"In those days, I believe, I never thought of ghosts, and least of all
should have thought of the ghost of a cat; but two evenings afterwards,
as we were driving down the lane, I again saw the cat in the same
position and again my companion could not see it, though the groom did. I alighted immediately, and went up to it. As I approached it turned its
head and looked full towards me with its soft mild eyes, and a friendly
expression, like that of a loving dog; and then, without moving from the
post, it began to fade gradually away, as if it were a vapour, till it
had quite disappeared. All this the groom saw as well as myself; and now
there could be no mistake as to what it was. A third time I saw it in
broad daylight, and my curiosity greatly awakened, I resolved to make
further enquiries amongst the inhabitants of C----, but before I had an
opportunity of doing so, I was summoned away by the death of my eldest
child, and I have never been in that part of the world since. "However, I once mentioned the circumstance to a lady who was acquainted
with that neighbourhood, and she said she had heard of the white cat of
C----, but had never seen it." This is Mrs. M.'s account as related by Mrs. Crowe, and after perusing
the authoress's preface to the work, I am inclined to give it full
credence. _The Mystic Properties of Cats_

The most common forms of animal phenomena seen in haunted houses are
undoubtedly those of cats. The number of places reported to me as being
haunted by cats is almost incredible--in one street in Whitechapel there
are no less than four. This state of affairs may possibly be accounted
for by the fact that cats, more than any other animals that live in
houses, meet with sudden and unnatural ends, especially in the poorer
districts, where the doctrine of kindness to animals has not as yet made
itself thoroughly felt. Now I am touching on the subject of cat ghosts,
it may not be out of place to reproduce the following article of mine,
entitled "Cats and the Unknown," which appeared in the _Occult Review_
for December, 1912:--

"Since, from all ages, the cat has been closely associated with the
supernatural, it is not surprising to learn that images and symbols of
that animal figured in the temples of the sun and moon, respectively, in
ancient Egypt. According to Horapollo, the cat was worshipped in the
Temple of Heliopolis, sacred to the sun, because the size of the pupil
of the cat's eye is regulated by the height of the sun above the
horizon. "Other authorities suggest a rather more subtle--and, in my opinion,
more probable--reason, namely, that the link between the sun and the cat
is not merely physical but superphysical, that the cat is attracted to
the sun not only because it loves warmth, but because the sun keeps off
terrifying and antagonistic occult forces, to the influences of which
the cat, above all other animals, is specially susceptible; a fact fully
recognized by the Egyptians, who, to show their understanding and
appreciation of this feline attachment, took care that whenever a temple
was dedicated to the sun an image or symbol of the cat was placed
somewhere, well in evidence, within the precincts. "To make this theory all the more probable, images and symbols of the
cat were dedicated to the moon, the moon being universally regarded as
the quintessence of everything supernatural, the very cockpit, in fact,
of mystery and spookism. The nocturnal habits of the cat, its love of
prowling about during moonlight hours, and the spectacle of its two
round, gleaming eyes, may, of course, as Plutarch seems to have thought,
have suggested to the Egyptians human influence and analogy, and thus
the presence of its effigy in temples to Isis would be partially, at all
events, accounted for; though, as before, I am inclined to think there
is another and rather more subtle reason. "From endless experiments made in haunted houses, I have proved to my
own satisfaction, at least, that the cat acts as a thoroughly reliable
psychic barometer. "The dog is sometimes unaware of the proximity of the Unknown. When the
ghost materializes or in some other way demonstrates its advent, the
dog, occasionally, is wholly undisturbed--the cat never. I have never
yet had a cat with me that has not shown the most obvious signs of
terror and uneasiness both before and during a superphysical
manifestation. "Now, although I won't go so far as to say that ghostly demonstrations
are actually dependent on the moon--that they occur only on nights when
the moon is visible--experience has led me to believe that the moon most
certainly does influence them--that moonlight nights are much more
favourable to ghostly appearances than other nights. Hence--there is
this much in common between the moon and cats--the one influences and
the other is influenced by psychic phenomena--a fact that could scarcely
have failed to be recognized by so keen observers of the occult as the
Ancient Egyptians. "The presence of the cat's effigy in the temples of Isis might thus be
explained. Over and over again we come across the cat in the land of the
Pharaohs. It seems to be inseparable from the esoteric side of Egyptian
life. The goddess Bast is depicted with a cat's head, holding the
sistrum, i.e. the symbol of the world's harmony, in her hand. "One of the most ancient symbols of the cat is to be found in the
Necropolis of Thebes, which contains the tomb of Hana (who probably
belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty). There, Hana is depicted standing
erect, proud and kingly, with his favourite cat Borehaki--Borehaki, the
picture of all things strange and psychic, and from whom one cannot help
supposing he may have chosen his occult inspiration--at his feet. So
sure were the Egyptians that the cat possessed a soul that they deemed
it worthy of the same funeral rites they bestowed on man. Cats were
embalmed, and innumerable cat mummies have been discovered in wooden
coffins at Bubastis, Speos, Artemidos and Thebes. When a cat died the
Egyptians shaved their eyebrows, not only to show grief at the loss of
their loved one, but to avert subsequent misfortune. "So long as a cat was in his house the Egyptian felt safe from inimical
supernatural influences, but if there was no cat in the house at night,
then any undesirable from the occult world might visit him. Indeed, in
such high esteem did the Egyptians hold the cat, that they voluntarily
incurred the gravest risks when its life was in peril. No one of them
appreciated the cat and set a higher value on its mystic properties than
the Sultan El-Daher-Beybas, who reigned in A.D. 1260, and has been
compared with William of Tripoli for his courage, and with Nero for his
cruelty. El-Daher-Beybas kept his palace swarming with cats, and--if we
may give credence to tradition--was seldom to be seen unaccompanied by
one of these animals.