At certain stages in our great journey we sit down and take a retrospect, going over, hand in hand with memory, the old road and carefully treading in the same footsteps, looking upon the same scenes, suffering the old pains and rejoicing in the same joys. At such times we wonder at the misplaced confidences and our unexplainable, as well as our unjust prejudices. We admit our proneness to go with the current when in the swim, and the natural lassitude which prompts us, rather than argue a point or spur ourselves to the task of disproving what may be false, which means work, to take for granted the theory of another. We often excuse ourselves upon the plea that one cannot find time, in this short life, to prove everything, and we must necessarily take for granted many things, perhaps upon the guarantee of those in whom we have confidence, sometimes because it has passed into a proverb and at other times for the reason that we are too tired to go against the current and set ourselves up for oddities or cranks. But we do stop and wonder at our prejudices, more particularly because we have had occasion so many times to completely reverse our opinions, wondering, at the same time, how we ever could have jumped at the conclusion that because a nut has a sour rind it must necessarily have a sour kernel, or that the bristling appearance of the prickly outside denoted that it was prickly all through, and for this reason to be avoided. We hear a man derided by the mob and follow the crowd—we discriminate when a woman is talked about derogatively and avoid her because it is the rule—then, perhaps, it is in after years, when the object has lived down the false assertions, at some certain stage in our journey, we look back, wonderingly, commiserate the sufferings of one and another and say that it was nothing but prejudice, and then what? Then we go on our way and do the selfsame thing over and over again.

How easy it is to do all these things we people of experience can testify. We say, "Give a dog a bad name," and so on, but how singular it would sound if one should say, "Give a Cat a bad name!" Why, the Cat has it, already! Are you sure that the almost universally bad name of the Cat is not pure and unadulterated prejudice, and, considered as a generality, with the least foundation in fact?

You say that the Cat is treacherous, a thief and a lover of places, not persons. This is the sum and substance of humanity's grievances against the feline. I know of no other despicable attributes ascribed to the Cat, and admit that these would be enough to condemn her, were they true. But they are not true, saving only in exceptional cases. Providentially for the Cat, she is provided with natural means of defence and uses her claws at times and very justly when imposed upon. I never knew, or heard of, a Cat who deliberately and out of pure viciousness, scratched or fought a person whom she might have reasonably supposed to be her friend. Be just and admit this fact.

Concerning the charge of thievery, I admit that Pussy's derelictions have been proven in exceptional cases, but plead, in partial justification, the neglect of master or mistress to properly provide for her, and that her food was due to her for labor performed, upon the principle that "the workman is worthy of his hire." Consider that Pussy has ridden your house of mice and rats, and continues, day by day, to perform her duty of keeping the thieves from your dwelling—that if you profit by her prognostications, she tells you, far better than a barometer, the truth about the weather, long before there comes a change—that she even guards your home from intruders—that she is the first, if permitted to do so, to welcome your home-coming—that she is ever ready, with her gentle purr, to express her love for you and with her soothing song—the gentlest ever heard—to calm your troubled mind. Think for a moment how her winning ways and pretty playfulness have amused you for many an hour and won a warm place in your heart for the little household pet, then justify her for helping herself when you either forgot or refused to give her the nourishment she had so richly earned. This is by way of justification of the feline, in the exceptional case, when she takes what may not be regarded as technically her own, although the equivalent of the same is rightfully her due. Ask yourself if, when you walk into your landlady's larder and help yourself to the viands there because your luncheon is not ready on time, you are not as great a criminal as Pussy, who has been equally neglected. Concerning the accusation that she is fond of places and not of persons, I will have something definite to say further on.

There is one undeniable fact concerning animals, which is that when associated with man they acquire his ways and imitate his habits. Thus the Cat, but, in a more delicate manner, soon takes upon herself the temper, mannerisms, actions and ways of her mistress, and in her life imitates the actions of the one who is her admiration and involuntary teacher. Cats, in short, are like ourselves, and are subject to the same rules that govern all humanity throughout the habitable globe. I cannot better illustrate and prove this fact than by relating a story that came under my observation, and from which, while I vouch for the truth of it, you may draw your own conclusions.