CATS OF THE PAST. 



" ' Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, 



Where have you been ? ' 

 ' I've been to London 

 To see the Queen.' 



" ' Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, 



\Yhat did you do there ? ' 

 ' I frightened a little mouse 

 Under her chair.' " 



In " Alice in Wonderland " Lewis Carroll 

 has given the world " a childish story " which 

 will never cease to 

 delight both young 

 and old. In this we 

 read of the "Che- 

 shire Cat " which 

 grinned down upon 

 the guests assem- 

 bled at the royal 

 croquet party, and 

 having incurred the 

 anger of the Queen, 

 was in danger of 

 having its head cut 

 off by order of the 

 infuriated monarch. 

 The other volume 

 by the same author 

 " Alice Through 

 the Looking-Glass " 

 opens with a de- 

 scription of the way 

 in which Dinah the 

 cat washed her chil- 

 dren's faces : 

 " First she held the 

 poor thing down by 

 its ear with one 



paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed 

 its face all over the wrong way, beginning at 

 the nose." Then follows an animated con- 

 versation between Alice and the kitten. All 

 the world knows of the love Lewis Carroll had 

 for children, and I can assert he had an affection 

 also for cats, for when a child he spoilt and 

 petted me and my kitten. I only wish I could 

 remember the deliciously impossible stories he 

 was wont to tell me of fairies, goblins, and 

 pussy-cats. 



MADAME RONNER AT WORK 

 (Photo: Alexandre^ Brussels.) 



Harrison Weir, in his book on cats, has 

 gathered together a number of curious cat 

 proverbs. Some are very familiar, such as : 

 " A cat may look at a king " ; " Care will kill 

 the cat " ; " When the cat is away the mice will 

 play," and a very significant one is : " When 

 the maid leaves the door open the cat's in 

 fault." The quaint saying, "When candles are 

 out all cats are gray " is a very expressive one. 

 When we consider the cat in art, it is among 



Eastern painters we 

 find the most deli- 

 cate and skilful 

 studies. Next to 

 the Egyptians, the 

 Chinese and Japan- 

 ese have excelled in 

 the artistic treat- 

 ment of animals. 

 In many of the 

 Dutch interiors 

 given to us by Flem- 

 ish artists, the do- 

 mestic cat may be 

 seen curled up on 

 the hearth, or sit- 

 ting erect, bearing 

 somewhat the ap- 

 pearance of being 

 stuffed with bran. 



In many of the 

 early Italian sacred 

 pictures we find the 

 cat depicted, but 

 great painters, like 

 Titian, Velasquez, 

 and Murillo, seem 

 to have preferred the dog as an adjunct to their 

 portraits. Raphael and Salvator both con- 

 sidered puss a worthy subject for their brush. 

 In M. Champfleury's interesting book on cats 

 he gives a facsimile from the powerful pencil 

 of Mind, whom Madame Lebrun has termed 

 " the Raphael of Cats." The attitudes are so 

 true to nature that the cat seems alive. Mind 

 was a native of Berne, and in 1809, on account 

 of a scare of madness amongst cats, eight hun- 

 dred were put to death. This was a heart- 



