out into the farthest end of the hall. She cried and made a tremendous outbreak, but he put her in a corner and then stood before her for two or three minutes growling in the same tone as if he was reading her a lecture.

“Most people,” she added, “think that cats are incapable of forming as strong an affection for human beings as dogs. It is my experience that they are quite as devoted friends as the canine race. They are more apt to attach themselves to one person in a family than dogs, and their love of locality is stronger. A cat-mother is invariably more loving than a dog-mother. They will sometimes grieve themselves to death when deprived of their offspring. We had one black cat whose kittens were murdered by an outcast of her own race, who became insane at their loss. She was as clearly crazy as any human being bereft of reason. This affection which cats show for their young and the sorrow they manifest when they lose them demonstrates their capacity for attachments. Cats are emphatically the friends of our childhood. Little children notice a cat sooner than any other animal. Children often treat kittens very roughly, too, but they are invariably patient with abuse from a child. The cat always seems to know, when she is a child’s playfellow, that no matter how harsh is her usage the child does not mean to hurt her. Children are often allowed to play with kittens till they die from the rough handling. Ye pussy will run after the child as long as she is able to move.

“I have two kittens, one black and one snow-white, Josie and Jessie by name, which my brother’s little girl considers her most intimate friends. As soon as they have heard the sound of her voice they will both scamper to get to her. They act a little jealous of her favour, and if she puts a hand on one the other will try to push the recipient of her caress away so as to get the attention. They play ball with her and will carry it in their mouths and lay it in her lap or hand. Josie likes to put the ball into her hand and often refuses to place it in her lap.

“People thing cats cannot be taught to behave as well as dogs. Now, I find that they learn politeness and good manners quite as easily. They have much greater curiosity than dogs and always notice and examine anything new about the house. If there is a closet or any room in a house in which a cat is not allowed, she is sure to show a constant desire to get in there. It is merely curiosity to see what is behind the door which actuates her. The cat has been accused from time immemorial with being sly and a thief. Cats are not sly. They are shy and timid, and skulk about in strange places because they are afraid. They are not thieves as a rule unless driven to theft through hunger. If cats are properly fed and cared for they will not steal. In the country, especially, people think cats can catch mice and rats enough for food. That is a ridiculous idea. I’ve heard farmers’ wives say cats wouldn’t hunt if they were fed. Even if a cat could catch rodents enough to satisfy her hunger, to eat the flesh exclusively would kill her in a short time. A healthy, well-fed cat will hunt twice as well as a half-starved one.

“A cat always wants a place to be quiet in when she has a family. She will search all over the house for a place which she considers desirable. If one is provided for her and she is made to know it is hers she is perfectly content. Habits of cleanliness are easily inculcated in the cat. I never scold my cats in a loud tone – cats are dreadfully frightened at a scolding. Sometimes I use a small whip. Cats are very delicate and easily injured around the head and should never be struck there.

“I have one cat which was rather hard to train – not from lack of intelligence, but from wilfulness. His name is Caesar. He fought me for months every time I corrected him, but now he has the finest manners of any cat in the country. He walks on his hind legs, makes a bow and will stand on the piano stool and pat the keyboard with one paw to make sounds. If I look at him and point toward a chair he immediately goes to it and sits down.

“All the South Side girls are trying to get nice kittens now,” she declared, “The favorites are pure black, white and maltese [blue]. One young lady has a maltese which is kept all the year at Oconomowoc. She always shows the greatest pleasure when she sees her mistress in summer, and during the entire season always walks with her night and morning like a dog. Cats are not as demonstrative and exuberant in their manifestations of joy as dogs, but they evince their pleasure just as plainly.”

THE GOVERNOR’S DOGS AND CATS.
The New York Times, May 8, 1887

ELMIRA, May 7.-The story of Gov. Hill’s dogs published in the THE TIMES was copied yesterday in Gov. Hill’s paper, the Elmira Gazette and Free Press. That the Governor's mouthpiece should be so unwary as to be entrapped into the publication of such a huge joke on its lord and master created no little amusement, and many protests were made against the position occupied by the Governor, his dogs, and last but not least, his home organ. The story spread thick and fast, and before the time for the publication of the Gazette this afternoon indignation grew so thick and fast that in the neighbourhood of the Gazette office a cyclone of expletives was whirling that would put to shame the greatest effort of a Western cyclone. The Gazette receiving due notice of the entanglements in which it had placed its dog show, makes an effort this evening to get out of the trap, and placed itself in a ridiculous position by publishing the following:

“The story printed in yesterday’s Gazette from THE NEW YORK TIMES should be accepted by all as a fiction. The Governor’s dog is a very little fellow – not of half so much importance as the cat ‘Veto,’ and Tom Callahan was not engaged to look after him. The story had no little malice in it, and should not be credited.”

THE CAT SHOW — A SENSATIONAL ATTRACTION
The Hocking Sentinel, June 30, 1887

From tickets printed at this office, we learn that an original kind of show will exhibit in Wellman's barn on next Saturday afternoon. The show will consist mainly of trained, or rather caged cats. The cats and the managers are all natives to Logan. It will be a home show. The managers are a quartette of the ablest cat catchers of the city, viz: Johnny Blasius, Johnny Wellman, Tod Stedem and Harry Green. The price of admission will be from one pin, one marble or one cent, according to the age of the boy. No boy over ten will be admitted.

TEA UNFIT FOR THE CATS; EXPERT DAVIES TELLS OF A CHEST HE SAMPLED. ANOTHER DAY IN THE WARD'S ISLAND INVESTIGATION
The New York Times, July 9, 1887
(Excerpt)

As far as the investigation of the management of affairs at the insane asylum was concerned, there were no startling developments until nearly the end of the session. Examiner Corwin, of the controller’s office, reappeared on the scene with James R Davies, the famous tea expert. The latter stated that he had inspected sampled brought him by Mr Corwin which the examiner said he took from a chest in the store-house on Blackwell's Island. Mr Davies declared that the sample was a mixture of the lowest grades and unfit for the use of mongrel dogs or homeless cats.

THE GREAT CAT SHOW.
A Circus as is a Circus, and an Unequalled Collection of Animals. Charley Beck, Our office Boy, Speaks a Word Regarding the Aggregation.
The Hocking Sentinel, July 21, 1887

The cat show up in Motherwell’s barn was a “jimmie.* I was there. That was Friday. At 1 o'clock P. M. the grand parade took place on Main street. It Was 130° in the sun, but she went off all the same. Crow Swartz and Harry Green rode on a buck board, but the rest of the boys pulled the animals. In the first wagon was a bird cage and in it 10 cats. There was a cage in the second wagon and in it were 7 cats, more or less. The rest of the procession was made up of boys playing drums and blowing fish horns. The weather was a little rough on the cats, but they lived through it. The parade skunked any other that was ever in the Queen City.

The show was up in the haymow of the barn. There were 62 boys and girls there and it got so hot that it kept two soupes carrying water all the time. [The boys performed amateur circus acts] It was next announced that Harry Green, the animal tamer, would exhibit his trained cats. Just then Alma Green, Harry’s sister, stepped in and stopped the show. She said them cats were hers, and they couldn’t come out of the cage, because some of them might get away. When Alma finished her speech, the management weakened and said the show was over. [Show broken up by police due to fire risk] The boys didn’t have much chance to show their cats. Cats are common of course, but if the proprietor of the cats hadn’t interfered, the boys would have showed that real, live cats are “daisies,’* when they turn themselves loose to have a time. Next moon, if the police don’t interfere, the cat tamers will give another show. Chas. Beck.

ALL ABOUT CATS.
Mid Sussex Times - Tuesday 25 October 1887

I found what follows here in a London paper called “Sunlight.” I feel sure it will interest my readers.

The whole organisation of the cat is specialised for the capture, the slaughter, and the complacent digestion of other animals; and, when we regard our gentle tabby peacefully purring on the rug, we see a good instance of the conquest of mind over matter - for domestication, has, indeed, in a great measure altered her nature. The cat is naturally a purely flesh-eating animal. Her nocturnal habits, her activity, her sudden spring, her powerful paw, and retractile talons - to strike down and hold the living prey; her long, sharp, essentially carnivorous fangs - to restrain the victim’s escape and to tear him up; her tongue rough with prickles -to rasp off the flesh from the bones; and the character of her stomach and intestines - in fact, all her ways, and all her structures, point to her adaptation to this end. Cats do not chase their quarry; but prowling about, or crouching in cover until some unfortunate creature is near enough, they give a bound or two and a spring, and all is over. Hit or miss - if the latter result, which is a rare occurrence, the beast does not pursue, but waits again, and patiently too, for another chance.

