The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1902-09-05
CATS AND CAT-LORE.

pain, then rose crescendo into the well-de-
fined caterwaul of a Thomas cat with a
powerful alto voice. There came an an
swering high soprano wall, and the nightly
duet was on.
Loveson Anita, the poet, put down his
pen, pushed his hands through his abun-
dant hair, drew a little harder at his pipe,
and went to the window to gaze out into
the moonlight that bathed in its effulgence
the pretty village of Dipgle in the Myrtles.
ri hate CATS" he said. "Confound 'em.
Confound all cats--alway-cats of all col
ors, black, white, gray; by night nui-
sance, and by day-eonfound the cats! Here,
l come to this bowery Eden bubbling over
with joy at the thought of escaping from
the ceaseless roar and rattle of the city,
to be disturbed by catsl Why, their noise
is more destructive to inspiration, more
trying to the nerves than the changing of
hundred trolley cars. No, the comparison
won't do. There is certain fascination, a
strange, wild, stirring harmony in the diapa-
son of the city's hum, and in the singing
of the rushing trolleys. Whereas cats"
He ceased with a gesture indicating that
words failed him in which to express his
opinion Of the offending feines.
Mrs. Loveson Anita, who, while making
a pretense Of working at some embroidery,
had been rocking herself in contented indo-
lence and watching the changing express
sion on her husbands handsome face as he
wrestled with the muse, laughed the little
ripping laugh that was one of her many
charms, and that from the very first time
he had heard it had always been the sweet
est music to his ears.
'.Well it can't be helped" she said. "Let
Hercules himself do what he may, the cat
will new
"There are such things as guns, and air.
guns at that. By Jove, happy thought!
I'll get one. They say you can kill cat
with an airgun at | don't know how many
yards"
E'Fiel you wouldn't hurt poor harmless,
necessary pussy! Besides, you forget, dear,
that cat has nine lives"
ooh, no, won't do a thing to poor pussy.
Did you ever hear anything like it in your
life?
Loveson Anita put his fingers in his ears
and gazed desperately around for a mis-
sile.
"And then" continued his wife, eff you
were to shoot a cat you would be filled
with remorse and haunted by ghostly
tabby for the rest of your days. Didn't 1
see you release struggling fly from that
sticky paper Nora keeps in the kitchen?"
"They are no good, anyway" persisted
the poet, with growing wrath. 'They ought
as public nuisance to be exterminated.
''They catch mice"
''Not as well as a mousetrap. And they
are cruel and treacherous. They don't kill
their prey right off, as other and self-re-
L. j IL olro
sport of it and subject it TO the refinement
of torture. And they are that deceitful
and capricious you never know how to take
them-just like women. Somebody says
somewhere that if cat has nine lives, a
woman has nine cats lives"
"Ohp
"That is, of course, other women. You
are not like other women"
"What do you know about other women,
pray?" demanded Mrs. Loveson Anita with
a suspicion of asperity and flushing slightly.
Nothing, nothing, of course, from per-
sonal experience, my dear. But they have
the reputation. Its well-known fact"
ooh, is it? Indeedl"
eyes, and as l am saying" went on the
poet, evasively, ''they are no good, they are
utterly worthless, they are fit for nothing
on earth-the cats, l mean"
''Well, manufacturers make muffs and
boas and all kinds of things with the skins"
'Do they? Then I'm glad to know the
they are dead. Now dog"
'Never mind about dogs. We are talk
ing about cats, and my purpose is to prove
that they are good for something"
eyes, I've heard of it raining cats and
dogs"
"In some parts of France they eat cats!"
"Peuh!"
"You needn't look incredulous-they do.
They call them gibier de la rue'-street
game-and in a stew you wouldn't know
the difference between cat and rab-
bit"
"You have tasted it,"
ooh, no." denied Mrs. Loveson Anita,
hastily. cat least not to my knowledge;
but I've read about it,"
"Then they are principally useful as a
dainty to tickle the palates of some French
epicures, | take it. | can't imagine any
more ways than those you have enumerated
in which they can render service to man
kind"
'They are useful as timepieces."
"Whatl"
81 am perfectly serious. In China they
serve as very handy clocks. It's this way
The eyeball of cat contracts constantly
from dawn until noon, at which hour it is
merely a thin horizontal line. From noon
the eyeball gradually dilates Iutil it reaches
full expansion at sundown. So that in
places where there are no clocks or dials
or where there are dials and the day is
cloudy.a Chinaman just picks up a cat and
learns the hour by looking at its eyes"
Il had no idea that you had made a
special study of cat lore, but there's no
use talking, you Vassar graduates known
everything under the sun"
Cats have still another virtue. Rheu-
natism can be cured by rubbing the af-
feeted part with a ginger-colored pussy"
You are veritable encyclopaedia, dear"
That is nothing | have lots of talents
you haven't yet discovered However, chat
viii do for the present, and it now behooves
you-the duet having terminated-to sit
right down and indite an ode to the Cat of
| Cats"
"Strophes to a cat--catastrophes | can't
! do it; but | viii dash off rhapsodic stan
zas ad libitum to the most adorable little
champion who ever defended the cause Of
cats. IN. Y. Times.
An interesting family is being ex-
hibited by James NJ Wilson, of Town
send, Del, 1t is composed Of mother
ly dog and three half-grown fox cubs.
The mother fox had been traced to her
den and killed when the cubs were