The Book of Cats. 1 1 



The Cat-call used at theatres in former times 

 was a small circular whistle, composed of two plates 

 of tin of about the size of a half-penny perforated 

 by a hole in the centre, and connected by a band 

 or border of the same metal about one-eighth of an 

 inch thick. The instrument was readily concealed 

 within the mouth, and the perpetrator of the noise 

 could not be detected. 



There used to be a public-house of some notoriety 

 at the corner of Downing-street, next to King- 

 street, called the ''Cat and Bagpipes'' It was also 

 a chop house used by many persons connected with 

 the public offices in the neighbourhood. George 

 Rose, so well known in after life as the friend of 

 Pitt, Clerk of the Parliament, Secretary of the 

 Treasury, etc., and executor of the Earl of March- 

 mont, but then "a bashful young man," was one 

 of the frequenters of this tavern. 



Madame Catalini is thus alluded to with dis- 

 respectful abbreviation of her name in a new song 

 on Covent Garden Theatre, printed and sold by 

 J. Pitts, No. 14, Great St. Andrew-street, Seven 

 Dials. 



" This noble building, to be sure, has beauty without bounds, 

 It cost upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds ; 

 They've Madame Catalini there to open her white throat. 

 But to hear your foreign singers I would not give a groat ; 



