Morning journal and courier., 1882-05-29
Cats
From the Saturday Review. l

mans sentiments with regard to cats are l a kind of token of his age. In boyhood we
 are apt to hate cats, regarding them as 'the
 higher vermin." A dog which, like poor dog
 Tray in the poem, 'is uncommon good at
 cats, l." is our favorite companion We do
 not weary of contrasting the sterling merits and straightforward character of the dog with the sly and sinking habits of the cat. But as age draws on we begin to see redeeming fea- | lures in the quiet, undemonstrative cat. We
 admire the sagacity with which 1t passes a double life-a sleek domestic favorite all | day, wild animal of unbridled impulse in l the darkness of the night. If the cat IS n not
 a robustious animal like the Newfoundland or bull terrier, it is an unaffected one. It does not wag its tail at every chance conner, l but purrs only when 1t has good reason to be pleased. The undemonstrative cat takes | human interest in her own comfort, disturbs no one (except occasionally at night), and really deserves protection from the worse than Bulgarian atrocities of fends in the shape of boys This animal, essentially hypocritical and civilized, has a history and folklore of her own, which we now pro- pose to examine.
 M. Lenormant is convinced that not Egypt but Africa further south, is the cradle of the cat as a domesticated animal The Egyptian wild fowl hunter in the monuments takes his cat with him in his boat and the eat acted as 8 retriever. Cats, as rule, dislike cold wa ter but they are fond of fish, and there used to be cat in mill on the Narrow or the Ettrick (we forgot which, which would dive after trout and seize them even in deep pools This cat did not illustrate the Latin proVerb, ''Catus amat pisces sed aquas intrare recusat." The Egyptian cats fondness for birds doubt less enabled him to overcoms his aversion to wetting his feet. All the world knows through Herodotus how the Egyptians revered the cat though, indeed, there scarcely any animal which some of them dG not ignor- antlY worship. The remarks of Herodotus about the personal habits of the cat seem to prove almost to demonstration that the do- mesticated animal was no more known in Greece in his time than in the country where Dick Wilmington introduced it.
 Cats plsy considerable part in folklore, and no wonder Their ways are mysterious unexpectedly; they haunt the paths of the night, and they are the only friends of old women with 8 repute for necromarcy. We need not, however, say with the intrepid Gubernatis, that the cat with white ears in fairy tale is ''the morning twilight or "the moon which chases the mice of the night.'' There is chattering cat in Rus sian fairy tale, which is killed in the territo- ry of hostile Sultan. M. de Gubernatis cannot even let the poor Sultan of, but ex- plains that he is ''the wintry night" What the chattering cat is in this case we know not-perhaps the wind, or the spring, or anything but a cat that charters. Mime. d'Aulnoy's white cat, G etatte bIanehe has not escaped NJ. de Gubernatis' queer con- jectures The wooden horse of the young prince in the tale is ''the forest of the night" 1.-The white cat herself is 'fthe white moon"; and, when she is metamorphosed into woman, clad, says Mime. dAulnoy, ''dans une robe dune legere gaze blanche doublee de taffetas couleur de rose" the ttwhite moon" becomes the 'trosy aurora" It is needless to say that the gauge and the rose-colored taffeta are purely inventions of Mime. d'Aulnoy's fancy in the pleasing re- zion of millinery. To regard the rose-color= ed taffeta as the survival of the MythopoHic age, and as proof that the white cat was the moon, and became the dawn, is truly worthy of M. de Gubernatis. He treats Esop's cat-woman (probably the Greek polecat-woman) in the same way. That the bride went to bed can only mean 'sThe eve ming aurora sinks into night" The Italians describe an empty house by saying "there was not even a cat there" But do they mean that the house is deserted, even by the home-loving domestic puss? Nothing so commonplace. The proverb is derived from the sun entering the night, where he finds nothing, ''only the cat moon-n Black cats not black cats, but they are the moonless night. ''The cat in the bag of the proverb has probably diabolical allusionl" when German nValld sees two cats hght, he thinks it bad omen. Why? Because, ia M. de Gubernatis' opinion, the cats 'trepre- sent perhaps night and twilight" It seems to be held that men take no interest in auy- thing except so far as it may be considered a symbol of night or light. When Baontes pdrturiunt and nGScetur ridiculLs na1Ls the reference is not to the immensity of the labor and the minute results Oh no; 'tfrom the mountain come forth the mice of night, to which the cat moon and cat twilight give chase.'
 But we have had enough of M de Guber- natis, and of the meteorological cats which are offered to the world the last word of mythological science. The whole process is TeducttO Gd Gbsurduna of the conjeetural method. Just one more little specimen. ''When the cats away the mice may play" What does this mean It means that the shadows of night dance when the moon is absent" which is precisely what they do not do. No moon, no shadows, still less any shadow-dance. The most ordinary truths of experience are not only set aside, but re- versed by the method of NJ. de Gubernatis, method from which not even poor puss has escaped The most gruesome cat story is the roasting of the cat by the prophet in Highland superstitions. A man was tied up in bulls hide while his friends roasted live cat. One of the company said, ''What are you doing? ?" to which he who turned the spit replied, "I roast this cat until his friends answer my question" ''And afterward very big cat came, attended by 8 number of smaller cats, desiring to relieve the cat upon the spit. and answered the question"