A FELINE EPISTLE FROM OUR 'UP-RIVER' CORRESPONDENT.-Our friend is a man after our own heart in his love of cats. We have always contended, and do still contend, that they are an abused animal. We have tested their affection a thousand times. Not a month since, our sanctum favorite disappeared, doubtless killed by some vagrant watch-dog. She was a perfect treasure to us. She would coil herself up in a little box beyond the inkstand, where we keep our note-paper, and while we were writing, look us meekly in the eye, all the while purring softly, and now and then putting out her velvet paw, with a graceful pretence, as if to clutch our pen. What a handsome little creature she was! The cygnet's down was not softer or whiter than her fur. If she be living, we entreat her to return to her sorrowing friends: 'DEAR KNICK: I am in want of a good cat. If any one has a spare cat not over one year of age, or not so old as to have lost all relish for the chase, if known by the name of TABITHA, and not THOMAS, I should like to have it. If she is only a weaned kitten, amusing herself with such infantile follies as playing with a ball of yarn, or with the tip-end of her tail, or with a wall-shadow, and still you think she shows signs of being a good meäow-ser, dispatch the said creature by express to my address. No: I recall what I have said. Do not be sending me your spare cats; for it occurs to me before the ink is dry, that if my many friends all around, who present Shanghai chickens, Christmas turkeys, and barrels of apples on the slightest indication of a want, should act up to this call, that I should be more over-run with cats then, than I am with rats now. Pay no regard to the request, O my multitudinous friends, or a purring emigration may set in upon me. I shall have to keep a servant at the door to receive the tortoise-shells, with 'compliments of the donors;' my hall will be turned into a BARNUM'S Museum, when a cat-fair is in session, and I shall be compelled to drown the whiskered gifts in a pond, or to knock them on the head with a hatchet. I will adopt a kitten of my neighbor's. This is a vermilion edict, to be observed as strictly as that of the Emperor of China to the 'foreign barbarians and hairy devils.' Let nothing of the kind be done. It is not desirable. Mark this. 'One of my earliest adventures was with a Maltese cat, which caused me great trouble. I was ten years old, and in company with a brother aged eight, was returning from a visit to Columbia county. Among other things we brought away a bag of Chiskitom-nuts, (I do not know how the name is spelled,) or, as they are called in the country, shell-barks, and a mouse-colored Maltese, as that variety of cats was not much known on Long-Island. We had gone on board the steam-boat at Albany, when my younger brother perceiving that the box which contained the cat was missing, left my side, and in the few moments during which he was gone the planks were drawn in, and the boat moved from the wharf. What a night I passed on board! What a reception I got when I reached home the next day, with a bag of shell-barks, and without my brother! Some how or other he managed to take care of himself, and arrived in the next boat with the Maltese kitten. It was an episode in my dull life, in my unromantic history. We were fond of cats at our house; there were no ponds in the neighborhood; there was no cruelty in our family; in consequence of which the broods throve, and the kitchen became a New-Malta. The kittens were as welcome in the parlor as in the kitchen, and though their tails and toes were trodden on a dozen times a day, and their yells caused great distress to the nerves of my aged aunt, no more permanent injury was done to the toes and the tails than if you had mashed a piece of India-rubber. My brother JIMMY, four years of age, lugged the little things up the stairs by the nape of the neck, by the ears, and almost by the whiskers, rolled with them on the floor, or tossed them in the air; but they seemed to like the roughest tumbling which his small hands could give them. When he died, the Maltese mother seemed to deplore his absence, and for some days meãowed and lamented, reclining on a big pin-cushion on the bureau, in which his cane, and sword, and soldier's cap, and picturebooks, and gloves, and toys were deposited. Her play-mate was departed. No sudden and involuntary scratch brought back a feeling of remorse. There were those who mourned more for the child, but let it not be said that a cat knows no sentiment of esteem or affection. She inherits the grace and agility of the tigress, but under her soft fur there sometimes throbs the tenderness of a dove's heart. 