The sense of smell by no means so delicate in the cat as in the dog; you may put a piece of meat almost under her nose, and unless she sees it, she will hardly know that it is there. Her hearing, however, is wonderfully acute, and she probably hunts very much by means of this sense - hearing the faintest rustle or slightest movement of any creature in the neighbourhood. Her eyesight, too, is remarkably developed, particularly for seeing at night, for images of objects, which to us are quite invisible in the dark, make a sensible impression on her very delicate retina. The latter, indeed, is so sensitive to light, that it cannot stand the glare of the sun; and even in ordinary light, the pupil of the cat’s eye contracts into a perpendicular slit in order to prevent too much light from entering. On the other band, at night the cat wants all the light can get, and the pupil dilates widely.

The origin of the common British domestic cat Is very obscure. Some persons consider that it is descended from the common wild cat, others that like the dog, it has a mixed origin, from several original species. At any rate - however the variety first arose - our useful domestic cat is no doubt really an importation into England:;and now she is to be found all over the world, for wherever civilised man goes - like Whittington - he carries with him his cat. Cats often take to a life in the woods, giving up their quiet, civilized, stay-at-home habits, and becoming most destructive foragers and poachers. Of this kind, indeed, are the so-called ‘wild cats,’ so often heard of in the country.

The real ‘wild cat’ once common in the English woods, is now only found in the forests and mountains of Scotland, and on the Continent. It differs from the domestic cat in being larger, and in having a tail which is comparatively shorter, more bushy, and not tapering. Its thick dark grey fur is striped with black bands along the hock and transversely on the sides, and its tail is ringed with black and grey. It is in every sense of the word ‘wild,’ and most sanguinary and destructive to all small animals and birds. In the Pyrenees the wild cat is regularly hunted and eaten by Spanish peasants, who say that its flesh is very nice and much better than rabbit. With us, wild cats have few friends, and the gamekeepers shoot them down without mercy.

The Egyptians were very fond of cats; they treated them with great respect, and carefully embalmed and made mummies of them when they were dead. Several of these are to be seen at the British Museum. The Chinese have also, it seems, a great penchant for cats, but principally for the table, for which they fatten them expressly.

It is rather curious that there are so few well differentiated varieties of the domestic cat. Perhaps we have not taken the trouble to develop them, for cats are chiefly kept to keep down rats and mice, and any cat will do that. Occasionally, a so-called ‘sport,’ or new character has appeared, e.g. the want of a tail, and when the individuals presenting it have been isolated and mated together, the character has become permanent, and a variety has been formed. It was very likely in this way that the tailless manx cat arose. At some of the recent shows a cat from Cyprus was exhibited, which had the merest remnant of a tail. Another well marked breed is the long and silky haired Persian or Angola cat, whose beautiful for ruffle, bushy tail, small head, and short pointed bristly ears, are very characteristic. The Chinese have a breed of cats with lop ears; they have probably been kept for so many centuries in confinement, that never requiring to use their ears to prick up and listen here, there, and everywhere, the organs have by degrees become pendent.

The Siamese cats which have been recently exhibited our cat shows, must also be regarded as a very distinct variety. They are small cats of uniform greyish fawn colour varying in shade in different individuals, with the nose, ears, and tail always darker, or nearly black. Their fur is very short, as might be expected in an animal coming from a hot place, and their heads are small, with large long ears. The Abyssinian domestic cat is a large shorthaired animal of nearly uniform greyish-brown, marked with a black band down the back and small transverse stripes on the legs.

The marking of our own cats is as various as that of our dogs and other domestic animals: and we are quite ignorant of the law which regulates this wonderful variation of colouration, why it is that in the same litter we may have one white, another black, a third mottled with grey and brown, and so on. That there is, however, some connection between colour and other characters is well recognised. Darwin, for instance pointed out the fact that white cats with blue eyes are nearly invariably deaf, also that tortoise-shell cat tom cats are singularly rare. Since attention, however, has been called these facts, several exceptions have turned up. A still rarer combination is a yellow tabby colour in a she cat.

Puss has a rather bad reputation for unfaithfulness, and it certainly true that she often becomes more attached to her home than to her owner: but this may be to some extent his fault - relegating her, for generations past, to the kitchen, as a men mouser, ‘chevying’ her about, and never taking half so much trouble with her training as he has done with his dog. We must remember, too, that cats are not intrinsically gregarious animals like dogs, and they can reflect and be happy withoug constant companionship. – UNCLE WILLIAM.

ALL ABOUT CATS [EXCERPTS] Woodbridge Reporter, 27th October 1887
In the Pyrenees the wild cat Is regularly hunted and eaten by Spanish peasants, who say that its flesh is very and much better than rabbit . . . The Chinese have also, it seems, a great penchant for cats, but principally for the table, for which they fatten them expressly.

Occasionally, a so-called “sport,” or new character has appeared, e.g. the want of a tail, and when the individuals presenting it have been isolated and mated together, the character has become permanent, and a variety has been formed. It was very likely in this way that the tailless manx cat arose. At some of the recent shows a cat from was Cyprus exhibited, which had the merest remnant of a tail. Another well marked breed is the long and silky-haired Persian or Angola cat, whose beautiful fur ruffle, bushy tail, small head, and short pointed bristly ears, are very characteristic.

The Chinese have a breed of cats with lop ears; they have probably been kept for so many centuries in confinement, that never requiring to use their ears to prick up and listen here, there, and everywhere, the organs have by degrees become pendent. The Siamese which have been recently exhibited at our cat shows, must also be regarded as a very distinct variety. They are small cats of a uniform greyish fawn colour varying in shade in different individuals, with the nose, ears, and tail always darker, or nearly black. Their fur is very short, as might be expected in an animal coming from a hot place, and their heads are small, with large long ears. The Abyssinian domestic cat is a large, shorthaired animal of a nearly uniform greyish-brown, marked with a black band down the back and small transverse stripes on the legs [. . .]

Darwin, for instance, pointed out the fact that white cats with blue eyes are nearly invariable deaf, also that “tortoise-shell” tom cats are singularly rare. Since attention, however, has been called to these facts, several exceptions have turned up. A still rarer combination is a “yellow” tabby colour in a she cat.
[Note: the latter statement regarding rarity of red/yellow tabby females may be linked to the habit of destroying most female kittens.]

HAVE YOU GOT ANY CATS?
The New York Times, December 4, 1887

WICHITA, Kan, Dec 3. - It is stated that the town of Hugo, Col., is overrun with rats. Mr J, M. Humphrey has received a letter from there stating that rats had collected in the town by the million, and asking him to collect all the cats he could find and express them there. As a result Humphrey collected from owners 250 cats in his own town, put them in cages, and expressed them to Hugo. The next day he went to Mulvane, a town 20 miles distant, and there collected 300 tomcats and expressed them also. Yesterday he visited Mount Hope and gathered up 100 more and sent them. He intends to flush out 1,000 cuts and then await further orders. From the letter he learned that the cold weather had caused rats to come in from the prairie in great numbers, and they were playing sad havoc with residences and merchandise of all kinds. The letter announced that the rodents had done thousands of dollars’ damage in the town.

CATS AS COUNTERBALANCES Cotton Factory Times, 10th February 1888
From time to time one hears of various mishaps by which cats fall into the paths of fly-wheels of engines and are carried round and round for hours on the inside rim of the wheel, and generally the information concludes with some observation upon the wondrous muscular power of cats, enabling them to hold their position for such a time. A dog in the engine room of the public station of the water works, while looking through a slit in the floor provided for the wheel, saw a cat in the basement below. He attempted to spring upon her between the spokes of the wheel, but was caught and carried around on the inside rim for a number of revolutions. On his release he would never enter or approach the building again. The engine tender of one of the large armouries in Connecticut perceived what he supposed to be a piece of newspaper on the inside of the fly wheel of the engine, and was somewhat provoked that anyone should be so disorderly as to throw a paper in that way. But when the mill was stopped at noon a cat jumped out, and, instead of being affronted or permanently terrified by the involuntary ride of several hours, did not abandon the engine-room. The engineer in a printing office of one of the newspapers of Montreal discovered, as he thought, a large piece of paper on the inner rim of the fly-wheel, and at the expiration of five hours, when the engine was stopped, a cat jumped out somewhat demoralized, but not permanently injured.

