CHAPTER XIII.

Mention has already been made of a Cat concert in Paris, but we should not forget that we once had an English actor of the name of Harris, who took part in the entertainments given by Foote at “the little Theatre,” who was called Cat Harris, in consequence of the talent he displayed in imitating the mewing of the feline race. He burlesqued scenes from Italian operas, and probably at that time the squalling of a Cat was thought to be a very severe satire on the foreign singers. Only a year or two ago, however, I remember a music hall singer, since dead, who sang a song called the Monkey and the Nuts,—he being dressed something like a monkey;—with a peculiarly comic mewing and jabbering chorus. The since popular Perfect Cure is the air of this song, slightly altered, in the same way that the Whole Hog or none is altered from Love’s young Dream.

The imitations of the singer I allude to (I think his name was McGown) were very good, and there was no occasion for him to tell you which was meant for the monkey and which the Cat, by no means superfluous information sometimes, when a young gentleman gives his notion of the voices of popular actors. By the way, do any of my readers remember the great Von Joel’s celebrated “plack purd” and “trush,” and how hard it was, occasionally, to tell which was “te trush” or which was “te plack purd”?

In talking of a Cat’s fondness for fish (see page 73), I might also have mentioned the great liking these animals seem to have for the ends of asparagus, which I have often observed them devour with great eagerness.

Talking of fish-catching, an officer on board an Australian packet tells me that he has seen a Cat watch for hours on a windy night for flying fish, which jump on board if they see a light. From the same source I have learnt some curious facts relating to Puss at sea. “There are,” he says, “generally two kinds of rats on board a ship, one kind going out, another coming home. While we were in the East India Docks, the rat-catcher caught twenty-five rats in his traps on board our ship, which we purchased and let loose in a malt bin extending the width of the ship. A Cat which we put among them killed all the brown rats, but did not touch the black ones, of which there were three. When she came in contact with a black rat she drew back, and made no attempt to harm it, although the black rats were much the smallest. Our ship, coming home from Sydney, was swarming with black rats, but I never knew a Cat to kill one, or even go near it. The reason of this I cannot explain.

“I have seen a Cat imitate a monkey in climbing up a loose-hanging rope. Of course it took a longer time to do it, but it did do it in the end.”

Aboard ship it would seem sometimes as though Pussy required to have all her nine lives at her disposal, and yet runs some risk of being killed even then. Upon the vessel in which this gentleman served there was a black Cat that had lost its tail in rather a singular manner.“A squall came on one night, and I gave the order to let go the main-top-gallant halyard. The Cat was in the coil of rope, and in whizzing through the leading block the rope cut off its tail. She remembered the place which she had found so dangerous, and could never afterwards be induced to venture abaft the foremast.

“In Sydney we had hauled out from Campbell’s Wharf to the stream, previous to sailing next day for England, and found, when the men had gone to bed, that the tailless black Cat was missing. It could not be below, as the hatches were battened down. About 3 A.M. next morning, the two men who kept anchor watch heard a piteous cry at the bows, and looking over saw a black object clinging to the chain cable, trying to get in at the hawse-pipe. One of them lowered himself down by a bowline, and handed up poor Pussy in an awful plight. She had swum off to the ship,—about three hundred yards. It took three or four days of nursing before she recovered, but she got round at last, and remained in the ship for more than five years afterwards.

“Sailors have the greatest objection to a Cat being thrown overboard. The captain one day found a Cat sitting on his chronometer in his cabin, and in a passion flung the Cat into the sea, although this cruel act was protested against by the man at the wheel and other men at work on the poop, who said that we should have an unlucky passage of it. This proved to be the case. We lost three men and a boy, besides our jibboom and fore-top-gallant mast, and we also ran short of water. All this the sailors—(they were North country men)—ascribed to the Cat’s murder.

“As a rule, sailors treat Cats well, as they are sources of great amusement on board. One of the boys once took a Cat to the fore royal mast-head, and left it there. In about half-an-hour it was on deck again. It came down backwards, crying pitifully all the time. It never allowed the boy to touch it afterwards.”

