Can the cat come back? The question is not frivolous. The war produced a psychology that gave the dog the better of it; the high cost of living made cat raising expensive, for cats are pernickety in their food, and those of blood merely sniff at inferior cuts; the housing shortage enabled landlords to enforce restrictions. But now affairs of empire hang upon the future of the cat (writes M. B. Levick in the “New York Times Magazine.") Inflation, armament, the balance of trade and details of reparation - these are as naught in comparison. For a new era of world intercourse will be ushered in if the answer to the question is in the affirmative. Shukri bey himself says so, and Turks are notoriously serious in their public declarations.

A Swiss syndicate has presented to the Turkish Government, through Ismet Pasha, an offer for the Galatian cat concession, provision to be made that the terms do not conflict with the territorial rights included in the Chester Concession. The syndicate proposes to pay the Turkish government one ame[rica]n dollar per cat for all the Angora cats it wishes to expert. It intends to ship a million cats a year to England, America and points West. had with the rake-off the Turkish Government will balance its budget. The cables from Lausanne tell all about it, with facts, figures and an indication of expected profits, for a dollar cat from Angora is expected to fetch £10 in New York unless the market breaks. The plan is of far-reaching import. Will the ship of state become an ark? Discard the symbolical beasties - British bulldog, Gallic cock, Russian bear; regard the practical side of it. Turkey will ship cats to America. America will ship cattle to Europe. Europe will export mice to Turkey. Again the chain of thrift will be forged about the battered world.

America’s first imported cats came from Angora. Pirates brought them. Or, at least, some of the skippers were pirates. Ships touched at the ancient port in Asia Minor - old charts show it as Enguri - and the seafarers from Europe and America had their fancy caught by the long, silky fur which is sometimes marketed like the mohair of the Angora goat. In Angora, the dogs, the very guinea pigs, look like the old-time advertisements of the Seven Sutherland Sisters. So the sailing-ship skippers brought away now one, now another, and some they deposited in Maine, and to-day it is from Maine that New York gets its Angoras, for the most part.

THE ARISTOCRATIC TOUCH. Against this your true admirer of the cat gets the element of fastidiousness. There is the touch of aristocracy. The most pedigreed of hound, is hail-fellow-well-met compared with the lowliest of cats. The cat is of the elect. Witness the famous cats in history and the long list of celebrities who have paid their tribute to the cat. Poe, Lady Warwick, the Chauve Souris, Thomas A. Janvier and Cleopatra, Mark Twain and Agnes Repplier and Carl Van Vechten, Balzac and Elsie Ferguson. Ella Wheeler Wilcox always had at her side five cats - Angoras. Five is the mystic number. Sometimes it was momentarily surpassed, but such things are an incident. And it is not only writers who are partial to cats (some writers), but musicians and artists. Chemists have a veritable affinity for them. Moreover, the cat, for all its reputation for aloofness, takes on manner and mannerism from its owner. There are fanciers who can analyse you from your cat as intelligently as a Freudian from you dreams. However, 1,000,000 cats a year from Turkey would put a strain on the celebrities. There aren't enough in "Who's Who." What is the market?

At the present moment, the average annual sale of special breeds of cats appears to be between 5,000 and 10,000 in New York. Some dealers say the smaller figure is too large; there are apparently none to hold the - larger to be too big. Estimated at 6,000; that would probably be ample. At this rate, the cat consumption of the United States is 110,000 a year. And there are large areas in which a cat has never yet been bought.

The Swiss syndicate is not yet beaten, however. The mortality of cats in shipment is high, especially Angoras. The kittens sent to New York from Maine have the reputation of not being able to stand the climate. They bring a good price, as kittens go, and having done that they die. Of a hundred brought down last Christmas by one dealer, ail succumbed. This indicates that in setting its total at a million a year, the Angora trust would merely be allowing a wide margin for loss in transit. More inimical is the fact that Angoras do not seem able to retain their distinctive fineness of fur when taken from home. Angora goats have a similar reputation. Yet the Angora has been a favourite in England for 100 years or thereabout. Travellers returned from the tropics vow they cannot eat the banana of commerce, picked green, once they have known the virtues of the fruit in its habitat, and perhaps it is thus with the, Angora cat.

In the matter of price the syndicate again has the argument on its side. In the cat world there is talk of astounding prices: £4,000 for a champion. These turn out, however, to be asking prices. Yet there Is one breeding Persian in New York, Prince David, for which £1,000 was refused. It was not merely sentiment; the cat has produced £920 for its owner in four years. Then there is Donnie, a movie actor when needed, who gets £3 a day for appearing in the films when he is called on short notice and £2 if due warning is given. Before the war, prices of £10 for single kittens were not unusual in America. To-day they sell readily at £3 to £5. but £10 is rare. Grown Angoras - or Persians, as they are more generally known - bring £5 to £30, whether male or female. In England the prices are somewhat lower. A pound will buy a good long--haired cat, it is said, but it costs £2 steamer fare to bring one over.

THE OTHER BREEDS. The Persian divides honours with the Angora among long-haired cats, and below them, numerically, come the Chinese, Indian, French and Russian. Beyond these lie the families of the short haired. It's the colour that counts most, however. This determines the classification. Among the Angora and the Persian cats there are silver tabbies, shaded silvers, dark silvers, chinchillas, reds, creams. A tabby cat is simply a cat with stripes. This is another word given to the language by the Near East; the derivation is from Attabiya, a district in Bagdad. Chinchilla implies a shade of silver; the chinchilla itself is a squirrel of the Andes. There are cat associations which specialise in specimens of one colour in all its shades; the Silver Society, for example. which is associated with the Atlantic Cat Club. For broader fields there are organisations such as the Cat Fanciers’ Federation, and the United States Department of Agriculture recognises two associations through which cat pedigrees may be registered.

The Angora to-day runs to stripes; the first of them to land in Maine were brown tabbies; the Persians, according to dealers, more commonly show solid colours. The fine touch is in the eyes. however. The federation's standard rules call for eyes "large, round, full, set wide apart and brilliant, giving a sweet expression to the face," but besides this they must match the coat as carefully as a bit of decoration matches a gown. There is no hope for a blue whose eyes are not copper or deep orange; so it runs through the list.

In catdom there is but one bit of favouritism; the Manx cat is accorded the same courtesies that are extended to the guinea pig. That counts in she scale of points for judging type, taking 20 of the 100 points, includes shape, size, bone and length of tail. Colour accounts for 25 points, coat and condition for as many; head. including size ans shape of eyes, for 20, and the colour of the eyes for 10.

But are there a million annual cats in Angora with points enough to warrant export to a 50 dollars retail market? Are there a million worth a dollar apiece f.o.b. [Freight on Board] Angora, when one remembers how big a piastre looms up in Asia Minor – and there are a hundred piastres to the pound sterling? There are always people who will buy imported goods, even cats, just because they are imported, and it might be that cats would become a habit, like flivvers [cheap old cats, runabouts].

There was a woman cat fancier in New Jersey noted for the quality of her pets and for her sense of humour. She married a Swiss. It is possible that the Angora proposal is her doing. Or it may be, as was suggested by the plagiarist of Ellis Parker Butler, that the proposal was just a feeler for the sale of stock – wildcatting, as he explained. But with all the difference of opinion among cat folk as to varieties, market demands and characteristics of the different breeds, there is one point on which they are united. Facing east toward Bagdad and beyond, they cry, “Bring on your cats.”