THE CA T ABO UT TO WN 39 



a cat which had followed or accompanied him to work 

 in most parts of North and Western England, some- 

 times following him on foot and sometimes carried in 

 the white washable bag in which navvies keep their 

 Sunday clothes. But as a rule it is much easier to 

 teach them not to do things than to do them. Recently 

 in a large London engineering works there was some 

 regret that the * best foundry cat ' was dead. The 

 sand used for making casts in the foundry is mixed 

 with flour. Mice come to eat the flour and spoil the 

 ' moulds.' It is not desirable that rats and mice should 

 be about in this loft, so cats are kept there. The cats 

 have to be taught not to walk about on the moulds or 

 scratch them up, and this ' best foundry cat ' was 

 absolutely perfect in this respect. In these works most 

 departments have a special cat. There is even one in 

 the galvanizing shop which knows quite well that the 

 hot metal spirts when plates are dipped in, and has 

 learnt to get under cover at that juncture. It need 

 scarcely be said that the London cat is a worse enemy to 

 caged birds even than the country pussy, as in the day- 

 time it lives more indoors. Whether it ever catches 

 gold-fish out of a bowl we do not know, but there are 

 no complaints of its robbing fishmongers' shops to 

 gratify its taste in that line. On the whole, we imagine 

 that the cat is happy in London, far happier, for 

 instance, than the dog. Even if lost, he has much 