'TABITHA MALTA, however, in a few years became old and slovenly, too lazy to twist her neck to lick her back and keep her hair in decent order. Her whiskers were gray, her skin was matted with burrs, her conduct shy, while her head stretched out, and her tail streaking after in a long line, as she sneaked along the garden wall, had an air of mistrust, and showed that her designs were suspicious. She left the domestic hearth, and went to crawl under the barn, or to tumble about in the hay-mow, and at last returned no more. Her descendants were, however, so numerous as to be a nuisance; their noses were in every thing, from a dish of cream to a hasty-pudding; they pulled the turkey from the spit, and the beef-steak from the grid-iron; they were found sleeping in the centre of every soft bed in the house, and at last the decree went forth for the slaughter of the innocents. It was a defensive measure. Whoever is born with an antipathy to cats is unnatural, and not worthy to be trusted. Together with cows and chickens, they are the inalienable adjuncts of social life, and have been in all climes and all ages. Some species of animals have lived upon the earth, but have become obsolete. mammoth alone remain to testify that his race has been. Tigers, lions, bears, and others are restricted to a few savage places. The elephant belongs to the Orient; the patient camel is made to toil in the sandy desert, and the buffalo roams in the western prairies. But the cat is known and cherished wherever humanity exists. She is in the huts of the Laplander, or of the savages of Patagonia; she is in the Indies, and in all the isles of the sea, Wherever Madame PFEIFFER has been, The bones of the there are cats. That they are reputed to have nine lives, may be referred to their adaptation to all circumstances. They are especially, however, the concomitants of civilized society. Their grace and beauty makes them the ornament of the hearthrug, and a welcome guest in the parlor. There is, it is true, a limit to hospitality, as in the case just cited. 'But I want a cat at present, because the rats have sub-let my house, and threaten to tear it down over my head by their excess of riot. It is impossible to sleep at night for the squealing of their litters, and for their continual ranticumscout. They tear through the house like a regiment of heavy dragoons, while the fury of their onset, the showering down of loads of lime, and the thumping fall of lumps of plaster, might put one in mind of the siege of Sebastopol. 'They have their exits and their entrances' beneath the stone foundations, in the cellar, in the pantries, or in the garret. They are sometimes even met upon the stair-case, or are willing to show fight in the parlor. The other day a terrier-dog who was passing by the gate was so fortunate as to meet with one of these fellows, and, seizing him by the nape of the neck, shook him to death in less than no time, in the midst of great squealing and sputtering on the part of the defendant. There was much cachinnation from all who witnessed the proceeding, and great praise given to the dog. It reminded me of what I saw once when at college. It was summer, and I was sitting in an open window, studying EUCLID, when I beheld a monstrous rat creep from the foundations and tottle off, wagging his tail as he went in the direction of some apple-parings. A freshman who saw the proceeding, slipped a brick into the hole, tore off a limber stick from a bush, and proceeded after the vermin. His ratship returned to his excavation when, to his great rage and discomfiture, the place was stopped up; whereupon the student fell to and whipped him to death with a gusto. I think I never heard such squealing. It was equal to that of a halfgrown pig. 'But I was speaking of my own household rats. If the census were taken, their colony must number some five hundred tails. Often in the middle of the night I am at a loss to determine whether robbers are breaking in, or whether spiritualrappers are exercising their aerial knuckles. All varieties of noises are heard above and below, dull thumpings, boring of augers, and the fall of heavy articles. At last I decide that ratsbane is more needed than revolvers. 'Poison them!' whispers the voice of indignation. Those who venture on that experiment will at last come to a slow sense of what their interest consists in, when they begin to 'smell a rat.' There will be a dead silence in the walls for a time, but a dead smell also, and the memory of the departed will linger in a three weeks' perfume, even while the poisoner will be ready to write on the mausoleum of the pantry, 'I am sorry that I did it.' Indian-meal and arsenic is not a good diet for these vermin if they come back to die amidst the endearments of home. Yet a chance capture by a vigilant cat hardly seems to meet the evil. Steel-traps, toasted cheese, and contrivances of that kind, are set at nought by the superior instinct of these enemies. They are the cunningest of all creatures, and setting aside the ofttold tale of the rat and the oil-betty, a whole volume of anecdotes might be composed of their doings. But how to get rid of them! I have reflected much upon this. 