When he died, he left the proceeds from the
product of a garden to support his feline friends--an example that found
many subsequent imitators. Indeed, until comparatively recently in
Cairo, cats were regularly fed, between noon and sunset, in the outer
court of the Mehkemeh. "In Geneva, Rome and Constantinople, though cats were generally deemed
to have souls and to possess psychic properties, they were thought to
derive them from evil sources, and so strong was the prejudice against
these unfortunate animals on this account, that all through the Middle
Ages we find them suffering such barbaric torture as only the perverted
minds of a fanatical, priest-ridden people could devise (which
treatment, no doubt, partly, at all events, accounts for the many
palaces, houses, etc., in those particular countries, stated to have
been haunted by the spirits of cats). "The devil was popularly supposed to appear in the shape of a black Tom
in preference to assuming any other guise, and the bare fact of an old
woman being seen, once or twice, with a black cat by her side was quite
sufficient to earn for her the reputation of a witch. It would be idle,
of course, to expect people in these unmeditative times to believe there
was ever the remotest truth underlying these so-called phantastic
suppositions of the past; yet, according to reliable testimony, there
are, at the present moment, many houses in England haunted by phantasms
in the form of black cats, of so sinister and hostile an appearance,
that one can only assume that unless they are the actual spirits of
cats, earthbound through cruel and vicious propensities, they must be
vice-elementals, i.e. spirits that have never inhabited any material
body, and which have either been generated by vicious thoughts, or else
have been attracted elsewhere to a spot by some crime or vicious act
once perpetrated there. Vice-elemental is merely the modern name for
fiend or demon. "Apart from his luciferan qualities, the cat was awarded all sorts of
other qualities, not the least important of which was its prophetic
capability. If a cat washed its face, rainy weather was regarded as
inevitable; if a cat frolicked on the deck of a ship, it was a sure sign
of a storm; whilst if a live ember fell on a cat, an earthquake shock
would speedily be felt. Cats, too, were reputed the harbingers of good
and bad fortune. Not a person in Normandy but believed, at one time,
that the spectacle of a tortoiseshell cat, climbing a tree, foretold
death from accident, and that a black cat crossing one's path, in the
moonlight, presaged death from an epidemic. Two black cats viewed in the
open between 4 and 7 a.m. were generally believed to predict a death;
whereas a strange white cat, heard mewing on a doorstep, was loudly
welcomed as the indication of an approaching marriage. According to
tradition, one learns that cats were occasionally made use of in
medicine; to cure peasants of skin diseases, French sorcerers sprinkling
the afflicted parts with three drops of blood drawn from the vein under
a cat's tail; whilst blindness was treated by blowing into the
patient's eyes, three times a day, the dust made from ashes of the head
of a black cat that had been burned alive. "Talking of burning cats reminds me of a horrible practice that was
prevalent in the Hebrides as late as 1750. It was firmly believed there
that cats were extraordinarily psychic, and that a sure means of getting
in close touch with occult powers, and of obtaining from them the
faculty of second sight--such as the cat possessed--was to offer up as
sacrifices innumerable black cats. The process was very simple. A black
cat was fastened to a spit before a slow fire, and as soon as the
wretched animal was well roasted, another took its place; victims being
supplied without intermission, until their vociferous screams brought to
the scene a number of ghostly cats who joined in the chorus. The desired
climax was reached, when an enormous phantom cat suddenly appeared, and
informed the operator that it was willing to grant him any one request
if he would only refrain from his cruel persecution. The operator at
once demanded the faculty of second sight--a power more highly prized in
the Hebrides than any other--and the moment it was bestowed on him, set
free the remaining cats. Had all races been as barbarously disposed as
these occult-hungering Westerners, cats would soon have become extinct;
but it is comforting to think that in some parts of the world a very
different value was set on their psychic properties. "In various parts of Europe (some districts of England included) white
cats were thought to attract benevolently disposed fairies, and a
peasant would as soon have thought of cutting off his fingers, or
otherwise maltreating himself, as being unkind to an animal of this
species. In the fairy lore of half Europe we have instances of
luck-bringing cats--each country producing its own version of Puss in
Boots, Dame Mitchell and her cat, the White Cat, Dick Whittington and
his cat, etc. It is the same in Asia, too; for nowhere are such stories
more prolific than in China and Persia. "To sum up--in all climes and in all periods of past history, the cat
was credited with many propensities that brought it into affinity and
sympathy with the supernatural--or to quote the up-to-date
term--superphysical world. Let us review the cat to-day, and see to what
extent this past regard of it is justified. "Firstly, with respect to it as the harbinger of fortune. Has a cat
insight into the future? Can it presage wealth or death? I am inclined
to believe that certain cats can at all events foresee the advent of the
latter; and that they do this in the same manner as the shark, crow,
owl, jackal, hyena, etc., viz. by their abnormally developed sense of
smell. My own and other people's experience has led me to believe that
when a person is about to die, some kind of phantom, maybe, a spirit
whose special function it is to be present on such occasions, is in
close proximity to the sick or injured one, waiting to escort his or her
soul into the world of shadows--and that certain cats scent its
approach. "Therein then--in this wonderful property of smell--lies one of the
secrets to the cat's mysterious powers, it has the psychic faculty of
scent--of scenting ghosts. Some people, too, have this faculty. In a
recent murder case, in the North of England, a rustic witness gave it in
her evidence that she was sure a tragedy was about to happen because she
"smelt death in the house," and it made her very uneasy. Cats possessing
this peculiarity are affected in a similar manner--they are uneasy. "Before a death in a house I have watched a cat show gradually
increasing signs of uneasiness.