The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-24
THE MARCH MAGAZINES.
HHARPRR,s.,, >,

Marriage of the Grown Brlnce, Win nVe Illus
trations; Shadows" Ahoe Cary; Mature
Common Carrier" Lyman Abbott, with six
teen illustrations; "Broten Music; "South
Coast Saunterings in England" (Isle Of Wight
mart id, Moncure ID. Conway, with twelve
Illustrations; "a New Judgment of Paris"
Justin Mccarthy; ''Civil Service Reform" A.
r.. Marlborough; ''Miss Ellingtons Niece"
Annie Thomas; "a Brave Lady" by the
author of "John Halifax, Gentleman" with
two illustrations; "Our Relations with Eng
land" Colonel Adam Badeau; "Jessie, Rosa
mond Dale Owen; Bolivar, Liberator of
South America" Eugene Lawrence; ION q
Photograph of Athens" III. L. Tuckerman;
'sEditors Easy Chair" Editors Literary
Record" EDITORS Scientific Record" "Edi-
tors Historical Records" Editors Drawer"
Frem the article entitled "Pussy, by Pro-
fessor Schele de We're, we quote the follow
ing paragraphs
''It is, perhaps, due to the prominent posi-
ton in which cats appear in Northern my
thology that they were subsequently con-
sidered as the favorite companions of evil
doers. The Germans portrayed their beauti-
full goddess Frouwa whose smiles charmed
through her overlooking tears, as drawn by
white cats in her airy car. When these deities
were subsequently communicated by
jealous Christian priests, all such companions
to have suffered in this respect more than
other animals she became, as it were, the
Devils own, and st. Dominick never
preached of the Evil One with
out presenting him to his listeners under
the form of cat. 1t must be confessed
that her thoughtful quietness, as if brooding
over some deep scheme, her wicked green
eyes, with their fiery sheen by night, her ten
dency to give out sparks when her fur is
bo,. al oil no1
to impress ignorant and credulous people
with a sense of fear and horror; so they tor
mented and prosecuted her, and on st. Johns
Day. the day of witches, when popular belief
had it that they all left town and village
to accompany their fearful mistresses to
the great witches Sabbath, they burned
goodly number for their delight. Such
was the custom in France for many q
generation, while in Flanders they were wont
to throw them from church-steeple and tower.
History tells us how Louis XIII, when q
child, once begged of his father the lives of
all that were to be thrown into the fire; but
no chronicler reports whether the nine lives
providentially granted to cats ever saved
them from cruel martyrdom. In the town of
Ypres, at all events, this does not seem to
have been the case, for there the barbarous
custom continued till the year 1918! Since
witches have gone out of fashion, cats have
perhaps this is to be ascribed to the fact that
the French have given Pussy as a pet to the
patron saint of lawyers, st. Ives, although
Rabelais already interprets the association as
by no means peculiarly creditable to the bar.
The clever French missionary Hue, who, with
his companion CADET, first gave us an intelligent
account of life in the interior of the Flowery
Kingdom, was not little surprised, and quite
incredulous at first, when his Chinese friends
told him that cats were their watches, and
enabled them to tell, with unerring accuracy,
the hour of the day. He learned, however,
by careful observation, that this was really
so; for he noticed that the pupil of every
cat he saw, though wide open in the early
morning, would gradually contract as the
sun rose; at noon perpendicular line of
extreme delicacy would be all that was
left to be seen, and then the pupil
would dilate again, to return to its natural
size by sunset. And when poor Pussy has
served her time as a dial, she is served up
herself-not in disguise, as in French restau-
rants, but boldly and boastingly. In many a
lowly house in town, and in almost every farm
house in the country, a number of cats are
seen fastened to chains for the purpose of
fattening them and in the market-houses
they hang in low rows, exhibiting their
snowy whiteness, and with heads and tails
carefully left untouched, to testify to their
gengineness. Hence the fondness of the
Chinese to introduce them in their illustra-
tions of happy indoor life; while their strange
neighbors, the Japanese, show here also then
superiority, being fond Of caricaturing the
poor creatures, and making fun of them aftel
their own manner
After the days of persecution were over il
Europe, cats ceased to appear in history, ex
cept on sorrowful occasions, when they wer
nsed to amuse men, and to exhibit mans in
credible meanness. Thus, we are told b,
grave historians that Philip ii of Spaii
laughed heartily only once in his life. 1t wa
when, in the year 1919, he made his solemn
entry into Brussels Among other ingeniou
contrivances to amuse him, he was met by
wagon on which a bear stood before wha
seemed to be large organ; but in reality
was O box containing twenty cats, whose tail
were tied up to meet the keys of the instru
ment. When the bear was stirred up b
would smite the keys, the keys would pull tn
tails, and the poor cats would cry piteously
while monkeys danced merrily to the sac
miserable music. And the king laughed
The same savage cruelty has been repeated
shown to poor Pussy, and even this centuI
has witnessed q similar cat concert, whic
was given in London.
Pussy finds ample compensation, it is to |
hoped, in the almost universal tenderness an
affection with which she is treated by womel
and the fondness with which she has eve
inspired the greatest of men. Who does n
know Tasso's charming sonnet to his cat?-
one of the brightest among his smaller gem
and Petrarch is said to have loved his cat on
less than his Laura; so that what he could n
hn Co. Of ha IA,