THE CAT ABOUT TOWN.
AWRITER in the Daily Mail gives some notes from a forthcoming book to be entitled "The Cat and the City," purporting to give an approximate census of the London oats, and the estimate is four hundred thousand, of which half are "unattached," and live largely on refuse, "because London is the most wasteful city in the world." As London is also one of the cleanest cities in the world, it is very doubtful if the waste food comes much in the way of the unattached London cat, who, like other Metropolitan paupers, levies handsome contribu- tions on kind-hearted people, whose doorsteps and areas it besets, and also catches numbers of pigeons, sparrows, rats, and mice, the three last of which do live on London refuse, which the cat eats in the more convenient form of cold sparrow or mouse. Evidence quoted by the writer shows that this is so, for be states that in most parts of London the rats have been driven underground into the sewers by the warfare of the cats. He also holds that the latter are some- what changing in character, are losing their dislike of water and wet, and prefer to be out in the rain. We rather doubt these conclusions, and believe that if the London cat differs at all from his country cousin, it is in selecting different hours for his sport and amusements. The country cat is more or less lively all day, and hunts regularly in the evening. The London cat is sleepy and quiet all day, because circumstances make him a very early riser, or at any rate, prevent him having his morning sleep. The explanation of the languor and ennui of the London cat is to be found in the fact that long before he appears at the breakfast-table with a jaded appetite and a general air of aloofness from the world and its pleasures, he has had a long morning's sport, often in delightful society, and then breakfasted comfortably in the kitchen. The scenes of these early morning hunts are various, and the hour during half the year is one before even the earliest of early risers are about. In winter the London cats often seek their sport under cover. In one district near a very large and famous brewery the sporting cats go regularly as soon as the brewery gates are open to hunt rats in the brewery "stores." This is capital fun, as there are hundreds of barrels, either stored or "working," with little patches of yeasty froth oozing from the bung-
holes and plenty of dropped corn and " grains " in the .neighbourhood to attract all the rats from elsewhere. Under and among these barrels they may be hunted with success for an hour or more. Besides the brewery rats, which are said to drink beer when they can get it, there are "temper- ance rats," which live by the river, and, so far as we know, only drink water. These form the grand objects of summer sport to all London cats in range of the Thames, from the docks in the east to Chiswick in the west, and all along the old muddy foreshore on the Surrey side, where no embankment intervenes to spoil sport. We have never heard of an instance of London cats catching fish by the river, probably because until very recently there have been no fish to catch. But the keenness of the cats for this riverside hunting by the tidal Thames is such that they often return covered and clotted with mud from the foreshore, where they have either fallen in from the wharves or have pursued a rat escaping across the leavings of the river ebb.
In summer mornings, from 4 a.m. to about 5, London ceases for the moment to belong to the world of men, and for the moment is given up to the sole enjoyment of the London birds and the London cats. At this really bewitching ;hour, for the town is quite beautiful then, the cats may be seen, as at no other time, monarchs of all they survey,—rerunt donani, masters of the town. Then it may be seen that it is not for nothing that the race have for generations maintained their independence, and asserted their right to roam. For at 'that hour all the dogs are shut up ; all the boys and grown-up people too are asleep. There is not even a milkman about, or an amalgamated engineer going to his before-breakfast work. The city is theirs. Their demeanour at this time is absolutely changed. They stroll about the streets and gardens with an air. They converse in the centre of highways. They walk with a certain feline abandon and momentary magnificence over gardens and squares. For the time they are not cats, but lions and tigers ; or, to change the simile, they are no longer domestics, but gentlemen at large. Before sunrise one midsummer morning, the writer was watching the early birds by the side of the London river, and wondering at the abundance and variety of life in the silver-grey light of the dawn. A pair of water-hens were running on the mud left by the ebb, sedge-warblers singing, as they had done all night, and a pair of turtle-doves flew down to drink before sunrise. When the first beams of the sun sent long shafts of light down the river, the sedge-warblers were