rTO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—Your recent article entitled "Employment for Cats" has roused a good deal of discussion and some indignation in the socially lower, if occasionally geographically higher, circles of feline society. The best people among us are, of course, above indignation and not given to prolonged dis- cussion. But we feel that some sort of protest against such a terrible oxymoron as that implied in the title of the said article is necessary. If we graciously condescend to dwell in your houses and to meditate upon your best armchairs, we do not therefore authorise you to speak of " employing " us. You may harness the waterfall of the Zambezi tb your fell and feverish modern activities, but you will not employ cats. We find the world, it is true, in a state of unrest at present, and many people obliged to seek employment who in better states of society had leisure to devote themselves to being admired; but we have known similar periods of unrest before, and the best among us have always managed to survive without working for our living. We think it extremely probable that we may outlast even the Spectator, provided we carefully abstain from anything in the nature of employment.
The writer of the article states, as if with regret, that we are not mentioned in a modern work called the Bible; we understand, however, that there is a rude reference to us in one of the apocryphal writings sometimes bound up with that work. The Jews were a turbulent and rude race little fitted to understand us, and we seldom blessed their households. Our first ancestor sprang on to the shoulder of the maiden goddess when she sprang full armed from the head of her father; the Greeks, who in pre-Alexandrine days knew only our very poor relation
Tay arAospos Tay r•rpwe thigh' laissd, ignorantly conceived this cat, whom Athene bore, to be an owl (indeed our resemblance to Athene noctua, especially in the days of kittenhood, may well excuse their mistake), for the owl they knew well. Athene did not think it worth while to undeceive them, for after all their time, as yours, compared to hers and ours was very short.—We remain, Sir, &c., Two OF THE ELDER GODS.
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