Instead of wondering how a cat could hold on under such circumstances, an examination of the facts will lead one to question why the beast was not squeezed to death by centrifugal force. Applying the formula and assuming what appears to be a proper limit for the radius of gyration for a cat, shows that the centrifugal force in this instance on the inside rim of the fly-wheel of the engine, which was ten feet in diameter, revolving fifty times per minute, was 5.76 times gravity, so that the cat was really pushed at all times against the rim with a pressure at four and three-quarter times its own weight. The physical result of such an enormous pressure can best be conceived by considering its effect upon a man weighing 175 pounds, where this excess of external pressure would amount to 731 pounds, a weight which few would care to sustain for a short time, and certainly none for hours. - Electrical Review.

A RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE CATS.
Murray's Magazine , reprinted in The New York Times, Published: March 25, 1888

A few miles off, however, at Trent, we found a yet more remarkable portion of the company's staff; eight cats who were borne on the strength of the establishment and for whom a sufficient allowance of milk and cat's meat was duly provided. And when we say that the cats have under their charge, according to the season of the year, from 100,000 to 300,000 or 400,000 empty corn sacks, it will be admitted that the company cannot have many servants who better earn their wages. The holes in the sacks, which are eaten by the mice which are not eaten by the cats, are darned by 12 women who are employed by the company. - Murray's Magazine.

LADIES OF BROOKLYN WHO ARE POSSESSED OF THE CAT MANIA
Various, May 1888

It is said that the ladies of Brooklyn who are possessed of the cat mania keep the felines small by feeding them gin, and cause their tails to curl by breaking them in three places when the animals are very young.

PARADISE FOR CATS.
Various, May 1888.

Pussy and Object of Great Respect in Mohammedan Countries. All cats, says The New York Sun, are not the wanton and roistorous animals that nightly sit and warble on your neighbor’s fence. In Mohammedan countries the cat is an object of consideration and respect, amounting in some parts of Islam to veneration. For this worshipful regard among the faithful the oat is indebted to Mohammed. Rather than disturb a sleeping cat which had curled itself upon his coat one day, Mohammed deliberately cut away that portion of the garment on which the cat was reposing. From that day to this the Mussulman world has regarded the cat with veneration. The Persians, particularly, are deferential in their treatment of the cat. I have seen cats in Persia treated with an exalted consideration that would have made the famous Sun office cat spit with envy.

One day I was the guest of Ali Khan, the Hoikim of Khoi, a largo city in Western Persia. Soon after my arrival the noontide meal was announced. “ Bismlllah Sahib,” said the Hoikim, and followed by several counsellors in long gowns and snowy turbans, he led the way into the dining-room. The dining cloth was spread in the center of the floor. The Hoikim and his venerable associates seated themselves, Oriental fashion, on the floor; I was provided with a little stand table at one end. So far there was nothing remarkable; it was merely an ideal Asiatic dining-room scene. The remarkable part was yet to come; and come it did, very promptly, too. It came in the shape of five times as many cats as there were human guests. In the room were many open doors and windows, as is usual in a Persian house. As we entered I noticed that several of the famous long-haired cats of the country were hovering expectantly at these entrances. Already the number was sufficient to arrest my interest. Nobody took any particular notice of them, however, but me.

Every moment another cat or two jumped airily upon one of the window sills, and walked right in. In less time than it takes to tell it the number had swollen to twenty or more, and before we were half through eating I should think the number was at least doubled. The room, outside the dining space, was literally alive with cats. Whenever a servitor brought in a new dish, or took anything away, he was followed across the room by a swarm of cats that trotted in noiseless confusion at his heels. Not a meow was heard, however, nor a quarrelsome sound during the meal time. Every cat held its tail aloft, and they passed the time in silently moving about. They were the most orderly and decorous lot of cats Imaginable. There was little or no disposition to overstep the bounds of proprieties. They seemed to have acquired the stateliness and politeness of the people with whom they were associating.

Neither the “Hoikim” nor the counsellors seemed to regard this remarkable scene as anything unusual. Whenever one of the cats ventured to invade the edge of the dinner cloth, he would be gently, almost apologetically shoved back. The cats were fearless and familiar. Some of them stroked and purred against the venerable diners' backs. It was very evident that they had never known what it was to receive a blow or a rude rebuff at the hands of man. After dinner the servitors promptly removed the remnants. The intruders promenaded the apartments awhile after the food was removed, and then gradually dispersed as silently as they had collected. This was more cats than I had ever seen together outside of a cat show. Owing to linguistic shortcomings, I could never make out whether they were all pensioners of the municipal konak or merely neighborhood cats, attracted to the official repast in this manner every day.

After this extraordinary introduction to the cats of Persia, the reader would naturally expect to hear equally extraordinary things about their midnight revelings. For, sad to say, the Persian cat is not always as circumspect in his behavior as he is when hovering around the outskirts of a Hoikim’s banqueting-board. Nor does he always wait for the setting of the sun to tune himself up. Not less than for its wealth of hair is the Persian cat on its native hearth celebrated among Ferenghi travelers for its early matinee concerts. At all hours of the day, when the felines of other lands are indulging in dolce far nience and saving their vocal organs for the mystic seances of the night, the cats of Persia are promenading the walls and housetops, uttering plaintive melodies that sound like the wailing of lost souls. There is more genuine zitherish pathos in the “meaoww—waaaaaoooowurr— blabbabl—owwrrr” of a Persian Thomas cat than there is in a muezzin's call to prayer.

The unfortunate tendency of the Persian cat to carol in the daytime as well as in the night is the cause of many little unpleasantnesses between the European colony in Teheran and the natives. Fifty cats might warble on a Persian’s roof day and night, and, owing to their being under the special protection of Mohammed, they would never be molested. This, of course, a Ferenghi cannot be expected to endure. When I was in Teheran a big white cat took a fancy to perch himself on the wall of our konak, and, looking down into the yard, favor us with a musical melange at any hour of the day or night. In deference to the prejudices of our Mussulman neighbors, we contented ourselves at first by shooing him away. Finally, however, we concluded that his soul-harrowing refrain could no longer be endured. If Mohammod wouldn’t or couldn’t corner and fetch that cat, we determined to send it to Mohammed.

It would never do to shoot him openly, however, so we took into our confidence an Armenian servant, to whose master we learned the cat belonged. An Armenian servant in Persia would sell his master’s immortal soul for a keran, and so when we offered the Armenian two kerans to produce the white cat in a bag the persistent serenader was as good as doomed. Never more did that white warbler sit and look down into our konak and tantalize our two imported English bulldogs for hours together. An avenging Nemesis, however, was quickly upon us. Although the offender was dispatched to Mohammed with the greatest secrecy, a few days later the finest of the bulldogs went mad and had to be shot.

THE SUFFERINGS OF PET CATS - The Graphic, 11 August 1888
The sufferings of pet cats during the absence of the household on their holiday are often commiserated at this season. They manage these things better in Philadelphia, U.S.A. where there is a regular Cat Hotel during the summer months, conducted on luxurious principles. Most of the rooms are fitted for Pussy's sleeping accommodation, with three stories of shelves round the walls, provided with nice soft mats and rugs. A few aristocratic tabbies have tiny rooms to themselves, where, after their meal, they undergo a regular course of washing and combing to keep their coats in order. This extra attention costs about £2. a month, but the charge for ordinary treatment is £1 4s. The other cats feed together in the dining-room, where each has its own plate on the table. The diet is generous, and on Sunday Puss's dinner consists of meat soup, cod- fish and shrimps, mackerel, and fresh milk with ice-water. Some 100 cats board in the hotel during the summer.

SHOT AT CATS AND HIT A BOY
The New York Times, September 12, 1888

Little Patrick Simmonds who lives 401 Third-avenue, heard some cats screaming in the yard in the rear of his home last Wednesday night and went out to scare them away. Hardly had he gotten out when some(one) on the roof fired at the cats and bullet struck the boy in the right breast. Patrick is now in a very critical condition and last night his father reported his case to the police. Search is being made for Fred Fischer, who lived at 399 Third-avenue and who was in the habit of shooting cats with a revolver.

THE SPOOKS WERE CATS
The New York Times, September 12, 1888

Strange noises in an unoccupied house on the Passaio River, near Avondale, NJ, aroused curiosity, and started stories of ghosts. Wednesday evening Charles Caldwell, who has little faith in spooks, determined to ascertain the cause and slept in the building. He had scarcely put out his light before there was a tapping noise on the floor. The taps became faster and more furious as he prepared to strike a match. By the time he had made a light the noises had stopped, and a careful search failed to reveal anything. He was as wise in the morning as he had been the night before and no wiser. Thursday night Constable Osborne kept company with him in the vigil. They turned the light low when they threw themselves on their cots, and presently the tapping noise was heard. The light was turned up in an instance and a cat was seen dancing on the bare floor. its four paws has been crowded into scooped-out walnut shells, and the pain it suffered made it dance a jig and beat a tattoo on the floor. Two other cats similarly shod were found later. Two men who were seen at the window of the house are supposed to have dropped the suffering felines in to give the rustics a ghost scare.

