The story has been so long current that it has become a proverb—“as quarrelsome as the Kilkenny cats”; two of the cats in which city are asserted to have fought so long and so ferociously that naught was found of them but their tails.
The facts are these: During the rebellion which occurred in Ireland in 1798, Kilkenny was garrisoned by a regiment of Hessian soldiers, whose custom it was to tie together, in one of their barrack-rooms, two cats by their respective tails, and then throw them face to face across a line generally used for drying clothes. The cats naturally became infuriated, and scratched each other in the abdomen until death ensued to one or both of them.
The officers were made acquainted with the barbarous acts of cruelty, and resolved to put an end to them. For this purpose an officer was ordered to inspect each barrack-room daily and report its state. The soldiers, determined not to lose the daily torture of the cats, generally employed one of their comrades to watch the approach of their officer.
On one occasion he neglected his duty, and the officer was heard ascending the stairs while the cats were undergoing their customary torture. One of the troopers seized a sword from the armrack and with a single blow divided the tails of the cats.
The cats escaped through the open windows of the room, which was entered instantly afterward by the officer, who inquired what was the cause of the two bleeding cat’s tails being suspended on the line, and was told in reply that “two cats had been fighting in the room; that it was found impossible to separate them, and they fought so desperately that they had devoured each other up, with the exception of their two tails.”
DEAR HANDS.
Of the gems reprinted in The Scrap Book, our readers have received none more gladly than Mrs. Susan Marr Spalding’s “Fate,” which appeared in our first issue. Her name was then given as “Spaulding,” an error which we take this occasion to correct.
Few who read the poem in the March Scrap Book were aware that Mrs. Spalding was still living. It is many years since “Fate” first appeared. The author’s fame, while amply justified by many other poems, has been permitted to rest upon that single earlier product, and the author herself has been lost sight of. Since “Fate” appeared, however, she has written much that is worthy of long remembrance.
Mrs. Spalding has been living with a friend, Mrs. Louise P. Sargent, of West Medford, Massachusetts, who writes of her, saying: “She is a helpless invalid, but so sweet and helpful that her influence radiates through a large circle.” Many friends sent her the March Scrap Book, and she said: