11 MAY 1912, Page 19

" FUSS-CATS."

[To THE EDITOR OW THE "SrEcTATon.1 SIR,—We have no wish to be rude--indeed, we do not know how to be rude—but guouagve tandem. P It cannot be many

moons ago (though, indeed, we trouble ourselves little with your computations of time) since we felt moved to utter a firm protest against a ridiculous proposal of yours to " employ" us. That proposal, absurd as it was, was not, we believe, intended to insult our race. But we regret to perceive a growing 5/3ins in your columns towards us ; you take, Sir, our name in vain. You make us into ridiculous and, even by your own standard, totally ungrammatical compounds. We hear our human Mends say that " all language is metaphor."

Even if so, was there ever a more hopeless oxymoron than to compound the name of us, the immortally calm, with such words as " copy " and " fuse? Fuss 1 By the tail of Pasht ! is nothing sacred to these scribbling men P—We remain, Sir,

as before, Two OF THE ELDER GODS.

We stand corrected, nay, "cat-o'-nine tailed." But though we yield to none in love of the cat and admit that a glorious calm is her chief mood, who can deny that a cat will some- times suddenly turn from calm to a tumult of fussiness? In her humour a cat can be agitation and unrest personified.

The present writer knew a cat who when she mislaid her kitten would fill the house with her fussing till she found it— generally in some perfectly obvious place.—ED. Spectator.]