Cats are made very useful. The English Government keeps cats in public offices, dockyards, stores, shipping, and so on. In Vienna, four cats are employed by town magistrates to catch mice on the premises of the municipality with a regular allowance, voted for their keeping, during active service, afterward placed on the retired list with comfortable pension; much better cared for than college professors or superannuated ministers in our country. There are a certain number of cats in the United States Post Office to protect mail bags from rats and mice; also, in the Imperial Printing Office in France, a feline staff with a keeper. Cats are given charge of empty corn sacks, so that they shall not be nibbled and devoured. Cats are invaluable to farmers in barns and outhouses, stables, and newly mown fields. There are many proverbs about the cat. Shakespeare says, Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i’ the adage, meaning, expressed in another proverb, The cat loves fish, but does not like To wet her paws. Good liquor will make a cat speak. Not room to swing a cat. They used to swing a cat to the branch of a tree as a mark to shoot at. Honest as the cat when the meal is out of reach. Let the cat out of the bag. A cat was sometimes substituted for a sucking pig, and carried in a bag to market. If a greenhorn chose to buy without examination, very well; but if he opened the bag the trick was discovered, and he “let the cat out of the bag.” Sick as a cat. Touch not a cat without a glove. What can you have of a cat but her skin? To be made a cat’s paw of, referring to the fable of the monkey who took the paw of a cat to get some roasted chestnuts from the hot ashes. Who is to bell the cat? alluding to the cunning old mouse who suggested that they should hang a bell on the cat’s neck to let all mice know of her approach. “Excellent,” said a wise young mouse, “but who will undertake the job?”