Once a Week (magazine)/Series 3/Volume 7/Tabbies Tabooed

THE wide field of literature has been so thoroughly explored, and, in many parts, has been so trampled into sludge, that it seems scarcely possible for an author to set his foot on virgin soil, and to enter on decidedly new ground. But, to the few favoured writers who have discovered an Eureka territory, we must add the clarum et venerabile nomen of the Hon. Mrs. Cust. This estimable lady could find volumes published on the horse, the dog, the pig, the cow, and other animals, with full instructions how they might be treated in disease; but, when she looked for a similar treatise on the cat, she looked in vain: there was no such book to be obtained. Now, it so happened that Mrs. Cust was sincerely attached to her own cats, and entertained a friendly sympathy for the tribe; and it grieved her to the heart to see favourite tabbies falling sick, and, after a vain struggle with nature, dying, without receiving any skilled treatment. You would, probably, grossly insult the professional honour of a veterinary surgeon if you called him in to advise you relative to the illness of poor Puss; and yet, when your cat is ill, what is to be done?

In this dilemma, it occurred to Mrs. Cust (who ought at once to be elected a patroness of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to publish to the world her own experience on the subject, and tell her readers of the peculiar diseases that afflict cats, the way in which they should be managed, and the manner in which their medicines should be administered to them—the last operation requiring that they should be bound up in a large cloth, “so as to resemble a mummy, leaving only the head out.” In a little shilling book, recently published, and entitled “The Cat: its History and Diseases,” Mrs. Cust undertakes to tell us how to treat our tabby when she is ill with delirium, fits, diarrhoea, or cat-pox; and also how she should be managed at that interesting period of life when she has brought forth a litter of kittens. Although Mrs. Cust’s book has not long been before the public, we are delighted to see that it has been so well appreciated that it has already attained a second edition.

She gossips pleasantly on the history of the cat, and shows how it was domesticated in nearly every country from time immemorial, and how it was admitted by some nations into their mythology. She tells how Cambyses armed his soldiers with the novel breastplate of a live cat, so that the Egyptian soldiers, rather than destroy the object of their veneration, suffered themselves to be conquered. Mahomet allowed his favourite cat to sleep up his sleeve; Cardinal Wolsey received his guests with his cat seated on the arm of his chair; and a French statesman forebore to rise from his seat to receive an ambassador, lest he should disturb a cat and her kittens who had settled on his robes. In fine, there is much in Mrs. Gust’s excellent manual that may be read with amusement and advantage; and it should be placed in the hands of all who love—

Mrs. Cust has filled up a literary gap with regard to the cat in disease; but a legal work on cats has yet to be written; and when it is, it will doubtless be bought by others than old maids—the love for a cat not being restricted to elderly spinsters, but extending to scholars who are as fond of a cat as were Dr. Johnson and the poets Petrarch and Gray. We remember calling one day on Albert Smith, who apologized for not rising to receive us—he was writing at the time— because two fluffy little kittens were placidly lying asleep on his shoulders, and he did not wish to disturb them. But cats are not beloved by gamekeepers; and many a favourite tabby have we lost from its irrepressible love for a chase after game in the neighbouring woods and plantations. The keeper marks it down, and ruthlessly shoots it; or else poor tabby is caught in one of his traps, and is knocked on the head when he comes his rounds. This is hard lines, not only to poor tabby, but also to tabby’s master or mistress; and it has often been questioned whether a keeper has the right to destroy another person’s cat. It has been alleged that, though the cat is a poacher, yet that you would not kill a poacher, but only secure him, and that a cat-trap would be sufficient for the purpose; so that the tabby’s master might redeem his property, if he thought fit, by paying a fine for the damage done. To this argument, a keeper will reply that it is impossible to say what damage a cat will do in a night, and that it will kill any amount of game. We were even assured by a keeper, who, during the past summer, shot a favourite cat of ours, that he had seen it kill two lambs. This we did not believe, but he stuck to his statement. Undoubtedly, a cat will often kill game, merely from natural instinct and the love of sport, and not from pressure of hunger. At this present moment, we know of a cat; belonging to a farmer, which nearly every day brings to the house rabbits or partridges, and lays them down on the kitchen floor, without ever attempting to eat them. Her exploits are kept a careful secret from the keeper, who, as yet, has not succeeded in shooting her.

Dr. Johnson complained to Mr. Langton of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family—“Sir, when I last heard of him, he was running about town shooting cats.” And then he murmured, “But Hodge sha’n’t be shot—no, no; Hodge shall not be shot.” Hodge was the Doctor’s pet, “for whom,” says Boswell, “ he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor creature.” Here would be a subject for Mr. Ward—a companion picture to his “Johnson reading the Manuscript of the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’” or his “Johnson behind the Screen at his Publisher’s”—“Dr. Johnson buying Oysters for his favourite Cat, Hodge.” We commend this subject to Mr. Ward. But, nowadays, when oysters are such a price, we cannot treat even a favourite cat to such a luxury.