'I am a-going to buy a pound of Scotch snuff and a few ounces of red pepper, and mix them together, we will say in the proportion of a pinch of the Maccaboy to a few grains of the K. N. Pepper. I will deposit the pile beneath the wainscot, in the hope that it will adhere to the feet and be tracked about and diffused by gentle draughts to all parts of the hollow walls, and to all secret recesses. It will be 'kill or cure,' but not kill, I imagine. It may produce a painful ophthalmia, watery eyes, a sneezing cough, and no doubt a general influenza. There will be a universal rush to the fresh air to allay the sensations produced by these tickling agents, and an unwillingness to return to the hot atmosphere. Thus you will be able to extinguish the nuisance, and to snuff it out, while by communicating your information to your neighbors and to the people at large, you will gain a greater reputation than if you had been rat-catcher to a king. I am an 'ingenious creatur,' and if the experiment comes up to my expectations, the public should in justice make me some compensation for the free and noble-hearted disclosure of the secret. From the Tobacconists in a body, I shall expect a gold snuff-box, in which the Common Council ought to deposit the freedom of the city, and I will drive the rats into a co-partnership with the moles, or into the under-ground sewers, where they will find food enough and be 'abundantly useful' in their day and generation. I will see you again on this matter. F. W. S.' GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. -The following will explain itself without a 'Key.' There are 'hard rubs' in it, but they are well deserved: 'FIRST class in geography! — take your places. What is the lesson to-day? 'ANSWER: The chapter on Upper-ten-dom. 'QUESTION: Where is the seat of this empire? 'ANSWER: Its principal seat is a large island in New-York bay. 'QUESTION: What is the climate? 'ANSWER: Remarkable for cool airs. 'QUESTION: Surface of the island? 'ANSWER: Various. 'QUESTION: How inhabited? 'ANSWER: By SNOBS, chiefly. 'QUESTION: Who are they? ANSWER: They are the descendants of 'SNOBLING, the Large,' who founded the empire of Upper-ten-dom. 'QUESTION: How are they divided? 'ANSWER: By some writers they are divided into three classes. 'QUESTION: Name them. 'ANSWER: 'Codfish Aristocracy,' 'Guano Aristocracy,' and 'Patent-Medicine Aristocracy.' 'QUESTION: Are they distinguished for their intelligence? 'ANSWER: No. 'QUESTION: Are they deficient in any mental power? 'ANSWER: In memory; especially is this the case among those who inhabit the higher lands; and the deficiency is usually first apparent and most strongly marked upon a removal from the low lands. 'QUESTION: How shown? 'ANSWER: In the total forgetfulness of old friends and even relatives. Among snobs, parents forget children, and children (more frequently) will forget parents; brothers forget sisters, and sisters will forget brothers. 'QUESTION: To what is this owing? 'ANSWER: Probably to some peculiarity of the climate; and it is also sometimes increased or lessened by the tides in a stream called 'The Money-Market,' which flows through and enriches the island. 'QUESTION: What can you say of the low lands? ANSWER: They are considered unhealthy, and no snobs reside in them who can gain access to the table-lands. 'QUESTION: What trees or plants flourish in Upper-ten-dom? 'ANSWER: Ailanthus and mushrooms both grow well here. 'QUESTION: Can you say any thing of the government? 'ANSWER: It is despotic, and the laws are arbitrary; penalties consist in loss of caste, and exclusion from their 'best society.' 'QUESTION: What crimes are thus punished? 'ANSWER: Poverty, among all; among women, independent exertion. 'QUESTION: What are the principal occupations of snobs? 'ANSWER: The men dig and delve: the women dress. "QUESTION: Quite correct. Are not the arts and sciences encouraged? 'ANSWER: Art is encouraged to a degree unknown elsewhere. 'QUESTION: What of their religion? What is the object of faith and worship? 'ANSWER: The Almighty Dollar. They also worship Fashion and Popularity. 'QUESTION: Are they devout? 'ANSWER: They are; honoring their deities with superstitious homage. 'QUESTION: Are snobs remarkable for longevity? 'ANSWER: They hope to live for ever in Upper-ten-dom. 'QUESTION: Does this empire, with its three classes of aristocracy, include all the inhabitants of the island? 'ANSWER: It does not, as there is a body of people quite independent of the snobs, divided into the aristocracy of True Worth, the aristocracy of Talent, and the aristocracy of Old Respectability. These differ from snobs in every respect, and though neighbors, residing on the same island, they are in fact entirely distinct from Upperten-dom, not being under its government nor controlled by its laws. 'TEACHER: Your lessons are quite perfect. Be seated.' They are 'apt students' in that class! ANOTHER Welcome note from our fair correspondent, J. K. L.,' whose lively' Letter from Chateaugeay Lake' graced our last number: 'As there seems to be much excitement just at present on the subject of oysters, perhaps the accompanying 'Impromptu on a Dish of Oysters on the Shell' may appropriately find a place in your pages: 'Don't talk to me of flowers, 'What is there half so beautiful, As a delicious oyster Upon its pearly shell? "They're 'just the thing' for supper, 'I have roamed in foreign countries; Of these oysters on the shell! "And should I die a sudden death, |