V. THE CAT ABOUT TOWN 



THAT the cat still maintains its position as the best 

 mouse-catching machine procurable is shown by its 

 increase in great towns. The number of London cats, 

 according to a writer in the Daily Mail, is 400,000, of 

 which half are * unattached,' and live largely on refuse, 

 ' because London is the most wasteful city in the world.' 

 As London is also one of the cleanest cities in the 

 world, it is very doubtful if the waste food comes much 

 in the way of the unattached London cat, who, like 

 other Metropolitan paupers, levies handsome contri- 

 butions on kind-hearted people, whose doorsteps and 

 areas it besets, and also catches numbers of pigeons, 

 sparrows, rats, and mice, the three last of which do live 

 on London refuse, which the cat eats in the more 

 convenient form of cold sparrow or mouse. Evidence 

 quoted by the writer shows that this is so, for he states 

 that in most parts of London the rats have been driven 

 underground into the sewers by the warfare of the cats. 

 He also holds that the latter are somewhat changing in 



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