Perhaps cat shooting was a fashionable pastime with the bloods and bucks and maccaronies of the day; and, cruelty apart, one would imagine that it afforded more sport and excitement than a Hurlingham tournament of doves. Suppose it should come into fashion again, and that cat shooting should supersede pigeon shooting as a pastime for the upper classes. If so, the sooner we have a legal work on cats the better for those who are fond of cats, and desire to preserve their feline pets. Has the cat a legal status; or can it be ruthlessly slaughtered, trapped, shot, or knocked on the head by gamekeeper, gardener, or any one who pleases to take gun or stick in hand, and to deprive the cat of its life? Are our tabbies to be tabooed, or can the protection of the law be afforded them?

We fear that the law is against them. This very year, the sheriff of Aberdeen, in an elaborate interlocutor, defined the legal status of cats. A cat had wandered into the garden of a professional florist, and was there caught in a trap and killed. The disconsolate owner of poor Puss claimed damages for the loss of the cat; and the sheriff delivered a lengthy judgment, of which the abstract is this:—That, fully considering the nature and habits of cats, it must be held that, when the cats have strayed from their owners’ premises, they must take the consequences of any casualties they may encounter. That owners of cats ought to take care of them; and that they are not entitled to damages for the injuries suffered by their cats, unless such injuries be inflicted wilfully or wantonly. That cats usually indulged in nocturnal visits; and that a night-watch, in order to detect and drive them away, was not possible. That fencing and box-traps would be too elaborate; the laying down of poisoned food was illegal; and the discharge of fire-arms was forbidden by the Police Acts. That there are cats and cats; for where one cat has an owner who cares for it, there are ten cats who are either ownerless or uncared for. Now, an ownerless cat is vermin, and may be legally killed. How shall you decide whether a trespassing cat is ownerless or no? If you are entitled to kill one cat, you are surely entitled to kill another, notwithstanding that it may have a local habitation, and perhaps a name. If the cat chooses to congregate, for however short a time, with the “lapsed masses” of its own species, it must suffer all the consequences of its imprudence. The uniform colour of cats in the dark is proverbial; and during the night all cats must be considered as “ free lances.” Therefore, the claim for damages could not be sustained; and the sheriff dismissed the case.

We believe that this is the first occasion on which the legal position of our tabbies has been defined; and we are grieved to find that they were thus tabooed, and pronounced to be the very pariahs of creation.

Yet, what loving creatures are cats! We had two, who were not only friendly indoors, but were accustomed to walk with us wherever we went in the garden; and not only so, but would even follow us along the road for the distance of half a mile, when they would turn and make the best of their way back to the garden, waiting there, near to the gate, until we returned. The attachment of a cat to a horse is also extraordinary; and few celebrated race horses have been without their canine pets.

Every one who visited last season’s exhibition of the Royal Academy will recall Sir Edwin Landseer’s largest picture—the life sized figure of Voltigeur, the famous winner of the Derby and St. Leger, 1850. Landseer could not get the horse to stand still until his favourite cat was brought to it; and he has handed this cat down to posterity, rubbing against Voltigeur’s fore-leg and looking up at the horse, while the horse bends down and looks at the cat. Her full-grown tortoise shell kitten is also rolling in play on the horse-cloth, marked “ Z.,” the initial of the owner, the Earl of Zetland, for whom the picture was painted. In the Academy catalogue (No. 105), Landseer gave as a motto for this picture the familiar saying, “ A cat may look at a king.”

Lady Cust, in her work, has mentioned the celebrated painter of cats, Godefroi Mind, who died at Berne in the year 1814, and was called “The Raphael of Cats,” from the great ability that he displayed in depicting cats in every evanescent shade and expression of their physiognomy. Lady Cust does not add that Mind was equally clever in painting bears, although he gave a preference to the pictures of cats; and it is said that, in the winter evenings, when Mind could neither paint nor pay his usual visit to the bears of Berne, he still continued to occupy himself with his favourite animals, by carving chestnuts into the forms of bears and cats; and these pretty trifles, executed with astonishing skill and accuracy, were eagerly sought after throughout Switzerland. He was the son of a poor carpenter; and when he died, after passing forty years in his favourite pursuit, the verses of Catullus upon the death of Lesbia’s sparrow were pleasantly parodied, and applied to the delineator of cats and bears:— Lugete ô feles, ursique lugete, Mortuus est vobis amicus.” A countryman of Mind’s, M. Kœnig, published a series of coloured lithographical prints, representing the entire collection of the painter’s cats. Some of these have since been popularized through the medium of photography; and several of them are now before us. His gambolling kittens could not be surpassed by our own Landseer; and, from the grace and power with which he depicted his favourites, he well deserved his title of “ The Raphael of Cats.”

We have said that gamekeepers are the sworn foes of cats; and by them, indeed, are tabbies tabooed. We know a gamekeeper in a midland county, in the front of whose cottage is erected a trophy which we should hope is unique. It is a fir pole that has been partially stripped of its boughs; and all the way up it are arranged the tails of the cats slaughtered by their ruthless enemy. At a little distance, this trophy looks like a new and strange variety of firms; and when any one has missed their favourite tabby, the keeper kindly permits them to look at his trophy, and see if they can discover poor Pussy’s tail.