Cats at Home and Abroad.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1813, 18 July 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

Cats at Home and Abroad.

' In an old Welsh law, 913 A d., it was laid down that " The worth of a kitten until it Bhall open its eyes is one legal penny ; from that time till it shall kill mice, two legal pennies; after it shall kill mice, four legal pence, and so it shall remain." The penny was worth in those days verj muoh more than it is now, from whioh we may infer that Grimalkins were scarce, Palmy days mus!; indeed have been their lot, for one of our own Edwards made a law forbidding the killing of a cai, under pain oi death. Another Welsh law ordered the following to be the penalty for killing the king's, cat— "The guardian of the royal barn": The offender was to pay as muoh oorn as would cover the defunct animal when held up by the tip of his tail, with its whiskers touching the floor. In Egypt cats were held especially saored, together with dogs and crocodiles. If a oat died in an Egyptian house, there was great mourning, and the inmates had to Bhave c£l their eyebrows and carry the dead animal to the temple ,5 here to be solemnly embalmed. Mohammedans have a kindly feeling for oats, from a tradition that their great prophet, when called to prayer, cut off hi s sleeve rather than disturb one that wat curled up cosily upon it. In the East, therefore, Puss on the whok does not fare badly ; at Damascus there is ar hospital for the eiok and infirm of her raoe while at Cairo destitute cats are Bupporte by publio charity, and are fed every aftenoon at a fixed hour. We oan imagine th' c these four-footed pensioners are weU ajquainted with the exact time, and whateve; may be their engagement, take oare not U be late for tea. In China, MistreßS Tabby herself furnisher forth a meal, for John Chinaman has no objection at all to roast cat ; and at Paris too, at the eating-houses in the suburbs, many a savoury " rabbit stew," if it could remonstrate in the "accents of its native tongue," would give vent to an unmistakabk miaow. The workmen who patronize this daintj dieh, knowing this triok, are not satisfied unless a genuine rabbit's head is served up' too. But a Frenoh cook is not easily nonplussed; he makes arrangements with dealers to let him have the heads for a trifling sum, and with a stock of these on hand, he is enabled to .overcome his customers' scruples, and pass oft Pussy for Bunny again and again. Ia an old account sent in by a man named Bragge to the East India Company in 1621, we learn that cats were sometimes exported, and that apparently with great suooess. Here iB the bill : "Item, for twenty Dogges and a great mar.) Catts which, under God, ridd away and devoured all the Batts in Shat Island (Bermuda), which formerly eate up all youi oorne, and many other blessed fruites whicfc *ha 4 land afforded. Well, for theis, I will deiu-iad of you but £5 a-piece for the Dogges, and let the Cdite goe. £100 Os. Ocl." During the Middle Ag« a verj ouriom custom prevailed at Aix, in Provence. On tho day of Corpus Chriati, a cat dressed in B waddling clothes was exhibited in a shrine, before which incense was burnt and flowers Btrewn. On St. John s Day, at the same town, a number of oats were placed in a basket carried in solemn prooession round the oity, and theu burnt in the market-place. Th( origin of this brutal custom is not known. In Denmark Pass was formerly held ie bi^h estimation, for a curious story is toldol how when the wife of the Bishop of Odensee died, her four cats, arrayed in white Bat in, with black velvet caps and plumes, were buried beside her in the Cathedral of St, EDud. But in England at this very same time oats, particularly black ones, were held in righteous horror. They were looked upon ac aliied with the powers of darkness, and many a poor lonely creature suffered death as a witch, on account of her fondness for a blaok oat.