instantly silent ; and almost immediately the blackbirds and spar- rows and starlings appeared upon the grass. At this moment another ornithologist appeared on the scene in the person of an elegant young female cat. She made great efforts to stalk the fat blackbirds and cock sparrows, flatten- ing herself till her whole body seemed almost as level as a mat, yet capable of a rush forward whenever the birds looked in another direction. But the birds were perfectly equal to the game. One blackbird in particular sidled off each time the cat came within distance, until he sat at last on the edge of the wooden cam-shedding, where, if the cat made her spring, she must fall into the river. He, too, flew off, and at this moment of disappointment another and an older cat leapt lightly from the privet hedge close by and playfully cuffed the head of the disappointed one. This cat had probably been waiting on the chance of a " drive " while the more impetuous one tried a stalk in the open. The latter seemed half inclined to resent the humorous turn which the older cat gave to her hunting; but the two soon made it up, and after strolling ostentatiously across the lawn with their tails up, separated, and the young one adjourned to hunt " ground- game " in the cam-shedding. The quarry were either mice or rats, but were attacked by storm, and not by waiting. The cat dived her paws into the cracks of the boards, reaching in as far as her shoulders, and soon bolted something, which she reached after head downwards so far that nothing but her tail and one hind-paw were visible. After hanging almost head downwards for some time, she scrambled back, just as the first cat came darting past like a wild animal with an enormous rat in its month.
It is doubtful whether the London cat is in the least degree more docile or biddable than his country cousin. He is more dependent on man, for no one ever hears of a London cat going off to live a wild life willingly, though country cats do 'this frequently. It has been observed of the whole race, at I least in this country, that though they will often obey the order "Come," they absolutely refuse to entertain the com- mand " Go; " and as most useful service involves this as the initial idea, the animal which refuses obedience to it is practically useless except as a volunteer. The admirable sporting qualities, even of the London cat, should make him a most useful and amusing aid in sport, if he could be induced to co-operate with his owner. There is only one piece of evidence that in ancient times the oat was so trained —an Egyptian painting showing a cat bringing wild-fowl to its master from a papyrus bed—and very few instances are on record even of its being trained to retrieve in our day. A visitor to one of the monasteries on Mount Carmel states that when several of the monks went out, gun on shoulder, to shoot game for the pot, he saw their cats marching out after them, to aid as retrievers; but he did not witness the sport. There is no doubt that cats can be trained to follow, like doge. A working man in the North Midlands recently owned a small eat which followed him all day, and when tired was carried in a large pocket in its master's coat. So also a navvy some years ago owned a cat which had followed or accom- panied him to work in most parts of North and Western, England, sometimes following him on foot and sometimes carried in the white washable bag in which navvies keep their Sunday clothes. But as a rule it is much easier to teach them not to do things than to do them. Recently in a large London engineering works there was some regret that the "best foundry cat" was dead. The sand used for making casts in the foundry is mixed with flour. Mice come to eat the flour, and spoil the "moulds." It is not desirable that rats and mice should be about in this loft, so cats are kept there. The cats have to be taught not to walk about on the moulds or scratch them up, and this "best foundry cat " was absolutely perfect in this respect. In these works most departments have a special cat. There is even one in the galvanising shop, which knows quite well that the hot metal spirts when plates are dipped in, and has learnt to get under cover at that juncture. It need scarcely be said that the London cal is a worse enemy to caged. birds even than the country pussy, as in the day-time it lives more indoors. Whether it ever catches gold-fish out of a bowl we do not know, but there are no complaints of its robbing fishmongers' shops to gratify its taste in that line. On the whole, we imagine that the cat is happy in London, far happier, for instance, than the dog. Even if lost, he has far more savoir fairs than the latter. The stray dog attaches himself to some one in the street, who has at once the uncomfortable feel- ing that the dog is trying to make out that he has stolen him. The lost cat comes to a house, and asks relief where it can most readily be given.
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