When, in the fable, that humorous progenitor of the human species, according to that slicker, slyer and still more humorous, practical joker, Darwin, the monkey, cast about him in a sudden emergency for some useful utensil adequate to the purpose of pulling his chestnuts out of the fire, his selfish ambition was rewarded by the sight of no less distinguished a person than the Cat. Notwithstanding the piteous protests and flowing tears of Pussy, she was forced into the service of the monkey, and ever after there lived in the memory of man that wonderful story, from which we get the expressive saying of "making a cat's paw" of anything or anybody.

The cruelty of the act and the subsequent greed of the simian who, despite the appeals of the feline for a share in the delicious roast, gave her nothing but the smell, of which he could not have deprived her, appeals to the indignation of a just public. But the suffering and the tears and the cries of the Cat command the sympathy of all right-minded people who rest in peace under the "Banner of Freedom," and fight against oppression. The moral is demonstrative, as you will see.

The presiding genius who carries the portfolio and administers the affairs of the most important of all the divisions of the household—the culinary department—the cook, wisely appreciates the inestimable value of the Cat, and never fails to make convenient use of the animal, even employing her upon occasions when Pussy becomes nothing short of a miracle-worker. Of course, the reader may differentiate the story with common sense, but rarely, for the word of the queen of the realm of the culinary department is as the verity of the Law and the Gospel. The mistress may wonder, and a smile of incredulity may pass over the countenance of the master of the house, but the breakage of crockery and the lavish disappearance of spirits, wine and ale, the wonderful growth of the butcher's bill, the prodigal wanderings of butter not strong enough to sustain its own weight, the overdone appearance of the breakfast steak, and the underdone appearance of the dinner joint are attributable only to the household pet, for the cook hath said "It was the Cat!" Even when the mistress sadly discovers the queen of the sacred domain, who has the power to poison the food she dispenses, lying prone upon the kitchen floor at the dinner hour, the fumes of the best brandy escaping from her stentorian lungs and her limbs limp as fresh putty, the bouquet of the spirits of 1840 comes to the sensitive nostrils of the lady laden with the murmurings of the cook, "It was the Cat!" and the faithful mistress intuitively realizes that there has been a battle royal between the queen regent and the agent of the king of that realm where ice appeareth not, and all skating is done upon rollers.

When the extensive disappearance of the family preserves causes inquiry, and the heir of the house is questioned concerning his knowledge of the loss, he unhesitatingly and solemnly declares that "It was the Cat!" which is in the usual course of events, and always to be believed, even when it is noted by the nurse that the nose of the urchin resembles, in color, that of a man whose ways are not those of the temperate, and smelleth of strawberry jelly, and his chin resembleth that of one who has but recently been thickly coated with raspberry jam.

Now, mark the moral. We loudly censure the monkey in the fable, and smile at the charges of the others, not pausing to consider that the sufferings of the flesh are endurable, but the tortures of the mind from undeserved censure are frequently beyond endurance. The great lover of the Cat, Shakespeare, as if the wrongs of the calumniated feline in his mind aptly expresses the feelings of the Cat, when he says, through the medium of Othello:

"Give a dog a bad name, and you send him to"—the place not hung with icy stalactites. It is a solemn and well-known fact that one of a million dogs gets a bad name, while not one out of a million Cats gets a good one. It is out of the shadow of this cruel prejudice that I would lead the Cat, and place her upon the pedestal to which she should have been raised for the admiration of the world, long, long ago.