ABOUT CATS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 5, 6 January 1881, Page 4

ABOUT CATS.

This is an age of restless ecquiry and ruthless examination. No veuerable institution is allowed to be at peace, it is an age of progress, and every thing must march with the times, backwards or forwards according bb the tide of public opinion sets, and

so it comes about that the time honored ocoupant of the domestic beartb, the "harmless necessary cat " must needs be "moved on" with the rest of the world. Not but wbat there are times and seasons when he or she, as the cese may be, can move fast enough in all conscience, the evidence of the light sleepers need not be adduced in support thereof; everybody knows- when Grimalkin goes courting, his flirtations are perhaps a trifle too pronounced, we scarcely need telling that as Tennyson, slightly altered^ remarks "Iv the Spring a livelier iris sparkles on the burnished dove, la the Spring the torn cat's fancy turns to thoughts of love." But now the cat is to be taken in hand to be made a decent respectable member of society, ho hos defied Darwin and bis theories hitherto, and is as unchanged and irreclaimable as he was in the days of his most primv&il ancestors. In a word there has been recently & " cat show " at the Crystal Palace, being the 12. 1 iof its series. Exhibitors meant business too, for there was every species to be seen, long-haired and shorUhaired, white, black, tabby, many, tortoiseshell, and so on throughout the series. Mr vVeigbt man's '• Mistletoe,", a white long-haired cat, two years old, was stated to have already won 40 prizes, and its Belling price was £100. Great interest was excited in the bkb or silver tabby, the spotted tabby and a Persian white cat, with one ye'low and one blue eye. Some of the papers devote articles to the eul j et, and one unquires why it is thai the cat has never been trained to the chase. It appears, however, that this has been accomplished by an enterprising Amerioan who goes squirrel-hunting with nothing but his bug and his ca'i The cat we are told soon strikes a trail in the forest, and as soon db the prey is treed will leap after it from branch to branch, and if the unfortunate fquirrel takes to its hole the cat is equal to the occasion, and will sit watching with the utmost perseverance until the occupant, thinking all danger over, puts out his head pnd, is instantly seized. In this way the astute huoter bags Bdme 50 or 60 Bquirrels a-day. One correspondent asserts that he hai trained his cat to go sparrow hunting wiithhim, that at first he had greatdi'fficuhy to mak« him stand fire, but now so accustomed and interested is he in the spoil that.no sooner is ,tbe gun taken down than puss is to the fore as eager as any greyhound. When the game is down he will retrieve like the most perfectly trained dog, and allows the dead bird to be taken from him without resistance; in this way the oat will follow his master for mileß never leaving him. From this time forlh, therefore, let not anyone say that pws is ujn worthy of cultivation; he simply tfauts, like any gutter child, training and development. Some atatistisian ha 3 calculated there are 700,000 cats in London; I do not know how he arrived at hia figures ; a oensus of cats would be rather awkward to take ; the same cats would probably figure several times over, as they not unfrequently divide their time according to the state 6i the respective larders, their ideas as to maurn and tuuaa bein* of the vaguest, but, still, if this number be at all core;eot, here is a vest reserve of energy; ibey might almost be trained for the defence of the Metropolis, for who would dare to attack it in opposition to the (laterwauls and claws of 700,000,. cats -t