Some Extracts from “SOME CAT AND DOG TATTLE”.
The Queen, 27th October 1888

The Japanese pug or spaniel is a great pet in this country, though extremely rate and difficult to obtain; and so is the Siamese cat, which is the handsomer animal of the two, and more in reality like an ordinary English pug dog than the Japanese variety is. The Siamese cat is a short-haired creature, and, when in full condition, resembles in texture of coat something between the seal an the rabbit. The colour is a brownish fawn, approaching that of a pug dog, and especially when the points are black smut, as they should be in the best specimens. The Siamese cat is an affectionate animal; and ornament to the house, but not so good a “mouser” as our own tabby. At the recent national cat show at the Crystal Palace, two or three handsome specimens were shown, and here, too, were three or four ordinary cats bigger than a good-sized terrier – one of them (the winner) 25lb weight; but the second prize animal proved actually the bigger cat, for though scaling but 23lb, he was not nearly so fat as the winner, and a man with a very red face, and short and stumpy in appearance, told me, if fattened properly, this 23lb weight cat could be made to weigh quite 28lbs! What a monster! A nice sized terrier is about 17lb weight, and there are little mites of toy dogs weighing only 2 and-a-half lb. Why such big cats would scrunch them up like they would a rat or mouse.

Performing cats are not often seen, though performing dogs are common enough. Pussy is not easily made amendable to discipline. She can be taught to jump through a hoop or over your arm, but refuses to leave these elementary stages for the work required at a high school. Even canaries, to say nothing of parrots and cockatoos, learn various tricks better than the cat does. However, various audiences have been recently more or less delighted in witnessing a number of trained cats perform on the tight-rope, and go through other feats in a creditable manner – at least, creditable for a cat.

But the cat bears a reputation of being more musical than a dog, though the performance of either in this respect is not to be commended. Zoological anecdotes contain a story of a concert held in Paris where cats were the performers and a monkey beat time for them. According as the conductor wielded his baton, so the cats mewed, and the historian further says the diversity of the tones which they emitted produced a very ludicrous effect. More ludicrous than melodious, no doubt, was this “Concert Miaulant.” One great authority on natural history says this show was a deceit, for the alleged music was only got out of the cats by nipping, pinching, and punishing them as occasion required.

Cats have borne the reputation of being able to forecast earthquakes, but even this valuable and absolutely unique power does not appear to have saved them from being offered as sacrifices to propitiate some pagan deity. This was being done in one country, whilst in another they were being worshipped. Of Mahomet it is said that, rather than disturb a cat that had fallen asleep on a portion of his cloak, the skirt of the garment was cut off and pussy allowed to continue her nap in peace.

A curious legend is that from Provence, where, on Corpus Christi day, June 2, the finest tom cat of the country, wrapped in swaddling clothes like a child, was publicly exhibited in a magnificent shrine. Every knee was bent, says the chronicler, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and the poor cat was treated as god of the day. But when the festival of St. John came round on Dec. 27, a reversal met grimalkin, for a number of cats were procured, placed in a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of a huge fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung whilst he cats were burning, and priests and people marched in procession in honour of the sacrifice.

Cats are supposed to have a dread of water; still, this is a in a degree mere supposition. I have found more cats out at night time when the ground is wet and rain falls than when all is dry. Some cats have been fond of going down to the river, paddling in the shallow water, and catching fish, and pussy is a very fair swimmer when misfortune makes it necessary for her to show her powers of natation. Bingley tells of a cat living at Carshalton that, without hesitation, was in the habit of plunging into the Wandle and swimming over to an island, a favourite abode of vermin, as such places are. Dogs have been trained to go into the water and seize fish; but they did so by order of their master, and not of their own knowledge and to gratify the appetite, as is the case with piscatorial cats. We all know the fate of the poet’s cat, who came to an untimely end whilst endeavouring to take the gold fish from a bowl of water.

The island of Cyprus is supposed to have given us our first feline household pets, they being brought here from thence by sundry merchants who traded with the country. In those times (about 900 years ago) a cat was worth as much as a calf, viz. 4d.; but there is nothing wonderful in that, for there are at the present time in this country certain cats that could not be purchased for the price of a full-grown calf – a cow, to wit. An ordinary, well-bred, long-haired cat is, at any rate, worth from two to three or four pounds, which is quite the price of a healthy calf. Still, in money, a dog can beat a cat any day [. . . .£200 to £500 . . .] Cats are not quite so marketable a commodity, but a fine healthy cat – one “whose bright eyes glisten with immortal green,” one that has “chased Elysian mice o’er floor of pearls and sapphires” – is well worth £20, though in the eyes of the purchaser the admiration of a judge at a cat show would be more sought for than “Elysian mice.”

Somehow or other there has always been more superstition connected with cats than with dogs. For instance, a witch would usually take the form of a black cat if she could possibly do so, and pussy would sit alongside, and, purring, enjoy the companionship of the evil spirit, whilst in a similar presence the dog’s hairs would stand on end with fear, and he curl up and tremble. Even the most ferocious watch dog in the district would cower and whine in the presence of one from the land of spirits, whilst the cat would gladly welcome the visitor. At least, such was the belief in country places. At the present day the visit of a stray black cat to a household is deemed exceedingly lucky, especially if he takes up his abode there. Why the cat should be black I cannot tell, especially when all legends lead us to believe that cats of that dark hue are evil. Was Whittington’s cat black or otherwise? Possibly he never had a cat at all, unless it were a tip-cat, a game the gamins of his day delighted to play.

Happily in the present generation the cat is no supposed to be the producer of rabies or any other disorder of a kind which a M.S. tells us prevailed in King’s Lynn in 1585. Whatever the malady was, the Sir Charles Warren of those times issued a decree, to be enforced by the mayor and corporation, that every inhabitant “shall forthwith take all their dogs and whelps, and hang them or kill them, and bury them in some out-of-the-way place, And likewise cats, for if there be any in the houses visited with sickness, they are likely to infect sound and clean houses.” Therefore, the order extended to the killing of cats in King’s Lynn. A somewhat important exception was, however made for [kennelled dogs, leashed dogs, visitors’ dogs and strangers’ dogs]. Poor pussy had no exemption whatever. Cases have occurred in modern times where contagious disease has been conveyed from one house to another by the means of a wandering cat. Still an almost isolated example of the kind could be no reason for the high-handed proceedings which led to the order for the destruction of the cats of Lynn. Possibly belief that inhalation of the breath of a cat caused consumption was not them exploded; or may be, a supply of the heads of cats was required as a remedy for the pestilence that then prevailed in the second town of Norfolk, for the heads of black cats especially, were once supposed to be most beneficial in various ailments. So one writer said, whilst still another tells us that these brains of a cat are “mortal poison.” What say those savages who still think pussy a dainty dish, and fit for a king? In a portion of a southern country cats were once ordered to be destroyed. Years and years before, the Southern Egyptians ordered a man to be killed who wilfully took the life of a domestic cat. So much for the perversity of the human race.

Every well-regulated establishment should keep at least one or even two cats, and a dog too. Try them, and they will be found to agree wonderfully well. The one will keep down the mice, the other deter burglars and saucy mendicants [beggars]. Just now the most fashionable cats are the long haired so-called Persians, white in colour for choice, but the blacks and tabbies and tortoiseshells are very handsome and, in a town, for cleanliness to be recommended. Of course, the Siamese cat, mentioned earlier on, a much quainter variety, is not sufficiently numerous at present to be quite fashionable. He may be the feline favourite of the future. The prevailing rage is for big cats – those of abnormal dimensions. I would suggest the introduction from a selection of proper stains of toy or bantam cats. We have these diminutive varieties in poultry, pigeons, and dogs; then why not in our felines? A handsome little tortoiseshell, long-haired, toy cat, not more than a couple of pounds weight, or even smaller, would be a charming pet, and could not fail to popularise itself. But, unhappily, the production of pussy is not looked upon as one of the fine arts, as is the case with poultry and dogs. Less than ten years of careful selection should produce a strain of toy grimalkins, rivals to the modern toy terriers, and not half so snappish. The newly formed National Cat Club might take up the matter, at any rate, the experiment should be worth while the trial by some or other of the members. – E.B.L.

