Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1905-07-20

CutAAG kutO s1o rUum anu LOOK 81 some
old books in which he would be in
terested.
He SAT down, but in q few min
utes grew pale. shivered. and said !:
There isa cat in the room DIR. M.
said: Look about you. There lis
no cat in the room. Doyou hear one
outsider He said. No. but there
is cat He became faint. and. CON-
planning Of nausea. went out and
promptly recovered.
II quote the following from ply
sician Of distinction as o case where
the symptoms arise on seeing cat,
and where, Al other times. they are
evoked by the odor Of an unseen cat:
MY wife simply lives in horror
of cats. Il is more than fright and
it makes no difference whether il be
tiny kitten or the most tigerlike
tomcat. / have seen her absolutely
prostrated by terror after an unex-
pected meeting with cat, although
she is not in the least hysterically
inclined nor afraid of other animals
"She has never as a child been
frightened by q cat but has always
had this fear. She can usually de-
tect a cats presence by it's smell,
when it is unseen and when others
cannot smell it. but this she cannot
always do.
Her father has the cat fear, and
her maternal grandmother can also
smell out a cat also a brother and
two sisters, the rest of large family
being indifferent to the animal.
"A lady very well known to me
sends me, with other instances, this:
She was in her room preparing for
bed, when suddenly she felt her
usual sensation of cat being near.
A servant was called and vain
search was made.
AT last, still suffering, she her
self made careful search, and found
strange cat curled up under a
lounge and well hidden. She has
no knowledge of cat from sense of
smell.
"Dr. ]. G. w. writes me: Some
years ago was present at a meeting
of a scientific society. The secre-
tary, while reading his report, stop
ped and said: lean I go on. There
must be cat in the room" Search
was made and, under the topmost
seat in the amphitheatre was found
o cat.
Mrs. H., lady long and well
known to me, first told me and later
wrote to me to this effect 1 was in
a shop in Paris trying on gloves,
when l became sure of cat near
me. The woman in charge said she
had no cat, but, on my persisting and
becoming faint, search was made and
stray Cat found under the counter
and driven into the street.
A few minutes later my symp-
toms returned, and the cat was found
to have come back into the shop
through the open door and was be-
hind me. / could recall a number
of like instances.
"Dr. T. writes as follows: Gen.
Roberdeau had an unaccountable
aversion to being anywhere iE the
vicinity of cats. 1t was no affscta-
tion but an Unborn idiosyncrasy.
He could not account for il and tried
hard to overcome it, but without the
least success.
1T affected him with a peculiar
faintness, paleness and difficulty oi
breathing, increasing to such an ex-
tent that it was involuntary for him
TO leave the room. He was never
mistaken when he said there was q
cat in the room an instance of which
occurred once when invited to dine
at Chief Justice McKean's.
Knowing his antipathy, they
made careful search and aired the
room, but the moment Gen. Rober
deau entered he said There is 1
Cat herel" They assured him there
was not, for they had taken proper
precautions on his account.
He replied that he knew there
was q cat there and retired Il
another room, while afsrther search
revealed q kitten behind the book
case. The writer's father has otter
heard his mother and aunts tell O
their girlish tricks played on Gen
Roberdeau, of secreting a cat in tn,
room in which he was sitting, anc
the General never failed 70 d er
ceive it instantly.
This peculiarity does not seen
TO be generally in herited anon,
his descendants. except that ii
three or four cases it has appeared
in a modified form.
Miss Mary E. ROberdeau, th'
eldest daughter of Isac, PARTIAL.
inherited this antipathy whicl
showed itself in another form occa