THE LONDON CAT.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2533, 17 February 1877, Page 4

THE LONDON CAT.

A Londoner's house may be bis castle, but bis garden is decidedly bis cat's. No, not his cat's, the London cat recognises no human possessor; he is a free citizen —or, if the term be preferred, an Arab — the oasis in whose Sahara is a dust-heap, or a snug corner on the garden wall. Victor Hugo says that Paris has her child, the gamin, as the forest has its bird; he might have added, as London has her cat. It cannot be disputed that the London cat is a species apart. Take, for instance, his cynical indifference to broken bottles. "The feline community all over the world like to lie softly, and are sensitive upon the subject of moisture;, but, now, watch the London cat stretched at his ease upon a couch of jagged glass", blinking forth upon life through a pouring November rain. His whiskers are drenched and drooping, his fur resembles the hat of a typical Leicester Square foreigner: but " the mind is its own place," for his part he is free and happy. His passionate lore of independence >and his rejection of a fixed place of abode (supposed to be the dearest desire of his race) are further proofs of his originality^ Attempts have been made to reclaim him and bring him within the pale of civilized society. In consideration of a little mousingan assured home has often been offered him, but always he has resisted such overtures. "We.have, in mind a cat as an imposing presence, whose black coat, though dingy and lustreless from exposure and poor diet, was unspecked with any tuft of whiteness, and lent him so much dignity that he went by the name of the Black Prince. He was an inhabitant of London, and could not otherwise have specified his abode; but every day, at two o'clock precisely, when the bell rang for the children's dinner, he presented himself at a certain house, and waited on the windowledge of the parlour until his wants were attended to. Although nothing could be more decorous than his own behaviour, he was pronounced by the governess to be a corrupter of the children's manners, and to disturb that silence and absorption in their meals to which well-bred young English folks should be trained. Accordingly, various discouraging devices were attempted to induce him to renounce his visits. A bucket of cold water was poured over him; on another occasion the housemaid assailed him with a broom; on a third, he was .taken by a member of the family five miles in an omnibus, and then dropped by the wayside; and finally, he was given over to the butcher's boy, who was bribed to make away with him. But even this last attempt failed. On the following day, as the dinner bell rang, precisely at two o'clock, Black Prince reappeared at his post. At length this persistence softened all hearts ; it was decided that, since he refused to be improved off the face of the earth, his reformation should be attempted. The window was thrown open, he was taken in, well fed, washed, and decorated with a blue velvet collar, finally put to sleep in a basket filled with" new hay in the back kitchen. The next morning he had disappeared. The dinner-bell rang at two o'clock, but the parlor window-ledge was. deserted. Where water, the housemaid's broom, and even the butcher's boy failed, this last cruel kindness proved effectual—the children saw Black Prince's face no more. —Examiner.