There is at least one place in the world where the cat was until recently held in high honor, and received the attention due to one of so high a station in life. That place is India, where in a fortress the sentries invariably used to present arms to every cat that appeared on the scene.
The custom is accounted for by this singular anecdote, which comes from what appears to be good authority.
Some fifty years ago it happened that a very high English official died in an Indian fortress, at a place that is one of the centres of Brahminic religion, and at the moment when the news of his death met the Sepoy guard at the main gate a black cat rushed out of it.
The superstitious guard presented arms to the cat as a salute to the dying spirit of the powerful Englishman, and the coincidence took a firm hold upon the locality, that up to a few years ago neither exhortation nor orders could prevent a Hindu sentry at that gate from presenting arms to any cat that passed out at night.
The train was roaring along about forty miles an hour, and the conductor was busily punching tickets full of holes, when a little thin old man who sat in one of the corner seats plucked his sleeve.
"Mister conductor, you be sure and let me off at Speers Station. You see, this is the first time I ever rode on steam-cars, and I don't know anything 'bout them. You won't forget it, eh?"
"All right, sir; I won't forget."
The old man brushed back a stray lock of hair and, straightening himself, gazed with increasing wonder at the flying landscape, every now and then exclaiming, "Gracious!" "By gum!" etc.
Suddenly there was a crash, and after a number of gymnastic moves that made him think of his school-days, he found himself sitting on the grass of the embankment alongside the track.