CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



gathering up the torn and tattered remains of Tor- 

 toise-shell Tabby, and invoking the vengeance of 

 heaven and earth on her pitiless murderers. Some 

 slight relief to her bursting and breaking heart to 

 vow, that she will make the minister hear of it on the 

 deafest side of his head ay, even if she have to break 

 in upon him sitting on Saturday night, getting aff by 

 rote his fushionless sermon, in his ain study. 



Now, gentle reader, again observe, that though we 

 have now described, con amore, a most cruel case of 

 cat-killing, in which we certainly did play a most 

 aggravated part, some Sixty Years since, far indeed 

 are we from recommending such wanton barbarity to 

 the rising generation. We are not inditing a homily 

 on humanity to animals, nor have we been appointed 

 to succeed the Rev. Dr Somerville of Currie, the 

 great Patentee of the Safety Double Bloody Barrel, 

 to preach the annual Gibsonian sermon on that sub- 

 ject we are simply stating certain matters of fact, 

 illustrative of the rise and progress of the love of 

 pastime in the soul, and leave our readers to draw 

 the moral. But may we be permitted to say, that the 

 naughtiest schoolboys often make the most pious men ; 

 that it does not follow, according to the wise saws 

 and modern instances of prophetic old women of both 

 sexes, that he who in boyhood has worried a cat 

 with terriers, will, in manhood, commit murder on one 



