CONCERNING CATS 51 
As evidence of the general and, as I think, well- 
founded dislike of the cat, I may cite the distich which 
often accompanies the signpost on inns, bearing the sign 
of “The Cat and Lion” :— 
“The lion is strong, the cat is vicious, 
My ale is strong, and so is my liquors.” 
A Frenchman named Bertrand had to leave his native 
country in a hurry, having been detected in a plot 
against Cardinal Mazarin. He fled to the Hague, where 
he opened a cutler’s shop, setting up as a sign a picture 
representing a cat and the Cardinal and wrote under 
it: “ Aux deux méchantes bétes.” 
Among the natives of India, too, the cat does not 
seem to be popular. This is evidenced by many native 
proverbs. I quote two from Lockwood Kipling : “The 
cat with mouse tails still hanging out of her mouth 
says: ‘Now I feel good, I will go on a pilgrimage to 
Mecca,” and “The cat does not catch mice for God.” 
Some people not merely dislike cats, they loathe 
them with a great loathing. Napoleon was a case in 
point. 
Henry III of France is said to have fainted at the 
mere sight of a cat. But the gentleman who “takes 
‘the cake” ishe who wrote many years ago to the “Spec- 
tator”: “As I was going through a street of London, 
where I had never been till then, I felt a general clamp 
and faintness all over me, which I could not tell how to 
account for, till I chanced to cast my eyes upwards, 
and found that I was passing under a signboard on 
which the picture of a ca¢# was hung!” 
