Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/35

Rh pleasingly diversified by practical and nasal demonstrations of the efficient working of the Dog-tax. "No fewer than 292 bodies of departed canines, in various stages of decomposition, were floating off Greenwich during the space of seven days in the previous month, seventy-eight of which were found jammed in the chains and landing-stages of the "Dreadnought" hospital ship, thereby enhancing the salubrity of that celebrated hot-house for sick seamen." And I cannot venture to repeat the incredible stories of the numbers said to have been taken from the Regent's Canal.

There are some persons who profess to have a great repugnance to Cats. King Henry III. of France, a poor, weak, dissipated creature, was one of these. According to Conrad Gesner, men have been known to lose their strength, perspire violently, and even faint at the sight of a cat. Others are said to have gone even further than this, for some have fainted at a cat's picture, or when they have been in a room where such a picture was concealed, or when the picture was as far off as the next room. It was supposed that this sensitiveness might be cured by medicine. Let us hope that these gentlemen were all properly physicked. I myself have often heard men express similar sentiments of aver-