THE CATS OF PARIS
Boston Transcript, November 1888

We are promised a cat show in Paris. This will not, perhaps, be so interesting as a baby show, but it will be a novelty here. The Parisians like cats, and, as everybody knows, they have a highly distinguished breed. Their long fur, bushy tails and amiable faces have made them celebrated as “French cats,” although in reality they claim Oriental descent. At all times in favor here, they were chiefly appreciated during the siege, although the quantity of meat in proportion to fur was often disappointing. A good cat of steady habits — the profligate animals are always lean — was worth twenty francs or more a few days before the capitulation. If some old ladies had not clung to their cats with great determination, and checked their roving impulses, they would doubtless have been all eaten. Intelligence in cats grows in inverse ratio to fur. The long furred animals are sleepy and stupid, the short furred ones, with tails like rats, are active, wide awake and exceedingly enterprising. These last are known by the name of “gutter rabbits” in Paris. Perched on the roofs, safe from all stone throwers, they hail the coming of spring with jocund music, and when they roam the streets at night they make the rats’ lives a burden to them. Yet, with all their claims to consideration, the “gutter rabbits” will have no place in the exhibition.

THE CAT IN FRANCE
The Junction City Weekly Union, November 3rd, 1888

A cat mart has been started in Paris. I suppose it will grow into a market, and in time to come evolve a journalistic organ. What fun it will be to read the quotations and market reports, which last may probably run thus: Tabbies, dull; toms, buoyant; kittens, lively; Angoras, depressed; brindles, very brisk; Persians, in great demand; tortoise-shells, heavy. The French, from the concierge to the prime minister, are keenly alive to cat beauties. Did not the redoubtable Richelieu allow a pet tabby to use his cardinal’s hat for her nursery ? The cat has now in France, in Lambert and Mme. Ronner, its Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. What wonder, therefore, if by and by we were to have a cat bourse.

CONCERNING CATS.
A Short Criticism of This Domestic Animal. Their Past Record — Buffon, the Naturalist, Defines Them as Selfish and Cunning, and Incapable of Affection — An Impartial Review.
Marion Record, Dec 14, 1888

The undoubted prestige and popularity of the annual cat show is in itself a good and sufficient reason for inviting some inquiry into the mysteries attendant on the nature, history and character of the most favored of domestic animals. Mysteries, indeed, they may well be called ; for there is something akin to weirdness and the occult in all that touches cats and their ways. Naturalists, for instance, who are agreed about dogs, wolves and foxes, and all their varieties, are always at war as to the origin of “pussy,” some deriving it from the “maniculata,” or glove cat, of Northern Africa, while others, with Prof. Owen, discourse learnedly of “deciduous molar teeth with three roots” and other subtile points as being argument against this view. At all events, the ancient Egypt which has been the cradle of civilization may also be fairly held to rank as the true and original “cat’s cradle,” for it was in the mystic Nile land, among the Pharaohs and Pyramids, that cats were not only domesticated, but held sacred, and turned not unfrequently into divinities, in whose honor temples were erected and sacrifices and devotions offered up. Indeed, when a cat died in the house of a respectable Egyptian householder, it was customary for the whole family to shave off their eyebrows, and pay a special visit to the shrine of that “king of cats,” Bubastes Pasht, whose astute wisdom and knowledge of men had doubtless descended to the far-famed companion of Lord Mayor Richard Whittington.

This tone of mystery, this uncanniness, follows cats all through the pages of history. No respectable mediaeval witch who ever wore a peaked hat, muttered charms, and took nightly exercise on a thoroughbred, fiery, untamed broomstick ever dreamt of going forth without the escort of her “familiar,” and that spirit, as in the case of “Chim,” the favorite of Sidonia the Sorceress, invariably took on himself the sable suit of a black cat. In fact, well-conducted witchcraft could not have got on at all except for the cats. Now, in these days of the clear dry light of science we have given up burning middle-aged witches, though maiden ladies will still devote their lives, their houses, their loves, and even their fortunes, in legacy form, to cats. The superstitious notion, however, yet cling around them, for old sailors at sea believe that the frolics of a cat on board ship portend a storm, and there are country folks that still prophesy rain when they see a cat washing her face. When the domestic cat came to our islands is another point not known with certainty; but that it was a rarity in the days when the woods swarmed with wild cats is shown by the old Welsh law passed in the time of Howel the Good, who died a century before the Conquest, which fixed the price of cats according to their ages and qualities, beginning with the value of a kitten before it could see. It also enacted curious penalties to be inflicted on any one who stole or killed the cat that caught mice in the prince’s granary, one of which was that the offender should forfeit as much wheat as, when poured on the victim, suspended by its tail, with its head touching the floor, would form a heap high enough to cover the tip of the tail. This shows that someone must have introduced the domestic variety, for the wild cats, like zebras, are absolutely untameable.

So much for their past record. We have now to ask what is the exact place the cat takes among us to-day, how it has obtained its proud position, and of what nature is the treaty established between mankind and the tiny tigers. Unlike the dog, who so proudly and justly, claims to be the friend of man, the cat has made no compact with us. The dog rejoices in the companionship of man, shares his games and his sports, and does so with real and obvious delight; he will defend his master's life or property, and in all ways wishes to be considered and treated as an affectionate and devoted friend of the family. He gives love for love and sympathy for sympathy. But the cat insists on our loving her — popularly a cat is always “she” — will expect and insist on attention in the matter of food and head-scratchings and warmth; and will indicate her purring pleasure for immediate creature comforts in a fashion which is somewhat in the nature of an official vote of thanks. She will also develop extraordinary boldness, and leap on the shoulder or the lap, or coax slyly round you with arched back and waving tail, after a fashion to delude you into the belief that her affection for you is quite unbounded: but all the same it is hard to resist the possible cynical belief that it is all pretense, and done from no motive of personal affection. No cat ever runs to welcome its master when he comes home, any more than it would leap with joy as do setters at the sight of a gun, or prick its ears as would horse or hound at the sound of a horn. The dogs knew Ulysses after his Wandering; but the cats of that gentleman’s household, we may be sure, only yawned with a sort of “Dear me! you’ve been a long time away” expression, and retired to concoct fresh strategies concerning whatever was the Homeric equivalent for a canary. Buffon, who loved all animals, was, from a scientific point of view, as hard on cats as the average street boy who flings stones at them simply because they are cats, or the more unpardonable young man with a fancy terrier who sets his “tyke” to pull out the brindled fugitive who spits and snarls from behind the security of her fortress, the area-railings. That eminent naturalist firmly held that the cat is incapable of affection, and retains, even in a domesticated state, its savage ferocity, merely restrained by selfishness and disguised by cunning” — which is in all truth a verdict of such severity that it would make an intelligent crocodile blush to hear it. In similar harsh strains other writers argue that cats only form an attachment for places and never for persons; and certain it is that no other animal has such a marvelous instinctive power of finding its way home from almost incredible distances to which it has been transported in the gloomy seclusion of a hamper, and this power is developed in the early days of kittenhood. Others, again, point out that the gratuitous cruelty shown by a cat in playing with and torturing an unhappy mouse before killing it is an extraordinary exception to the general rule observed by animals who kill and eat, but never delay long over the process. This characteristic may arise from a grim— we might almost say Grimalkin—sense of humor, beyond even the proverbial facetiousness of the Cheshire cat; but there is a curious method in their fun, for it has been noted that if the prey is a bird instead of a mouse, the cat kills it instantly, as if aware of the greater danger of losing its victim.

On the whole, the body of evidence tells strongly in favor of the cat, and yet in some fashion, notwithstanding its selfishness, its indifference, its puzzling ways, it has succeeded in making many friends, has been worshiped by the ancients, collected and made a splendid show of at the Crystal Palace, has given a name to a club instituted for its special culture, and, best tribute of all, has been adored by the ladies from time immemorial. On this side of the account must also be placed the fact that cats make excellent mothers, and watch over the morals and manners of their offspring with close attention, not neglecting, if needs be, to administer a sound box on the ear by way of a rebuke to a contumatious kitten who persist in acting disrespectfully, after due warning, to its mother’s tail. Moreover, they form close attachments to individual members of their own species, and have by no means the character for recklessly indiscriminate alliance — akin to Thibetan polyandria — popularly attributed to them. Then they are really graceful and beautiful pets, singularly clean in their personal habits, taking, when looked after, quite a dandy care of their highly electric fur, so dry that it can be readily injured by water, which accounts for a cat’s instinctive aversion to wet. As to their manners, if, indeed, it be true that they are haughty, reserved, and self-restrained in society, they are never vulgarly noisy or aggressively demonstrative, but, on the contrary, go in for the repose and “reserved force” style that marked the dignified behavior of Lady Clara Vere de Vere, who, indeed, was somewhat feline in her ways. The fact is that it’s high time some compromise should be effected. Mankind is cultivating its cats, is disposed to be kind and polite to them; now let the cats reciprocate in turn, unbend a little, take a lesson from dog’s genial book — cats brought up with dogs are generally charming cats, with nice frank manners — and remember that they are distant cousins to the lordly lion, concerning whose “royal disposition” they can learn if they make a study of “As You Like It.” and are not too critically inquisitive as to how lions got into the Forest of Arden. It has only to be known throughout the length and breadth of Cat-land what an interest is being taken in the whole tribe, and there is every reason for supposing that the rising generation of kittens will exhibit a new inclination to redeem the character of the species.—London Telegraph.

