Dick and His Cat, and Other Tales

ANIMAL LIFE READERS EDITED BY EDITH CARRINGTON AND ERNEST BELL WITH PICTURES BY HARRISON WEIR AND OTHERS
DICK AND HIS CAT AND OTHER TALES
ADAPTED BY EDITH CARRINGTON AUTHOR OF WORKERS WITHOUT WAGE, A NARROW, NARROW WORLD, A STORY OF WINGS, ETC., ETC. WITH PICTURES BY F. M. COOPER LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1895
This Series is published by Messrs. Bell for the Humanitarian League.
In the Section of the Code for 1894-5, dealing with Reading Books, occur the words Passages impressing on the children the duty of gentleness and consideration for others, and that of the humane treatment of animals may also be widely introduced.
It is in the hope of encouraging that humane treatment of animals, which in the hands of a sympathetic teacher may so easily and naturally be made the first step towards the gentleness and consideration for others, that this series has been prepared. It is hoped now that the teaching of humanity has received official recognition, that those who have charge of the young will recognize its importance, and will realise that unless the cultivation of the heart runs pari passu with that of the head, the spread of education may become a curse instead of a blessing.
The Editors are much indebted to the R.S.P.C.C. for permission to reprint Trusty and Out in the Cold.

1. In the reign of the famous king Edward the Third, there was a little boy named Dick Whitt-ing-ton, whose father and mother died when he was very young.
2. He knew nothing about them, and he was left, a poor little ragged, dirty fellow, to run about the streets of a small country village.
3. As poor Dick was not old enough to work, he was in a sad state; he got but little for his dinner, and often had nothing at all for his supper. For all the people in the village were very poor.
4. They could often spare him nothing more than an old crust of bread, or some scraps that even a dog would not have liked. One day a man who was driving a waggon came through the village.