CATS OF THE PAST. 



derange all his philosophy ; but are our philos- 

 ophers wiser on such occasions ? " 



The cat, as the emblem of independence 

 and liberty, has been used in heraldry, statuary, 

 and signboards. In the sixteenth century a 

 well-known firm of printers named Sessa, at 

 Venice, adopted the device of a cat surrounded 



Maison du chat qui peche." In the Lombards' 

 quarter of Paris, " Le Chat Noir " was for- 

 merly a familiar figure above restaurants and 

 confectioners. In England we often come 

 across " The Cat and the Fiddle " as a sign- 

 board to old country village inns, and in 

 Cassell's " Old and New London " a writer 



by curious ornamentation, and Dibdin in one of says : " Piccadilly was the place in which ' The 



his works tells us that whenever you see Sessa's 

 cat you may be sure the book is a good one and 

 worth reading. Ever 

 since the days when 

 the Romans carried on 

 their banners the de- 

 sign of a cat, this com- 

 bative and courageous 

 animal has been a fa- 

 vourite symbol of war- 

 riors and nobles. The 

 wife of King Clovis, 

 Clotilde,had a cat sable 

 upon her armorial 

 bearings, springing at a 

 rat, and on the famous 

 Katzen family's shield 

 was a cat holding a 

 mouse in its mouth. 

 In Scotland the Clan 

 Chattan was known by 

 the emblem of a wild 

 cat with the significant 

 motto, " Touch not the 

 cat, but " (meaning 

 without) " the glove." 

 Their chief was called 

 Mohr au chat, or the great wild cat. 



M. Champfleury, dealing with cats in 

 heraldry, tells us that the French Republic 

 resumed heraldic possession of the cat and 

 added it to its glorious shield of arms ; and 



ALICE AND THE CHESHIR1 

 CAT. 



Cat and Fiddle ' first appeared as a public- 

 house sign. The story is that a Frenchwoman, a 



small shopkeeper, had 

 a very faithful and 

 favourite cat, and that 

 in lack of any other 

 sign, she put over her 

 door the words : ' Voici 

 tin chat fidele.' From 

 some cause or other, 

 the ' Chat Fidele ' soon 

 became a popular sign 



in France, and was 

 speedily Anglicised into 



From ''AH<e's Adventurer in Won- 

 derland,'' by Lewis Carroll. 



(By permission of Messrs. Maaitillan & 

 Co., Limitttt.} 



' The Cat and Fiddle,' 

 because the words form 

 part of one of our most 

 popular nursery 

 rhymes." 



Many are the popu- 

 lar traditions, maxims, proverbs, and super- 

 stitions connected with the cat. In olden days 

 her every movement was looked upon as a sign 

 of ill-omen or of good luck. Old nurses would 

 drive a cat out of the bedroom with much sig- 

 nificance of manner, that it might not " suck 

 the child's breath." There is a superstition 

 that a cat will not remain in a house with an 

 unburied corpse. 



M. Presse d'Aveunes gives an account of 

 a curious cat superstition. " When a woman 

 gives birth to twins, boys or girls, the last 



an illustration is given in his book of the re- born of the two, whom they call ' barecy ' 



publican painter's figure of Liberty holding a (sometimes both), has at times, and it may 



pike surmounted with a Phrygian cap, and at be all its life long, an irresistible craving for 



her feet is seated a cat. particular eatables ; and in order to satisfy 



In past, rather than in present, days the more easily its gluttonous desires, it assumes 



cat was used on signboards, especially in the shape of different animals, and espe- 



France. We read of " La Maison du chat cially that of the cat. During the trans- 



pelote " (i.e. which rolls itself up), and " La migration of the spirit into another shell, the 



