The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1883-02-17
STORIES ABOUT CATS.
THE LARGEST CAT RANCH IN AMER
ICA

fec their curiosity this week in
walk half mile south of town to
visit perhaps the largest cat ranch
in Texas, or, for that matter, n
America. The cats, we presume,
are the property of Col. B. j. Cham
bers. In the summer of 1881 the
wheat on the farm was threshed
and a considerable quantity IF
straw was left in rail pens. A few
cats at once took possession of the
pens. They have multiplied until
now at least 500 cats, black, white,
yellow, gray, spotted--in fact, every
color known to the feline tribe, TO
say nothing of kittens-can be seen
with but little trouble by visiting
the pens.-Clebu77le Chronicle.
sHoRT-LIvED GRIEF FOR LOST CATS.
When a woman loses a favorite
cat she is entirely broke up-para-
lyzed, as it were, with grief. She
brings it to me to stuff, and then
totters home in despair. Well, [
work at it all day, SHINING, stufing
and putting glass eyes in it. But
it takes a week or ten days TO dry
it, for the skin has been saturated
with arsenical solution, and by that
time its owners grief has cooled
down to such an extent that she
forgets to call for it and it is left on
my hands. Now, if it were valu-
able dog or bird, | could easily sell
it and pay myself; but there amt
no enthusiasm in the trade for
stuffed cats, and | am stuck. So
now, when a woman comes in a
cryin' an a goin' on about a dead
cat which she wants me ostuff
[ sympathize, but l don't stuff until
she puts up the shekels.-A taxi
dermist in Brooklyn Eagle.
REMARKABLE CASE OF INSTINCT
IN A CAT.
Abeat seven weeks ago Mir. A. N.
Sargent, of this city, brought from
the town of Haverhill a fay0rite
cat. The cat remained in the store.
apparently quite cOntented, for
three or fur days, but one morning
upon opening the store she was
missing. Nothing was heard of her,
and it was supposed she had been
killed, when one day this week gshe
was heard scratching at the window
Of her old home in IIaYerhill. She
looked jaded and weather beaten,
but was otherwise in fair condition.
The time that had elapsed between
her departure from Lynn and her
arrival in Haverhill was just six
weeks and one day. Whether she
was travelling all that time is of
course not known, She was brought
in close box, on the railroad, by
the way of Georgetown, Danvers
and Salem, and the distance she
must have travelled on her return
could not have been less than thirty
or forty miles. How she succeeded
in finding her old home, which was
a mile and a half westerly Of the
center of the town, without any
scent or possible means of guidance
except her own instinct, crossing
| the Merrimac River and several
small streams which lay in her di.
rect track, must ever remain mys-
terry. If any one knows of a more
remarkable case of instinct in cat
we should like to hear of it.--Ly1ln
Reporter.
WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT.
According to the chap-book le.
| gepd, young Wilmington purchased
a cat with the only penny he pos
sessed in the world, not out of pity
but with the sensible view of keep.
ing down the rats and mice By
which he was annoyed in his gar
ret. The cat being sent out as {
venture in one of his masters ships,
fetched high price in Barbary
where rats and mice were rife, but
cats were unknown, and so laid tbs
foundation of his fortunes. SiI
Richard Whittington's biOgraphers
have made a touching stand in de.
Tense of the authenticity of this
highly improbable story. DR.. Ly,
sons refused to yield a jot to the
argument that, as the tale had been
told over and over again in many
lands, and had been known in Per
| STA before Wilmington was born
therefore the author of the legend
airy life of his hero probably Dor
rowed the incident. He even held
that "the very fact of the story
being so widely spread goes to
prove that it has some foundation
| of reality" Mr.. Besant, in the
bright and graphic memoir of Whit
tington which he contributed to the
| Ne50 PIut0rch, after justly dismiss
| ing Mr.. Riley's ingenious" sugges
tions as to scat" being corrup'
| ton of achat, purchase, or term
meaning a collier, goes on to argue
in favor of the credibility of the
story On the following grounds
There used to exist in the MERGERS
Hall portrait Of Wilmington, dated
I 1886, in which a black and white cal
figured at his left hand. A still ex-
listing portrait by Reginald distract
who fourished about 1890, repre-.
sents him with his hand resting on
a cat. The story is told that the
hand originally rested on skull, but
that in Difference to public opinion
cat was substituted, which proves
the legand or the history had been
by that time completely spread
That S also proved by a reference
to the cat legend in Heywood's I'll