The same gentleman tells me that in Coburg, Canada West, he knew a widow lady who had a Cat two feet in height, and beautifully marked. It was supposed to be a cross-breed between a wild and a domestic Cat. His youngest brother has often ridden on it when eight years old. It was very docile. It had been fed highly when young, and never showed the least desire to hunt mice or birds, or to leave the house.

With regard to the origin of the name “Cat-o’-nine tails,” referred to in a former chapter, a writer in Notes and Queries says:—

“As there appears to be some uncertainty about the number of cords or tails attached to this whip, it may be a question whether, like its namesake, the animal, it did not originally commence by having only one tail, and in course of time or fashion increase to nine, the number of lives proverbially allotted to our domestic friend Pussy.

“According to the Talmudists (Maccoth iii. 10), the Jews, in carrying out their sentences of scourges, employed for that purpose a whip which had three lashes (Jahn’s Arch. Biblica, page 247), and it is stated in the Merlinus Liberatus, or John Partridge’s Almanack for 1692, that in “May, 1685, Dr. Oates was whipt,” and “had 2,256 lashes with a whip of six thongs knotted, which amounts to 13,536 stripes.” Sir John Vanbrugh, moreover, in the prologue to his play of the False Friend (written A.D. 1702), alludes to this scourge in these words:—

“In James’s Military Dictionary, the cat, etc., is described as “a whip with nine knotted cords, with which the public soldiers and sailors are punished. Sometimes it has only five cords.” The following passage occurs in Mr. Sala’s Waterloo to the Peninsula:—“A Dutch king, they say, introduced the cat-o’-nine tails in the British army: ere the Nassauer’s coming the scourge had three thongs.”

There is a little story of feline affection for which I should have found a place in an earlier chapter. A lady had a Cat which she called “the Methodist Parson.” It used for years regularly to go away every Sunday morning, and return to its home on the next (the Monday) morning. It was never known to miss for a series of years, going away on the Sunday morning, except upon one occasion, when it stopped at home on the Sunday, and went away on the Monday morning. After this it never returned. In the same lady’s house upon a certain occasion, for some reason or other, the water was turned off. It was in the evening, and she had the tap of the water-butt turned on, with a tub under it, thinking they would get water when they wanted it. The family went to bed, forgetting that the water-tap was left turned on. In the course of the night the Cat came to the lady’s bedroom door, making a great noise, mewing. Her husband got up several times, and drove it away, but it returned again, and would go to the corner of the stairs, and then turn round, as if to see whether he was following it. At last he followed it down-stairs, and found the whole of the lower premises inundated, the water having been turned on from the main.

Here, too, is a facetious story, which should not be omitted:—

One night, some hours after a certain family had retired to rest, there arose a most extraordinary and unaccountable noise in the lower part of the house. Had thieves broken in? If so they must have been very noisy thieves, and quite careless as to the noise they made. You can imagine Paterfamilias sitting up in bed, and listening with suspended breath; Materfamilias suggesting that he had better get up, and see what was the matter; Paterfamilias of the contrary opinion, and inclined to wait a-while, and see what happened next. Then a group of white figures, with whiter faces, at the head of the stairs, and the mysterious noise below growing louder and louder.

But the explanation of all this was simple enough, when some venturesome spirit summoned up courage to creep down-stairs and enquire into the cause. The servant, when she had gone to bed, had left a strong brown jug on the dresser, with a drain of milk in the bottom of it. After everyone had retired, Puss commenced prowling about, and, attracted by the milk in the bottom of the jug, put her head into it. Now, though the top of the jug was wide enough for the Cat to put her head through, it was not so wide but what it required a slight pressure for her to get her head into it. When the milk was lapped, however, she could not get her head out again, for it required some one to hold the jug, to enable her to do so. In the meantime, all being in bed and asleep, the Cat in her terror jumped about, knocking its head, with the jug on it, against the tables and chairs, and upon the kitchen floor. Hence the alarming and unaccountable disturbance.

