ONE OF LONDON'S TYRANNIES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 10

ONE OF LONDON'S TYRANNIES.

ALMOST EIGHT MILLION CATS IN GREAT BRITAIN. Though the pet cat has its devoted champion?, the oilier side of the question is feelingly indicated by a writer in the "Westminster Review."- In discussing London tyrannies; he has this to say:— "In Great Britain wo harbor 7.850,000 cats, or one cat per 5} human beings, reckoning our total population at 4C millions. Tako tin' average piiss as measuring, eighteen inches from. muzzle to the tip of tho tail, that givos us 2234 miles of cat. It would be safe to urge that 200 miles thereof ore mere bandits and prowlers. Can wo actually rank as a firstclass industrial nation while neglecting this immense potoniial for tho manufacture, of fmicy habiliments and esoteric edibles? London's proportion of units is 1,207,692. Thus, cats collectively form a painful subject. But in the concrete—or, to be , more precise, among tho bricks and mortnr of that particular urban space under review—they are actually appalling. What share of that million odd is left to the city at large must be infinitesimal. For here they throng in solid army corps. Desperate lodgers who at dead of night softly creep Along'tho summits of backyard walls to discover and wring the necks of budding cockerels, describe tho presence of a cat underfoot at every few inches as most discomposing. To tread on a cat, or oven on two cats—i.e., one under each foot simultaneously—begets _an amount of., squirming, biting, spitting, scratching, and miaowling which, in these circumstances, tries the courage and agility of the doughtiest crusader. Ho will need every particle of the approbation and balancing power which a Rood conscience gives to succeed in the hallowed enterprise. Let us leave this dark phase of .existence as too horliblo for further development. Readers can oxerciso their imaginative powors apropos to the uttermost. Theso simple indications but barely suggest what feline multitudes infest that devoted spot; how it rings the night through with demoniacal outcries, and eerie aing-songn, and weird screeching?."