200 The Book of Cats, 



and said : — ' I should like to see the worm who 

 came with that enquiry.' 



" ' Come forward, worm,' the eagle said. But 

 when the worm appeared, the sparrow snapped 

 him up, and ate him. Then he went on with his 

 argument against the Cats." 



Everybody has heard of the Kilkenny Cats, and 

 how they fought in a saw-pit with such ferocious 

 determination, that when the battle was over, no- 

 thing was remaining of either combatant except 

 his tail. Of course, we none of us suppose that the 

 tale is true, but some writers think that the account 

 of the mutual destruction of the contending Cats 

 was an allegory designed to typify the utter ruin to 

 which centuries of litigation and embroilment on 

 the subject of conflicting rights and privileges tended 

 to reduce the respective exchequers of the rival 

 municipal bodies of Kilkenny and Irishtown— sepa- 

 rate corporations existing within the liberties of one 

 city, and the boundaries of the respective jurisdic- 

 tion of which had never been marked out or defined 

 by an authority to which either was willing to bow. 

 The desperate struggles for supremacy of these 

 parish worthies began A.D. 1377, and they fought, as 

 only vestrymen can fight, a little over three hundred 

 years, by the end of which time there was, as you 