I clip this from an American paper:—

“During the progress of the war I was sitting one day in the office of Able and Co.’s wharf-boat at Cairo, Illinois. At that time a tax was collected on all goods shipped south by private parties, and it was necessary that duplicate invoices of shipments should be furnished to the collector before the permits could be issued. The ignorance of this fact by many shippers frequently caused them much annoyance, and invoices were ofttimes made out with great haste, in order to ensure shipment by boats on the eve of departure. A sutler, with a lot of stores, had made out a hasty list of his stock, and gave it to one of the youngest clerks on the boat to copy out in due form. The boy worked away down the list, but suddenly he stopped, and electrified the whole office by exclaiming, in a voice of undisguised amazement,—‘What the dickens is that fellow going to do with four boxes of Tom Cats?’ An incredulous laugh from the other clerks was the reply, but the boy pointed triumphantly to the list, exclaiming, ‘That’s what it is—T-o-m C-a-t-s—Tom Cats, if I know how to read!’ The entrance of the sutler at that moment explained the mystery.

“‘Why, confound it!’ said he, ‘that means four boxes Tomato Catsup! Don’t you understand abbreviations?’”

Here is a bit of my own experience:—

I once had in my possession a very life-like engraving of a remarkably ugly bulldog, which hung in a frame over a piano in the drawing-room. With some surprise I noticed, upon several occasions, that a favourite cat would climb upon the top of the piano, and sitting close underneath the picture, fix its eyes upon the dog’s face, and putting back its ears, remain thus, with a wild and terrified expression, for as long as an hour at a time. This was remarked by other persons in the house, and we could not in any way satisfactorily account for Puss’s behaviour. Two dogs formed part of the household, and with these she was on friendly terms, and they being of a very meek and harmless nature, she treated them with contempt, as a general rule, boxing their ears now and then, when their presence annoyed her. We came to the conclusion, however, that she must have taken the picture for another dog of a different and higher order, more terrible in its motionless silence than if it had growled or barked ever so fiercely. Its eyes were drawn in that particular angle which made them seem to be fixed upon you in whatever part of the room you might be in. Many of us recollect in our childhood some gaunt-featured oil-painting, with hungry eyes, which thus pursued us. I remember one in a scrap-book, which it wanted some courage to face all by onesself, when twilight was gathering. With much of the same shrinking dread Puss seemed, whilst hating, to be unable to break the spell this picture had over her, to the contemplation of which she returned again and again, though frequently sent away. During the time that we noticed this conduct on the Cat’s part, she was with Kitten, and when the four Kittens were born they were dead, and one of them, strange to say, had a bulldog-shaped head, marked almost exactly like the picture.

I need not tell a kind master or mistress to use every precaution when drowning a Cat’s kittens, to keep their mother in ignorance of the fact. It can easily be imagined that the poor creature will be in great distress if the slaughter be committed before her eyes; and I know of a case where the Cat having found her young ones which had been drowned and thrown carelessly in the corner of a yard, brought the bodies back to her nest, and mewing and licking them, seemed to use every endeavour to restore them to life. A friend of mine, too, once passing along the bank of a river one moonlight night found a Cat mewing piteously among the long grass at the water’s edge. He came to a stand-still a dozen yards from the spot, and looked on curiously. At sight of him, the Cat turned round, and came running to his feet, looking-up appealingly into his face, and running back to the water side and then back again to him, seemingly to be entreating his assistance. Presently the moonlight showed him three or four kittens being borne away by the stream, and crying in small weak voices for their mother’s help. He did everything in his power to reach them, but they were too far away from the bank, and very soon they came to a place where the current was stronger, and swept them out of sight. The mother’s cries were then most heart-rending, and he was unable to induce her to come away. Indeed, having taken her in his arms, and carried her some distance, she struggled and fought violently to regain her liberty, and ran back again to the water’s edge. This took place at some distance from any habitation, but he concluded that somebody must have thrown the kittens into the water, and that the Cat had followed them, and seen the deed done.

TO THE RESCUE.
Page 286.

There are some children who will not cry, however much they are beaten; it is as difficult to make a Cat cry out when you chastise it. It will shrink; sometimes growl; but rarely cry: yet when beaten by another Cat, it will howl loudly. A dog on the contrary, very often cries at the bare sight of the whip, and screams at the lightest blow.

