A LIVING ELECTRIC LAMP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3016, 24 February 1881, Page 4

A LIVING ELECTRIC LAMP.

Professor Maynard, of Cincinnati, it is alleged, awns the most powerful electric battery in the world. He is also the fortunate proprietor of a black torn cat, unrivalled throughout the United States for beauty, size and intelligence. A few days since, so the story goes, these two belongings of the learned Professor, each unique of its kind, came by chance into contract in such sort that the cab became the recipient of a stream of electric fluid, estimated at about one thousand horse-power. Forthwith its hair stood erect, and emitted a very coruscation of sparks. A series of heartrending squall?, however, calling the Professor's attention to his favorite's perplexing situation, he promptly disconnected the cat from the battery; but, to his great surprise, found that it remained luminous, having taken into jte system such a tremenduous dose of electric fluid that it had become a permanent generator of electricity, giving cut a light equal to that of eight hundred wax candles. This it has since continued to do, and it is now the terror of its feline colleagiiea as it perambulates the tiles by night, blazing like a comet, but with radiance. It appears that Professor Maynard, deeply impressed by the importance of this accidental discovery, has taken out a patent for lighting streets and public buildings by means of luminous cats, and that a company is being formed, with a capital of ten million of dollars, for the purpose of introducing the "Feline Electric Illuminator" to all the countries of the universe. A single radiant cat, suspended chandelier-wiso from the ceiling of a theatre, would emit more light than a hundred gas-jets; or, enclosed, within an ordinary street lamp, would turn night into day for a distance of some five hundred yards from its crystal place of confinement. It will be a proud day for science when electrical cats shall revolutionise all the lighting system of creation.—Daily Telegraph.