CATS IN EGYPT
The New York Times, January 9, 1889
(Reprinted from the London Figaro)

In Egypt ladies used to carry their devotion for their feline pets so far as to go into mourning for them when they died. And how do you think they went into mourning? Why, by shaving off their eyebrows! Favorite cats used to be embalmed, too, and i know of no quainter or more grotesque objects that the mummified cats which may be seen at the British Museum. Even now cats are held in high esteem in Egypt, and in at least on of the khedive's palaces at Cairo there is a free ration distributed every day to any cats that may care to apply.

WHERE CATS ARE IN DEMAND.
The New York Times, April 20, 1889

DUBUQUE, Iowa, April 19.--A new and decidedly novel industry has sprung up in this city. A man is here buying cats, for which he pays from 50 cents to $1 each, according to age and size. he ships them to Dakota, where he sells them for $3 each. They are in great demand there, where they are wanted to destroy the mice which swarm by thousands around the corn and wheat bins, doing great damage. Cats are very scarce in Dakota. Thus far two car-loads of cats have been shipped from this city and another load is being secured.

THIRTEEN CATS SHRIEKED AND DIED.
The New York Times, April 27, 1889

PHILADELPHIA, April 26.-- Leoni Clark, known on the variety stage as the "cat king," who, with a troop of thirty cats, has been one of the attractions here this week, met with a great misfortune this morning. Mr Clark thought that his troop of cats needed some medicine, and he went to a neighbouring drug store and had a prescription, which was tried with good results many times, put up. He then assembled his troop of educated cats in a row and began to administer the medicine. After he had gone down the line, giving dose after dose as far as the thirteenth cat, cat number one, with an unearthly shriek, leaped into the air and fell dead.

Cat number two followed suit. Cat number three did the same, and so it went on until thirteen cats that had taken the medicine lay dead before him. Mr Clark is in a terrible state of mind over his loss, and will sue the druggist, who he claims put up the wrong prescription. The druggist declares that he put up exactly what Mr Clark's prescription called for.

THE CATS OF HENRI ROCHEFORT.
The New York Times, April 30, 1889

M. Henri Rochefort's three cats, which, as I told you a few days ago, had been imprisoned and sealed up in one of his cellars during the magisterial visits, can at least console themselves with the reflection, if they are still in the land of the living, that they have become celebrities. M Rochefort's addresses to-day an amusing letter on the subject of his suffering tabbies to the President of the Society for the Protection of Animals, in which, after declaring on oath that his cats are innocent of "conspiracy" or of "corrupting the troops," he goes on to say that the bare thought that Moricaud, the eldest of his three, may be condemned to life-long imprisonment in a fortress or transported to New-Caledonia in a ship freighted for the purpose, fills him with anguish. "If you saw him, M. le President, he would fascinate you at once. he is so graceful. he is a little like Pelletan, though naturally, better looking, and then he is far more careful about his toilet." The President is implored to go at once and confer with M. Constan, with a view to saving the life of this "victim of Opportunism."

THE SHAH’S CAT SHOW.
Atlanta Journal, September, 1889.

The Persian monarch’s Vain Attempt to Recover a Lost Pet. A funny incident is related by an Atlanta lady who has just returned from Europe. The Shah of Persia was passing through the mountains of England while she was there. With him he had his favorite pet, a lovely cat, who was being transported in a satin-lined basket, as became her royal catship. When a lonely pass was reached, Miss Pussy, happening to thrust her head out of the basket, espied a cat walking along, who belonged to a lonely hut nearby. Out jumped the cat, and away she went, and although many hours were spent in pursuit of her, she never was found. The Shah offered £2000 for her recovery, but she was not recovered. Upon reaching the nearest town of note he ordered that a cat show be given to which all the cats in the neighborhood were bidden. A prise of £2,000 was again offered for the finest cat, but among the hundreds of cats exhibited pussy's dear familiar face was never seen.

[SATIRICAL PIECE ABOUT DOGS AND CATS] BY DIOGENES TUBBS East Kent Gazette, 14th September 1889
[. . .] As to dogs being muzzled, I don’t care, I should like the cats to be the same – of course I should. My landlady’s got a cat that I’d give a sovereign to see sent into the next world. I never see the beast on the garden wall but what I yearn to throw a boot at it. I hate ‘em, as I always did. In the afternoon, where I’m living, a cat’s meat man comes round singing out, “Meat! Meat!” Then all the cats show their heads through the area railings, and make life hideous with their howlings. They say they make muffs out of cat’s skins, do they? I’d sooner go about like a tattoed early Briton, then wear their confounded fur, that I would! I loathe ‘em, and I always did.

I’ve got a grand-niece, and she writes a lot of doggerel about “I like little puss, its coat is so warm.” I should like to make its coat a little warmer with a walking-stick – that I should. The Egyptians used to worship cats did they? I suppose that was the reason then, that they had plagues, and all that kind of thing. I think all this talk about cruelty to animals is utter bosh. Give me a cat and I’ll always find a stone for him. Give me a good old tortoiseshell tom, with an extra good call, and I’ll always find half a brick for him. There was a little boy in a family who tied his sister’s cat’s tail in a knot, then stuck a hairpin in it. I like that boy. I’d give him half a sovereign if I came across him. [. . .]

HE WAS NOT AFRAID OF CATS
The New York Times, September 27, 1889

Gov David b Hill has shown a marked aptitude during his political career for making use of others. A story told of him by an old resident of Elmira shows that he possessed that trait even in boyhood. According to this authority, David, at the age of eight or thereabout, had the mischievous boy's fondness for tormenting cats. He also had a sister named Sarah, who was his inseparable companion. "Sadie," he would say when the spirit of mischief was upon him, "Sadie, let's go out and scare the cats." Sadie being never an unwilling accomplice, would readily assent, but when the game was in sight the craftiness of the lad came to the front and found expression in some such speech as this: "Sadie, you go ahead, because you know, Sadie, I'm not afraid of cats."

HUNTING A LION IN A SEWER. THE EXCITING TIME SOME CIRCUS MEN HAD IN ENGLAND.
The New York Times, October 20, 1889

Birmingham, England, has had a genuine sensation. In the small hours of a recent Sunday morning a second desperate lion hunt was conducted through one of the sewer, but without the knowledge or presence of the general public.

"It seems,” says a correspondent of the London Times, “that the Nubian lion which was recaptured at the sewer outlet in Ashton Brock on the previous Friday afternoon was not the only one that escaped on that day from Wombwell’s Menagerie, but the proprietors of the show thought it inadvisable to take the public into their confidence on this subject, and they took measures privately to intercept and recapture the runaway animal.

“Beyond placing a watch at the sewer outlet, however, nothing was done until a late hour on Saturday night, when, the assistance of the police having been obtained, active operations were begun for recovering the lost lion. In the first place, the fairground near the sewer outlet was cleared of people shortly after midnight, and a trap cage was placed over the outlet. The manager of the expedition then proceeded to the nearest manhole. As the Negro lion tamer Orenzo did not care to repeat his daring exploit of the previous Friday, two young men belonging to the working staff of the menagerie volunteered to descend into the sewer; which they did, armed each with a. six-barreled revolver and a policeman’s lantern. Traces of the lion were soon found, and his roar was distinctly heard, but at a distance further up the sewer.

