The Sun. — 1863-12-24 (London, England)

THE CAT A FOREIGNER.—A positive argument for the foreign introduction of cats may be founded on the terms in which they are mentioned amongst the old Welsh laws of Howell the Good (943 A.D.) They were evidently scarce at that time, for it is there laid down— "The worth of a kitten until it shall open its eyes is one legal penny ; from that time till it rhall kill mice. two legal pennies; after it shall kill mice, four legal pence, and so it shall always remain." A law of oree of our own Edwards made the killing a cat punishable with death—a remnant of barbarism only expunged from the statue-book, we believe, by the late Sir H. Peel. Both the ancient Welsh and our own law concurred in a curious penalty for killing the king's oat, "the guardian of the royal barn." The offender was mulcted in a heap of corn sufficient to cover the defunct animal when held up bp the tip of its tail with its whiskers touching the floor.—Once a Week.  AN OLD BusuMAN's description of his being teat for nine hours at night in a snowstorm.--The snow was blinding me, the air was so thick that I could not see a hundred yards before me, and all the fences were now buried in the snow-drift. I fired off my gun, I shouted, but no ' answer. I floundered on, not knowing where I was steering, for I was quite lost. And if I had tried to make back tracks' the darkness and the heavy falling snow prevented me seeing my spor. I tried to keep to a straight line, hoping at last to find some familiar object. On I toiled, sometimes the enow.drifts in the hollows four feet deep, always above my knees ; and so great was my exertion, that in about an hour more I felt myself beaten. And although I. should reckon there was then at least 13 deg. cold Celsuvs, the perspiration poured off me in streams. Again I fired off my gun and shouted, but no answer. No one was likely to be out round here on such a night, and even if a cottage window had been blazing within 200 yards of me I could not have seen it. I could keep no note of time, but I fancy it must have been near midnight when I reached another clump of trees, and being now faint and overmas. tried, I sat down at the foot of one with my back to the wind; but as soon as I had sat down a complete revulsion came over me. My blood seemed all at once to stagnate, my head reeled, my eyes appeared to be starting from their sockets, and a drowsiness which 1 had never felt before crept upon me., I felt my life depended on moving on. If I could struggle on till the morning I might be saved. But I reckoned it still wanted eight hours to sunrise. To push on was my only alternative, and I again struck out into the waste of snow. The cold had caught one of my hands, and I had lost the use of it, and my ears and nose felt just as if I could have snapped them off like icicles. I became weaker and weaker. Suddenly my foot struck against an obstacle. It was a sunken fence. The snowdrift hero just reached to my waistcoat pocket, and it took me a quarter of an hour to clear the fence. The cold seemed eating into my marrow. Rfy feet appeared to haul;' of my legs like lumps of lead. My senses seemed going. I was becoming lightheaded, Stud when I rose again I reeled like a drunken man. A kind of languid indifference stole over me. I almost longed to sleep the sleep of death. In the early evening I had felt frightened. Now hope had N anished and 1 dashed on with reckless exultation. Such curious thoughts came into ray bead ; triflicg incidents of the past, long since forgotten, crowned on my mind, and the whole history of a life seemed to be condensed in the few hours of that dreadful night. I thought of suicide and loaded my gun. And then I dashed my gun in the snow. I was no longer moter of myself, my whole disposition teemed ch.lnged, I moved mechanically as in a trance,— Vide d Spring and Suinnlcr in Lapland,