The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-03-17
The Family Cat.

. H
No member of the family has suffered
the abuse that the family cat receives at
the hands of the general world. We do
not speak of those who starve her, who
turn her outdoors at night, who 90
away for season in the country and
leave her to forage for herself, but of
those who simply SANDER her by in
furious report. According to these
scandalous people, the cat is without
beauty and without affection; she is I'M
grateful, cruel, stupid, treacherous and
dishonest Strange that on such worse
than worthless being should be lavished
the religious worship of nations and so
much of the household love of I'M
counted individuals as poor Pussy has
received!
But let US look at the charges. With
out beauty? She is being whose out
lines are beauty itself; she is a success
sion of supple curves, and every curve
obeys the law of the line of beauty of
gloss and movement How brilliant are
those eyes, likeness to which gives value
to the jewel now in most request-the
cat s-eye quartz, that otherwise were a
worthless pebble She is clad in furs
shining with life, and which, while upon
her, are ihcomparably superior to those
dead furs which princess is proud to
wear Every motion is grace, and
whether she is black, or white, or gray,
or tortoise-shell, every tint she assumes
is pure and charming one. Is she with
out affection? When she goes to meet
her chosen friends in the family and fawn
about their feet, when she carresses them
in their sickness, and sometimes dies
broken-hearted in their death, it would
seem to manifest love for them. When
she suffers little children to lift her by
the tail and carry herround by the heels,
dress her up in caps and aprons as doll
and inflict upon her thousand we'll
meant pains, it looks as though she
loved them. There are innumerable
instances on record of the affection of
cats for children, aad entirely contradic-
tory of the outrageous old notion of their
sucking the breath of babies. Puss, in
deed, often makes her nest in the cradle,
but not because she loves the little milky
breath, nor because she loves the warmth
but because she loves the baby. She has
been known to fly at the biggest and
most ferocious dog entering the room
where her little friend lay sleeping; to
jump from the cradle when the child
cried and run for the mother, returning
and standing with her fore-feet on the
cradles edge, nervous and anxious till
the mother took up the child and one
belonging to Mrs. Wilson, of Cults, near
Aberdeen, Scotland, once accosted his
mistress with piteous meaows, running
repeatedly to the door, and endeavoring
to fetch her with him, and finally sue
ceeding, when the lady found her sick
and feeble child rolled from the sofa
where it had been left, and so envelope
in the rugs and wraps that it would
presently have suffocated if help had not
been brought by the cat. When, more
over, the cat conquers her hereditary at
tachment to places, and follows persons
about in their peregrinations, it can not
be because she loves to travel. DIR.
Stables, a surgeon of the British navy,
tells us of his cat, which, although the
mother of hundred kittens, yet found
time to accompany him on all his tray
els, having journeyed over twenty thou
sand miles in his company, usually be-
slowing herself. when she judged that
it was fiitting-time, in the little basket
that carried her, but on one occasion,
having taken so long an airing before
starting that her master was obliged to
leave without her, she hailed him, as he
walked along the railway platform, from
tirst-class carriage that she had thought
hoet 30 eouo fi,,,a
But when people say that Puss is cruel
they forget that all carnivorous animals,
and man among them, are cruel too.
Yet Puss is sometimes more virtuous
than man in this regard, will live for
years with the tempting morsel of bird
playing about her, disputing her dinner,
and alighting ON her very head. DR..
Good told, long ago, of one that had
lived at peace with a tame canary sud-
denly, to the horror of the family, Selling
it in her mouth, and springing to the top
of tall secretary, whereupon it was
found that a strange cat had entered the
room, which authenticated fact, from a
scientific authority, must be held to dis
pose of the accusations both of cruelty
and stupidity if there were not other in-
stances in plenty to do the same. There
is certainly sagacity in the way any cat
finds her way across miles of country to
an old home, in the way she often sits
by the cow, and asks the milkman to
attend to her wants, in the way she as
often goes fishing; it was sagacity in the
cat which caught the escaping canary,
and brought it back alive toher mistress;
it was sagacity in the, cat that, absolutely
baited mouse-hole. with part Of herow
dinner, and sat and watched till she could
pounce upon the mouse; it was sagacity
in the cat that knew when Sunday came,
as Mr. Whyte. of Dallfield Terrace, Dun
dee, relates; and the cats that, threat
ened with condign punishment, have
! suddenly disappeared and never reap
peared are legion. If one wants study
in philosophy, by-the-way, and an OPP
portunity to discriminate between in
stinct and reason, he has only. to observe
any young cat on her first experience of
a mirror, as she tries to put her paw be-
hind it, pops back to see if the foe is still
there, and ends by. boxing the ears of
the impudent creature confronting her
there, and scampers away with her tail
as big as ten, profoundly convinced of
magic, whether or not she knows the
word. - Hayper's Bazaar. UIo,t I signn1