I clip this from an American paper:—

“During the progress of the war I was sitting one day in the office of Able and Co.’s wharf-boat at Cairo, Illinois. At that time a tax was collected on all goods shipped south by private parties, and it was necessary that duplicate invoices of shipments should be furnished to the collector before the permits could be issued. The ignorance of this fact by many shippers frequently caused them much annoyance, and invoices were ofttimes made out with great haste, in order to ensure shipment by boats on the eve of departure. A sutler, with a lot of stores, had made out a hasty list of his stock, and gave it to one of the youngest clerks on the boat to copy out in due form. The boy worked away down the list, but suddenly he stopped, and electrified the whole office by exclaiming, in a voice of undisguised amazement,—‘What the dickens is that fellow going to do with four boxes of Tom Cats?’ An incredulous laugh from the other clerks was the reply, but the boy pointed triumphantly to the list, exclaiming, ‘That’s what it is—T-o-m C-a-t-s—Tom Cats, if I know how to read!’ The entrance of the sutler at that moment explained the mystery.

“‘Why, confound it!’ said he, ‘that means four boxes Tomato Catsup! Don’t you understand abbreviations?’”

Here is a bit of my own experience:—

I once had in my possession a very life-like engraving of a remarkably ugly bulldog, which hung in a frame over a piano in the drawing-room. With some surprise I noticed, upon several occasions, that a favourite cat would climb upon the top of the piano, and sitting close underneath the picture, fix its eyes upon the dog’s face, and putting back its ears, remain thus, with a wild and terrified expression, for as long as an hour at a time. This was remarked by other persons in the house, and we could not in any way satisfactorily account for Puss’s behaviour. Two dogs formed part of the household, and with these she was on friendly terms, and they being of a very meek and harmless nature, she treated them with contempt, as a general rule, boxing their ears now and then, when their presence annoyed her. We came to the conclusion, however, that she must have taken the picture for another dog of a different and higher order, more terrible in its motionless silence than if it had growled or barked ever so fiercely. Its eyes were drawn in that particular angle which made them seem to be fixed upon you in whatever part of the room you might be in. Many of us recollect in our childhood some gaunt-featured oil-painting, with hungry eyes, which thus pursued us. I remember one in a scrap-book, which it wanted some courage to face all by onesself, when twilight was gathering. With much of the same shrinking dread Puss seemed, whilst hating, to be unable to break the spell this picture had over her, to the contemplation of which she returned again and again, though frequently sent away. During the time that we noticed this conduct on the Cat’s part, she was with Kitten, and when the four Kittens were born they were dead, and one of them, strange to say, had a bulldog-shaped head, marked almost exactly like the picture.

I need not tell a kind master or mistress to use every precaution when drowning a Cat’s kittens, to keep their mother in ignorance of the fact. It can easily be imagined that the poor creature will be in great distress if the slaughter be committed before her eyes; and I know of a case where the Cat having found her young ones which had been drowned and thrown carelessly in the corner of a yard, brought the bodies back to her nest, and mewing and licking them, seemed to use every endeavour to restore them to life. A friend of mine, too, once passing along the bank of a river one moonlight night found a Cat mewing piteously among the long grass at the water’s edge. He came to a stand-still a dozen yards from the spot, and looked on curiously. At sight of him, the Cat turned round, and came running to his feet, looking-up appealingly into his face, and running back to the water side and then back again to him, seemingly to be entreating his assistance. Presently the moonlight showed him three or four kittens being borne away by the stream, and crying in small weak voices for their mother’s help. He did everything in his power to reach them, but they were too far away from the bank, and very soon they came to a place where the current was stronger, and swept them out of sight. The mother’s cries were then most heart-rending, and he was unable to induce her to come away. Indeed, having taken her in his arms, and carried her some distance, she struggled and fought violently to regain her liberty, and ran back again to the water’s edge. This took place at some distance from any habitation, but he concluded that somebody must have thrown the kittens into the water, and that the Cat had followed them, and seen the deed done.

TO THE RESCUE.
[Page 286.]

There are some children who will not cry, however much they are beaten; it is as difficult to make a Cat cry out when you chastise it. It will shrink; sometimes growl; but rarely cry: yet when beaten by another Cat, it will howl loudly. A dog on the contrary, very often cries at the bare sight of the whip, and screams at the lightest blow.

Some people say all Cats are thieves. I will not deny that a good many are: indeed, so are dogs. Neither will steal much if they are well fed, as they only take food when they are hungry. Here, however, is a plan by which, I think, you can generally ascertain whether or not a Cat is of a thievish disposition. Give the Cat a piece of meat an inch square, and if he is a dishonest rascal, he will not lay it down on the floor to pick it up again as is the usual way with his species, but keep tight hold of it with his teeth, and jerk it down his throat, sometimes using his paws to prevent its falling.