Some people say all Cats are thieves. I will not deny that a good many are: indeed, so are dogs. Neither will steal much if they are well fed, as they only take food when they are hungry. Here, however, is a plan by which, I think, you can generally ascertain whether or not a Cat is of a thievish disposition. Give the Cat a piece of meat an inch square, and if he is a dishonest rascal, he will not lay it down on the floor to pick it up again as is the usual way with his species, but keep tight hold of it with his teeth, and jerk it down his throat, sometimes using his paws to prevent its falling.

There is one ridiculous accusation brought against poor Pussy, which I have not yet referred to, namely, that she is in the habit, when the opportunity offers, of suffocating young babies by sucking their breath. Now, since the world began, I beg emphatically to state, no baby was ever so suffocated, and I say this in the face of numerous newspaper paragraphs, and a thousand old women’s stories:—

For instance, the “Annual Register,” January 25, 1791, says:—

A child of eighteen months old, was found dead near Plymouth; and it appeared, on the coroners inquest, “that the child died in consequence of a Cat sucking its breath, thereby occasioning a strangulation.”

My friend Mr. Burrows, surgeon, of Westbourne Park Place, who is a great lover of animals, gives me this note:—

“It is quite impossible for a Cat to suck a child’s breath, as the anatomical formation of the Cat’s mouth would prevent it. No doubt in some remote country places, among the ignorant, a popular superstition to that effect may exist, but when a child has been found dead from suffocation, in many cases the Cat may have lain on the infant’s mouth, in the cot or cradle near the fire, for the sake of warmth—not with the slightest criminal intent of course, but purely for the sake of obtaining the latent caloric from the warm body and clothing of the infant, who would probably not possess sufficient muscular power to disencumber itself, or even to make any resistance.”

But it is not only in remote country places that the superstition prevails, but here in London, among most of the upper middle classes. And after all, are not more ridiculous notions to be met with every day? Only a few months ago, a lady was seriously informed by a poor woman in a village near Bath, that a mother should never cut her child’s nails before it is a year old. She should always bite them, otherwise the children would grow up thieves.In Ireland, the following cure for warts is practised by even the most intelligent classes:—“Take a small stone, less than a boy’s marble for each wart, and tie them in a clean linen bag, and throw it out on the highway. Then find out a stone in some field or ditch with a hollow in which rain or dew may have lodged (such stones are easily found in rural districts), and wash the warts seven times therein, and after this operation, whoever picks up the bag of stones will have a transfer of the warts.”

Here again is a little bit of Devonshire Folk-lore which has its believers:—“When you see the new moon in the new year, take your stocking off from one foot, and run to the next stile; when you get there, between the great toe and the next, you will find a hair which will be the colour of your lover’s.” This must be rare sport while there is snow on the ground.

There is also a vulgar superstition to the effect that a Cat left in the room with a dead body will fly at and disfigure the face of the corpse. Some of my readers may remember the old man’s death in “Bleak House,” and how the Cat was carefully shut out of the room where the body lay. From what I recollect, Cats are not great favourites of Mr. Dickens’, though “Dickens’ Dogs,” a small collection from his canine heroes, published some years ago, showed him to be a great lover and close observer of that animal.

Pope says:—

The latter case, however, is rather rare I should think. When Pussy’s good master and mistress die, the wide world is often enough left for it to roam in at its will, seeking its living as it can—a wide world full of cruel kicks and cuffs. Justin’s Cat was lucky to die of old age in a good home, and have such a fine epitaph written over his remains:—

Stray Cats, I am afraid, have a bad time of it before they find a new home. Cats were recently said to be in great demand at Lucerne, in Switzerland, and to be selling at a high price, in consequence of a malady which had greatly thinned their numbers. According to the account in the newspaper, the head of the animal swelled rapidly; the Cat refused all nourishment, and very soon dropped down dead.

