220 The Book of Cats. 



themselves, and pocketed the money they should 

 have paid for the poisoning. 



To administer the poison yourself is by no means 

 a vWse course, as probably you may give too much 

 or too little, and in either case defeat your object. 

 I know for a fact, that two medical students once 

 barbarously practising experiments with poison on 

 an unhappy Cat, twice poisoned the animal, as they 

 supposed, and once actually buried it, of course 

 not very deeply, after w^iich it recovered again-, and 

 crawled into the house, rather to their alarm, 

 as you may suppose, as on the second occasion it 

 happened in the dead of night. 



Those unable to procure the assistance of a 

 doctor or chemist, can easily drown a Cat by 

 putting it into a pail of water, and pressing another 

 pail down upon it, care being taken of course to 

 handle the Cat gently, so as not to alarm it before 

 the last moment. 



Concerning the Cats'-meat trade, Mr. Henry 

 Mayhew gives many curious particulars, of which 

 the following are some of the most amusing : — 



" The Cats'-meat carriers frequently sell as much 

 as ten pennyworth to one person, and there has 

 been a customer to the extent of sixteen penny- 

 worth. This person, a black woman, used to get 