“The young men then re-ascended, and the party proceeded to a manhole further inland; but here, again, they were on the wrong side of the lion, and it was not until they came to the junction of the sewers in Bracebridge-street that they got fairly on its track. It was then determined to trap it on the spot instead of driving it to the outlet, and with this object the manager of the party lowered a stout looped rope with e slip-knot in such a manner that the lion, in issuing from the neighboring sewer, would inevitably run into it. Then the two young men descended the next manhole and proceeded to drive the lion through the narrow pipe toward the looped rope. This was not accomplished until they had discharged all their ammunition and had been compelled to take off a boot with which to strike the sides of the sewer and frighten the animal in the direction required.“

Presently a prolonged howl informed them of the success or their tactics. The lion had stepped into the noose, which fairly encircled his loins. In the meantime the people at the top of the opening pulled desperately at the rope until the animal was raised nearly to the level of the road, when a trap cage was placed over the manhole and the lion, more dead than alive, was dragged body first into it. Unluckily the cage proved too small, and the lion, still roaring lustily, lay for some time in the road with the cage held over it by ten men, but with its head outside. After a delay of about ten minutes another and larger cage was obtained, and into this the poor brute was eventually dragged and forced by the application of many blows with iron rods, and carted off to the menagerie.”

CATS. London Daily News, 29th October 1889
Mr Harrison Weir has written a charming book in praise of the cat, "Our Cats" (Clements and Co., Tunbridge Well). It would be a generous deed in any man; it is most generous in a lover of birds. Mr. Weir undertakes to tell us "all about them," and, of a truth, he leaves little unsaid, while dozens of admirable drawings from his masterly pencil seem to leave as little unrepresented. Here is the cat all round, and a fine creature it seems. The author's testimony in its favour is all the more precious, as he began by a kind of prejudice against it. The cat simply lived it down. Mr. Weir made a superb atonement by suggesting the Cat Show. All that is bad in the cat, according to Mr. Weir is an evolutionary consequence of ill-treatment; all that is amiable has come, and may yet come in measureless profusion, from good. Pet the cat, talk to it, nurse it, and train it and you, or your remoter posterity, will have a sufficient reward. It is something to live for. If you want a taste, breed cats, and try for a prize at the Crystal Palace. There are many varieties of them, and you need never sigh for need of a wold to conquer. You may breed for colour, for form, for eyes, for tails, for temper even, for there is a wild cat, and, by consequence cats which are mild. Mr. Weir Wan describes the varieties with a painstaking accuracy, and where words might fail, draws them in black and white. There is the pure tortoise-shell-still, apparently most rare in the male sex, though in white and tortoise-shell common enough. There is the tabby, named for the watered pattern of the taffeta silk.

The Persian is now beginning to be better known. There is a cat from Archangel deeply, darkly , beautifully blue. A queer fellow from Siam is white in the body and black in the legs, like a fashionably attired child. In his perfection, he comes from the King's Palace, and his expatriation is one of the triumphs of diplomacy. The Manx kitten has been obtained in one single stage of evolution by chopping off an anxious mother s tail - so at least says Mr. St. George Mivart – but it is better to wait. The wild cat was naturally more common in these islands in the, earlier period of our history, when there was more room for both cats and men. "He is slye and wittie," says a venerable authority, "and seeth so sharpely that he overcommeth darknes of the nighte by the shyninge lyghte of his eyne. In shape of body he is like unto a leoparde, and hathe a great mouth. He dothe delight that be enjoyeth his libertye; and in his youthe he is swifte, plyaste, and merye. He maketh a arufull noyse, and a gastefull, when he profereth to fighte with another. He is a cruell beaste, when he is wilde, and falleth on his owne feete from most high places; and vneth is hurt therewith. When he hath a fayre skinne, he is, as it were, prowde thereof, and then he goeth about, to be seene."

All about cats must of course include something about their mating, their feeding, their diseases, their performances on the public stage, their use in telling the weather, with Shakespeare’s opinion about them, and Mr. Harrison Weir’s as shown in a most elaborate catalogue of points, drawn up by him for the cat shows. On each and all of these, accordingly, our author has something to say. With his help we may quickly estimate any cat’s chances of a place in the Tripos at Sydenham. A tabby should have a head that is small, broad across and between the eyes, rounded above, below tapering towards the lips, a nose rather long than short, ears of medium size, narrow and rounded at apex, broad at the base. This is for the head alone. There are separate points for eyes, fur, colour, markings, form, tail, size, and condition - in fact, exactly one hundred things to notice in all. Multiply this hundred by the number of varieties of cats, and we shall have some idea of the wealth of observation in this book. A tabby may have ninety-nine points, yet miss the highest possible by carrying its tail high, or failing to get it marked with black rings. Let the orange yellow of the eye be slightly tinted with green, if you aspire to honours, and be careful not to have the black lines of the markings broader than the colour space between. These, of course, are but points for beauty, yet as many more might be set down in regard to use. As we advance in the higher civilization, no doubt, this will be more attended to and many an old and despised tabby, whose fur is rusty and whose shoulders are too far forward, will take the wreath for skill in mousing, or for self-denial in the presence of unguarded cream.

The cat is the useful servant of man, and not only of man, but of Governments. Cats are rated on the books of our public offices, dockyards, stores and shipping. Eight cats are on the staff of the Midland Railway at Trent, and they earn their board by watching some hundreds of thousands of corn sacks against the rats. A like service in regard to the letter bags is performed by hundreds of cats in the employ of the Post Office of the United States. When a kitten is born to one of these public servants, the local postmaster notifies the district superintendent, and obtains additional rations. It is not stated whether the cats go out of office along with the Postmasters, at the end of the Presidential term. It takes all the time of one man to look after the cats in Government pay in the State printing office in France.

Mr. Weir abounds in stories of those prouder pleasure to be derived from a study of the minds of cats, as distinct from their coats. Of all Mr. Weir’s cats, Lillah was the most loving. If he stood still, she would look up and watch the expression of his countenance. It she thought it was favourable to her, she would jump, and, clinging to his chest, put her fore paws around his neck, and rub her head softly against his face, purring melodiously all the time. Why cannot we all have cats like this? No doubt it is because we do not all deserve them, but how very hard it is to deserve them! Mr. Weir does not make allowance enough for that. The truth is the cat wants too much courting for a busy age, and one of his evolutionary changes must be to learn to love at sight. The exasperating thing about him is that the offer of your love seems to need a perpetual renewal. Sufficient unto the day is the day's advance in his good graces. It is all to begin again tomorrow, while a single tread on his tail may throw you back with him for a whole year. The dog takes your love as it is offered, and when it is offered licks his thanks, and retires submissively to his bone to await a fresh return of attention. The cat will and it won’t, and it has no sense of the fact that displays of affection have to be strictly regulated by the necessity of catching the tram.

The Egyptians got on very well with cats, but then time was no object with them. So do the elegiac poets and some of the sonneteers, in out day, and for precisely the same reason. And do they love cats, or do they only pretend to love them as a short cut to the distinction which is one of the elements of difference? It helps to make them at once unlike most people, and like Baudelaire. If it wert not for Mr. Weir, one might be tempted to say that a man who thinks he loves cats is only a man who does not know that he loves paradox. With women the case is different. They have more time for these exercises and more enjoyment in the sense of difficulty overcome. The sturdy indifference of the cat piques their curiosity, and supplies an object to their devotion. They like to melt the rock, and to know that, it is rock before they begin. Besides, they are not too proud to be loved for their laps. The cat takes advantage of this greed of sympathy, and is just attentive enough to keep them always dangling in his train. His homage to the superior penetration of men is that he usually gets out of their way.

NEW VIEWS OF CATS. Belfast News-Letter, 5th November 1889
If Mr. Harrison Weir were not such a devoted admirer and student of cat-nature, it might be possible to quarrel with the remark that he has inserted in his book, "'Our Cats," just published by R. Clements & Co., Tunbridge Wells, to the effect that "the small or large dog may be regarded and petted, but is generally useless; the cat, a pet or not, is of service." 'Mr. Weir supports this rather revolutionary statement by adding that if it were not for our feline population, our houses and lands would be overrun by rats and mice. "If there were not millions of cats, there would be billions of vermin." What would our friend the gamekeeper say to this sentiment, seeing that he has been in the habit of shooting down cats at sight when met with in his plantations, as being little better than vermin themselves?

In his praiseworthy zeal for his cat clientele, the author seems to forget in the strangest way our debt to dogs as house guardians and companions. Can it be said that the dog, that keeps off the wily housebreaker is “useless?” Were it not for our dogs we may say, in Mr. Harrison Weir's own language, our houses would be overrun with burglars. But we ought not to complain of this excessive admiration for “tabby” on the part of the president of the National Cat Club; it is fortunately possible to feel sympathy for cats without unduly depreciating dogs. And if there are persons who are inclined to take a gloomy view of the character of cats because of their wildness, nocturnal music, and apparent inaccessibility to affectionate advances let them bear in mind Mr. Weir's explanation of some of these qualities.

