Introduction 
l 3 
robe rather than awaken the pet cat who slept upon 
it. Petrarch loved his cat and had it embalmed at 
death. Montaigne could do his best writing only 
when his left hand fondled his cat. 
The love of sailors and soldiers for their pets is 
well known. In the dreadful explosion of the 
Maine before Havana, two of the three cats belong- 
ing to the sailors, perished, but Tom, thirteen years 
old, beloved by all the seamen, was saved. He 
was asleep three decks down, or nearly thirty feet 
below the upper deck. In the agony of dying 
men, probably nobody thought of Tom. In the 
morning he was discovered crying piteously, on 
that part of the wreck which remained above the 
water. Commodore Wainwright hastened to take 
him off in a boat to the Fern, where he was 
warmly welcomed. 
Nothing attracted me more on the great battle- 
ship Indiana, battered in the war with Spain, than 
a basket containing a cat and five kittens, whom 
the sailors were shielding from the sun with a piece 
of canvas, and talking to them in terms of endear- 
ment. 
“ Take care of my cat ! ” were the last words of 
Dr. Stark, a British surgeon killed by a shell at 
