The Book of Cats, \j 



pleasingly diversified by practical and nasal de- 

 monstrations of the efficient working of the Dog- 

 tax. " No fewer than 292 bodies of departed 

 canines, in various stages of decomposition, were 

 floating off Greenwich during the space of seven 

 days in the previous month, seventy-eight of which 

 were found jammed in the chains and landing- 

 stages of the " Dreadnought " hospital ship, there- 

 by enhancing the salubrity of that celebrated hot- 

 house for sick seamen." And I cannot venture to 

 repeat the incr'edible stories of the numbers said to 

 have been taken from the Regent's Canal. 



There are some persons who profess to have a 

 great repugnance to Cats. King Henry III. of 

 France, a poor, weak, dissipated creature, was one 

 of these. According to Conrad Gesner, men have 

 been known to lose their strength, perspire violently, 

 and even faint at the sight of a cat. Others are 

 said to have gone even further than this, for some 

 have fainted at a cat's picture, or when they have 

 been in a room where such a picture was concealed, 

 or when the picture was as far off as the next room. 

 It was supposed that this sensitiveness might be 

 cured by medicine. Let us hope that these gentle- 

 men were all properly physicked. I myself have 

 often heard men express similar sentiments of aver- 

 C 



