INTERESTING CAT FACTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 96, 10 August 1945, Page 3

INTERESTING CAT FACTS

A Swiss artist named Gottfried Mind painted cats so well he was, known as the "cat Raphael." The life expectancy of a cat averages about 10 years. a cat oddly named Mr Nathaniel who attracted wide interest back in 1928 when lie h.ul a leg lived to the ripe old age of 20 years and (i months. We all know the famous story about Dick Whittington and his cat whiich legend says, made him three times Lord Mayor of London, [n Los Angeles a commercial photographer with the same name capi" talises on the legend by adopting a cat as his trademark. In Thailand (Siam) ? the Royal cat lias, almost as many attendants as the Queen besides a corps of priests to wait upon it. An Arabian legend maintains that the first cat was sneezed from the nostril of a lion when Noah was selecting animals for the Ark. As public servants cats were employed in the early part of the last century to keep rodents from destroying mail in U.S. post offices. Postmasters were provided with a special allotment for food for the cats. The black cat superstition dates from the Middle Ages, when it was believed the Devil dressed like a black cat to gain control of his victims! Russian country folk still believe black cats become devils when seven years of age. In Scotland, however black cats are believckl to * bring good luck. Other superstitions about black cats include the belief in England that black cats bring lovers to young girls. Poems have been written to cats as far back as the ninth century.