ASTOUNDING METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENON.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2562, 23 March 1877, Page 3

ASTOUNDING METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENON.

From a highly veracious narrative in the JNew York Times of a "shower of cats " in San Francisco, we extract the following sensational particulars :—" The pattering and cries increased, and a shower of heavy objects fell from the eaves and. rattled from the pavement below. Tl-e whole family rushed to the front piazza, and by the increasing light of the full moon, beheld scores of cats pouring from the roof. Cats of all sizes and colors were Eliding over the shingles and turning wild somersaults in the air At one moment a gigantic tom-cat would clutch at the pitiless gutter-pipe, and failing to break his fail, would shoot, meteor* like, with outstretched tail, through the astonished night and impale himself on the iron spikes of the front. fencoY At another moment a staid tortoise-shell-tabby of untarnished reputation, would make the fatal plunge, uttering blasphemous and blood curdling yells until she had brained herself on the brick pavement. The horrified family fled to the cellar, where they passed the night in denouncing the "weather bureau, in vainly attempting to convince their 1 Eastern guest that an occasional cat-shower in no way detracted from the unequalled excellence of the California climate, and in searching a pocket New Testament for the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The shower did not last more than 15 minutes, although it sprinkled cats at intervals until morning. When daylight came, every fence-spike was ornamented with an impaled cat, and the yard was so thickly strewn with the dead and wounded that an experienced meteorologist, who subsequently investigated the a flair, reported, that at Last eight inches of cats must have fallen during the night. The theory put forth by. his sceptical man of science in order to account for the shower hardly needs to be refuted. He invented a small boy, whom he accused of greasing the roof with imaginary butter, which caused some hundreds of cats, assembled on the ridgepole with a view to singiug the praises of love and mice, to lose their footing. Insomuch as he failed to produce either the T)oy or the butter, and also failed to explain how a boy could keep his footing on a greased roof, where the most skilful cat, even with the aid of 'four feet and a full set of claws, could not maintain a position, we can only pity the weakness and despise the effrontery of the, scientific sceptic."