Never take a cat's kittens away all at once, but always leave one at least. If she has five, and you mean to drown four, drown two one day and two the next, so that the first milk may be well drawn off. I have not mentioned half the ills that feline flesh is heir to, but I think I have said sufficient to indicate the _general plan of treatment_ of cat diseases. Let me only just repeat that if you use your pussy well in the matter of housing, food, and drink--bar accidents--you will never have her ill at all. CHAPTER ELEVEN. TRICKS AND TRAINING. Before going on to speak of the training of youthful pussy, there is one subject which deserves a word or two at least--namely, the humane destruction of cats, when such destruction becomes necessary. Kittens, at least, people have often to get rid of, or the whole world would be peopled with cats, and that would hardly do. Although I am no advocate for the rash and hasty condemnation of the sickest cat that ever is, still, I must confess that, at times, to destroy a cat is to be merciful to it. Never give kittens poison, it is cruel in the extreme; you might chloroform them to death, but one doesn't like to waste much time in taking life, if merely a kitten's; the pail is always handy, and the poor wee things don't really suffer much if you do it properly. Always sink them, and keep the pail for three hours, after which bury them at once. I'll give you an example of the wrong way of doing things. Miss M--n, who lived not a stone's throw from where I now write, and who is an old maid (and may a merciful Providence keep her so!), was changing her residence last month, and at the last moment thought she couldn't be bothered with more than one of her kittens--little Persian beauties, whom she had let live a whole month--so one was snatched from its mother's arms, and pitched carelessly into a pail of water. She never heeded its cries, nor the mother's piteous appeal to save her offspring; so presently kitty was dead, to all appearance, and the bucket was emptied over the wall into an adjoining field. This was at eleven o'clock in the morning, and late that evening some boys, in passing, were attracted to the spot by plaintive mews, and there they found the kitten crawling in the grass, with sadly swollen body and inflamed mouth. The boys drowned and buried it, being more humane than old maid M--n.