"'Long ages of neglect," he writes, “ill-treatment, and absolute cruelty, with little or no gentleness, kindness, or training, have made the cat self-reliant; and from this emanates its marvellous powers of observation, not unmixed with timidity, caution, wildness, and a retaliative nature.” In fact, Mr. Weir presents to us Grimalkin as the victim of hereditary wrong; it is wild because so many generations of schoolboys have “chucked stones" at it, because such multitudes of dogs have worried it, because domestic servants from the earliest ages have "shood" it from the premises. Let the cat be only petted and understood, and treated "with mellowed firmness and tender gentleness," and the bad qualities ingrained in it by ill-usage will gradually disappear. 'This is Mr. Harrison Weir's promise, and it is almost good enough to make the urban sleeper, awakened by the cat chorus on his roof, cease to ponder on the question of the handiest sort of missile to hurl out of the window and take to a course of "mellowed firmness" instead. People, however, whose cats are given to staying out at night, may learn a valuable wrinkle from "Our Cats." All that the householder, or his cook-, has to do is to make a practice of feeding the animal on some dainty the last thing at night; then it will be sure to "come in,'' and, as the author puts it, be “preserved from doing and receiving injury."

Then on the subject of diet, there are to be found in these pages hints which will, doubtless, be new to a great many cat possessors. Raw beef is recommended, with milk mixed with a little hot water, but not boiled, and plenty of grass, or some boiled vegetable, such as asparagus, seakale, or celery. It is an article of faith with most people that cats cannot have too much fish, cooked or raw, to eat. Not so, says Mr. Harrison Weir. The fish ought to be boiled, and not given by itself, but mixed with rice or oatmeal. Horse-flesh, it is added, may be given as a change, boiled, and fresh; and the cat that has brown bread and milk to eat is sure to be healthy.

There are many beautiful pictures of all sorts of cats, drawn by Mr. Harrison Weir's own skilful pencil; exquisite Persian cats and kittens rejoicing in the names of "Lambkin," "Bogey," "Fluffie." and "Sylvie;" 'Manx cats without tails; Siamese and other strange foreign breeds; and cat lore to any amount. Of the usefulness of cats to the farmer in destroying rats Mr. Weir speaks with enthusiasm; and he narrates how a staff of cats is kept both at the United States Post Office and at the Official Printing Office in France, to keep down the rats and mice that would otherwise prey on the paper and bags. Is it widely known that if a kitten comes to a house in the morning it is a sign of luck; but in the evening, it portends evil, unless it stays. When a cat "washes her face over her ears, there will be much rain," said an old saw; and we also learn with surprise that “the crying of cats on the tops of houses in the night time is supposed by the vulgar to presignify death to the sick." By this time, even the "vulgar" must have had enough experience of cats to set this superstition at defiance. Another meteorological hint is said to be that when wind is coming, cats are disposed to tear at cushions, carpets, and other articles of furniture.

Anybody desiring to know the points of excellence in different breeds of cats will find them all set out at length in Mr. Weir's pages. Nor will it be much cause of astonishment to anyone that Shakspeare knew all about the nature of cats; because he knew all about everything, including law, medicine, and divinity. But there were no cat shows in Shakspeare's day; and the Bard of Avon, therefore, had no opportunity of knowing to what a pitch of superb excellence. cats can be brought by science, patience, and kind treatment. – Daily Telegraph.

SOMETHING NEW IN CATS.(Letters)
The New York Times, November 23, 1889

I have just read in THE TIMES of Oct 20 the sketch about cats, and can say that I am the owner of a black-and-white cat, that has a long black tail with about an inch of white at the end. He is very smart and handsome. The mother is a pure-blooded Manx cat. He is a great pet and is not for sale. A E. Friday Nov 8, 1889
(I could not find the sketch referred to)

CATS AND DOGS.
The Queen, 14th December 1889

THOSE ANIMALS that naturalists regard as the domesticated varieties of the smaller Felidae vary greatly, as do their wild originals in different parts of the world; but, whatever their origin, they have always been great favourites with painters of animals. The beauty of their forms, the grace and agility of their movements, the varied colours and patterns of their markings, and their attachment to the residences of men (which renders them readily accessible as sitters) have all conspired to commend them to zoological artists from the earliest period.

Cats, as we all know, were worshipped during life, and mummified after death, by the ancient Egyptians. As late as last year a huge cemetery of cat mummies, many thousands in number, was discovered at Beni-Hasan, a hundred miles south of Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile, after being sunk in the sand for thirty centuries; and Pasht, the cat-headed goddess of love, is still to be seen - if not in the flesh, at least in stone - in the galleries of the British Museum. Mr Long's well-known picture, "The Makers of the Gods," shows Egyptians modelling male cat deities, the painter, with the licence of an artist, making the modeller mould a black, short-jawed Egyptian cat from a long-faced and longhaired Persian of a totally distinct variety to any known in Egypt at the period; but then, the artistic contrast of the silky white-haired Persian with the black skin of the Egyptian was too striking to be sacrificed to truth.

Antagonistic as they usually are in life, nevertheless the nearest allies to the cat family, Felidae, are the dogs, Canidae; and one animal, the cheetah, or hunting leopard of India and Africa, for it is a native of both countries, partakes of the characters of both groups. Unlike the cats in general its claws are blunt, and are not capable of being drawn back or protruded when required for use. Had our domestic cats descended from this animal, Rosa Schlesinger's picture "Dangerous Friendships" would not have existed, for it portrays with much truthfulness the effect of the putting forth the claws of a kitten on the tender skin of a child. Country Quarters," by another lady artist, Henriette Ronner, is a charming sketch of cat life in the country; it illustrates, more. over, the fact that the kittens in the same family are rarely marked alike or resemble the parent, the staid black and white mother having a family of various markings. It is this circumstance that renders the rearing of fancy animals for exhibition so much more uncertain than in the case of other species, and consequently the number of exhibitors at cat shows is not more than a very small fraction of those who exhibit dogs and poultry that can be bred to pattern.

Taken to new countries, the domestic cat always mates with the smaller wild felidae of the district, and thus very various forms of domestic cats exist, that in South America being quite distinct from the cat of Africa, the cat of Siam varying from that of Central India, and so on. One of the most beautiful of the numerous varieties is the long-haired cat, which is a native of Persia, and, from being shipped through Angora, has received both names, which are used indiscriminately. Long-haired cats, though exceedingly beautiful, have their drawbacks; they are much more delicate than the short-haired varieties, are very subject to epileptic fits, especially when young, are troublesome to keep clean, and if neglected, and the long hair once allowed to become matted, are as unattractive as they were formerly graceful.

Our third engraving is also from the studio of a lady, Minne Stocks. It is entitled "Romeo and Juliet," though, had we the naming of it and were constrained to be Shakesperian, we are not certain that we should not have termed it "Othello and Desdemona." In either case the conceit is a quaint one, and the artist is to be congratulated on having drawn a picture of undoubted merit, and not one of those ridiculous fancies in which the expression of the human countenance is put into the faces of the animals to please the vulgar, who are gratified with anthropomorphic drawings, without concerning themselves as to whether they have any foundation in nature. The varieties represented are the ordinary black and the white short-haired animals. It is singular that a perfect black cat is rare, there being usually some half-dozen white hairs to be seen in front of the neck beneath the chin, which not unfrequently undergo a compulsory moult just before the cat is sent to a cat show.

The fine study, by Max Lebling, of a house dog and puppies disturbed by the advent of a goose, is full of character; the placid yet watchful countenance of the mother is very real, and contrasts well with the alert snappishness of her offspring. The attitude of the goose is most truthfully rendered, and the entire composition is true to nature.

At the present time there are, as heretofore, many artists who delight in delineating cats. The most famous amongst them is undoubtedly, the celebrated Frebch artist, etcher, and draughtsman, Auguste Lancon, who has been termed the cat Raphael. In our own country we have Louis Wain, who may be regarded as the prominent feline draughtsman. The late Randolph Caldecott had the power of most accurately rendering the varied actions of the cat by a few suggestive lines. In the new Christmas book entitled "The Demon Cat," Mr Ralston has published some remarkably effective sketches, which, though in many cases exaggerated to suit the story, are remarkable for their powerful drawing, and the vigour shown in their execution. On the other hand, drawings may be seen in which the markings on the animals, whether spots or stripes, equal in regularity and beauty the patterns on cheap bedroom wall papers. Such productions may appeal to the exhibitors at cat shows as ideal standards that they in vain endeavour to breed up to, but do not merit recognition as works of art or transcripts of objects of natural history.