It is true, that in some quarters of the globe, the feline race is still held of some value. Vide Lady Duff Gordon’s Article in Macmillan’s Magazine, which gives us a glimpse of a strange superstition in Thebes. She says:—

“Do you remember the German story of the lad who travelled ‘um das gruseln zu lernen’ (to learn how to tremble)? Well, I who never ‘gruselte’ (quaked) before, had a touch of it a few mornings ago. I was sitting here quietly drinking tea, and four or five men were present, when a Cat came to the door. I called ‘bis! bis!’ and offered milk; but puss, after looking at us, ran away.“‘Well, dost thou, Lady,’ said a quiet sensible man, a merchant here, ‘to be kind to the Cat, for I daresay he gets little enough at home; his father, poor man, cannot cook for his children every day;’ and then in an explanatory tone to the company: ‘That’s Alee Nasseeree’s boy, Yussuf; it must be Yussuf, because his fellow-twin, Ismaeen, is with his uncle at Negadeh.’

“‘Mir gruselte’ (I shuddered), I confess; not but what I have heard things almost as absurd from gentlemen and ladies in Europe, but an ‘extravagance’ in a kuftan has quite a different effect from one in a tail-coat.

“‘What! My butcher-boy who brings the meat—a Cat?’ I gasped.

“‘To be sure, and he knows well where to look for a bit of good cookery, you see. All twins go out as Cats at night, if they go to sleep hungry; and their own bodies lie at home like dead, meanwhile, but no one must touch them or they would die. When they grow up to ten or twelve they leave it off. Why, your own boy, Achmet, does it. Ho, Achmet!’

“Achmet appears.

“‘Boy, don’t you go out as a Cat at night?’

“‘No,’ said Achmet tranquilly, ‘I am not a twin. My sister’s sons do.’“I enquired if people were not afraid of such Cats.

“‘No, there is no fear; they only eat a little of the cookery; but if you beat them, they tell their parents next day. ‘So and so beat me in his house last night,’ and show their bruises. No, they are not afreets; they are beni-Adam. Only twins do it, and if you give them a sort of onion broth and some milk, the first thing when they are born, they do not do it at all.’

“Omar professed never to have heard it, but I am sure he had, only he dreads being laughed at. One of the American missionaries told me something like it, as belonging to the Copts; but it is entirely Egyptian, and common to both religions. I asked several Copts, who assured me it was true, and told it just the same. Is it a remnant of the doctrine of transmigration? However, the notion fully accounts for the horror the people feel at the idea of killing a Cat.”

Ah, heaven help those whom we love and cherish when we are dead and gone! The soft, delicate hands that never were made to work—the gentle hearts untried—the pretty, thoughtless heads, pillowed so softly, slumbering so placidly, all unconscious that there is a rough, unsympathising crowd surging round the castle gates, whose hoarse murmur has never yet reached our darlings’ ears. And our dumb pets, where shall they find a home, and kind hands to wait upon them? It is a thousand times better when we die that they should die too; and you, whose roof has sheltered a Cat, should you change your home, and be unable to take the creature with you, would act a more humane part by having it killed at once than leave it to the questionable mercy of the new comer. The too often carelessly uttered words of “Oh, the Cat will get on well enough,” have sealed the poor dependant’s fate, and it has been left to shift for itself, with what fate its late owners have but rarely troubled themselves to enquire. What fate would many of us meet with were not a helping hand stretched forth in time of need? To how many of our poor brothers and sisters is the help never tendered!

There is a hospital for dogs, which is, I am told, in a flourishing condition; and a lady of the name of Deen established a sort of asylum for lost Cats at Rottingdean, in consequence of the large number which she saw lying dead upon the beach, and, indeed, offered premiums to anyone who would bring animals of the feline species to her city of refuge. But such kind friends are scarce, and Pussy, going upon her travels, will find many dangers upon the road, and but few doors opened to receive her. Therefore, in conclusion, I would advise all Cats to stay at home when they have a good home to stay at. One word, too, I would fain say to those who do not like Cats, because they do not know them. Having long observed these animals carefully, and, I sincerely believe, without prejudice, I am sure that when kindly treated they will be found gentle and attached, and little, if at all, inferior in intelligence to their much-vaunted rival, the dog. One last word to those who have followed me thus far. I hope I have not been very prosy, and I hope, in the somewhat large collection of Cat anecdotes here brought together, “the only one worth the trouble of relating” has not been omitted. If this has been the case, allow me to assure you it has not been because I have spared any trouble in gathering together my materials.

THE END.