THE CAT QUESTION 285 



terms of his ancient charter, in spite of all 

 temptations to allow of a few of the original 

 lines being rubbed out and some new" ones 

 written in their place. Old ^sop's celebrated 

 apologue is as true of to-day as of his own dis- 

 tant time ; and thousands of years ag^o the wor- 

 shippers of Pasht who had tender hearts must 

 have been scandalised at their deity's way with 

 a mouse. It would not, perhaps, be quite in 

 order to conclude this exordium without a 

 reference to the poet's familiar description of the 

 cat as a ' harmless necessary ' animal. The Eliza- 

 bethan was doubtless only thinking of rats and 

 mice ; in the London of to-day the cat has 

 another important use in keeping down the 

 sparrows. But for this check sparrows would 

 quickly become an intolerable nuisance, flutter- 

 ing in crowds against our window-panes, crying 

 incessantly for crumbs, and distressing us with 

 the spectacle of their semi-starved condition. 



Much has already been said of the sparrow 

 in this work, but the lives of cat and sparrow 

 are so interlaced in London that in speaking of 

 one it becomes necessary to say something of 

 the other. Let us try to get a little nearer to 

 the subject of the connection between these 



