AMERICAN CATS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9417, 13 April 1909, Page 2

AMERICAN CATS.

A pleasant American writer compares an exhibition of cats to a chryeabthemum ‘show—“oats ana .ohrysnathemums are both so viv _ ld ‘y beautiful, iuoreaped -hi size, s ° varied in colour by cultivation. If a love of oats shows the contemplative nature, then Americans must be highly contemplative, for about thirty shows a* o held every winter by as many oat clubs all o * e *. United States, from Springfield to Los Angeles. Besides these there are societies for spoeial hinds and colours; and two monthly magazines are devoted exclusively to P oats. Bat perhaps the spread of cne oat cult, like the prevalence of tne headache cure, only shows cne national anxiety about brain-fag, since Louis Wain declares that stroking oats is the best prescription in the' world for soothing over taxed nerves. Yet nervous shocks are possible even to the oat fancier fo instance when his otherwise perfect type in Persian, Shiort-haired, or Chinchilla, is thoughtless enough to appear with unfashionable eyes. “The fashion in colour of eye has been changed in severa! instances to aooomraodate risng aesthetic standards.” Once a .silver-grey oat might have amber eyes; now she must he as careful as the modern horome effect a shade of green. White cats must have bine eyes,'even at the cost of being deaf as they are beautiful, and the green-eyed black may bej the witch-cat of legend, but shell as no magic power at an American-oat show when compared with a black ’ whose eyes are the prescribed orange in hue. “The United States can boast some wonderful “catteries, "Where animals grow in beauty side by side amongst all the latest home comforts. It was a correspondent of the Scientific American who assured biologists that a Manx cat, passing through a spring-shutting door, always matje a quick turn “to save the tall he never had. ”