CATS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1035, 3 January 1873, Page 3

CATS.

The Town Crier's health, he regrets

to say, is failing fast. His midnight dreams, which, thanks to a good conscience and digestion, have hitherto been sweet and tranquil, are now so no more, and over his haggard vbrow hovers not the drowsy god. j jflTor in an adjoining yard to his resi""Xdence in a quiet street has grown np, matured, and entered society a young female cat of Eose McKinley turn of mind. And like her fastidious prototype sho seems determined to try a hundred beaux before she cleaves permanently to one. She has cleaved to forty-eight already, by the T. C.'s private memorandum, and still she keeps on cleaving. A Committee of one hundred visited her last night, but still no affinity. One old black fencestraddling villain, with strabismus, called " Pick," offered himself, but was decidedly not her pick. Plucky as Emily Pitstevens, she threatened to put a bullet in him if he ever made her another call. And still they come. Cats on fence, barrel, barn, and housetop ; brown cats, yellow cats, black-and-white cats, speckled cats; oneeyed cats, lame cats, mangy cats, cats without a tail, tortoise-shell cats aristocratic, and piebald cats parvenus. All tom-cats but one, and she perseveringly coquettish. The T. C. has cleaned out his room. His washbasin, pitcher, and other China utensils, bis boots and Oxford ties, the slats of the bedstead, his spittoon and inkstand arc gono. In one last despairing effort he emptied his shot gun on the army below, and then lay down in acute brain fever. He lies there still.

A QUADRILLE OF HEADLESS MEN.

The following grotesquely horrible story is from tho Paris ' Figaro 1 ; " This day eight days a wedding was celebrated at A . A merchant's clerk, named Marius Crampin, married a young girl of 18 called Anna R . Anna It was an orphan from childhood, and had been educated by an old priest, dead six months ago. Though she was very attractive, and had a dowry of 50 r ooof.—a respectable sum for a simple clerk—Crampin was far from jubilant when he left the church. Some of his friends, in fact, on hearing of his marriage, had sneered in rather a singular manner, without offering any explanations, and had declined to be present at the wedding. Besides, when the sacrifice was consummated, Crampin felt tormented by suspicions which before marriage he repelled with contempt. In order to dispel them he drank deep, and towards midnight he was pretty mellow. It was now time to retire to rest. The bride went first, aud extinguished the taper. Five minutes afterwards Crampin in turn arrived. • Hallo !' he exclaimed, stumbling, 'my wife pretends to be asleep ; we must light the candle again.' But just as ho was about to strike a light with a match he heard a rustling of curtaius, and a man appeared —a man of great height wrapped in a white shroud that was spotted over with blood, and without a head. He carried a red lantern. Crampin uttered a stifled exclamation, the bride rose hastily, and the two remained spellbound by terror at tho frightful spectacle before their eyes. For from the corners of the room emerged three other headless persons, all clothed in white with blood-bespat-tered winding-sheets, each with a red lantern in the one hand, and his head in the other. They stationed themselves in front of tho fire-place, and saluted the young couple in a ceremonious manner: Then, strange to tell, they spoke. Crampin in his terror, knew not whether the voice issued from the body or or from the head. ' Good day to you, Citizen Crampin," said one of the headless beings; " I am Joseph Grigois, a client of thy wife's great grandfather. Give me thy hand, Crampin,' said the other, sueeringly ; " madame knows me too. I lost my head is 1838, at the hands of her grandfather." By this time Crampin was down on his knees, and his wife was moaning in a state of distraction from fear. But they were alone in the bouse, which was situated at the gates of the town, and nobody came near them. The third phantom then advanced. "Little one," ho said, in au amiable tone, " thou canst boast of having-had a grandfather who did his word admirably. I, too, passed through his hands." "Good God!" groaned Crampin, in despair, " the man without a head speaks through bis nose." " Step out children," called out the fourth spectre ; " the nuptial ball is about to begin. Forward, botli!" And the four guillotined persons, taking their places, broke into a dance, a supernatural can-can, that froze the blood in tho veins of the young coupie. They leaped up and down, backwards and forwards, spread wide the winding sheets like great wings, and played like jugglers with their heads. It was frightful,and all tho more when suddenly they burst out in a chorus, aud sang some staves of a horribly grotesque song. Then all at once, opening the door, they disappeared in the dark lobby, after having deposited tho four heads on the knees of the bride. ' Merciful Heavens;' gasped out the latter with horror, ' the clients of my family!' ' What family, madame ?' yelled Crampin, horrified, in the midst of his terror, by the exclamation. ' Forgive me,' supplicated the bride, throwing herself on her knees before him : ' grandpapa was an executioner.' The wretched Crampin sprang to his feet and then fell senseless. As soon as he returned to himself, without taking time to pack his trunk, he precipitately left the town, and has not been again seen. The investigations of the police into this mysterious affair resulted in the discovery that tho four guillotined persons were none other than the friends of Crampin, who had learned, one knows not how, of the unfortunate connections of the bride. Their four heads were four melons."