The Black Cat

“ Baltimore, Md., American:—The literary contents of the unique new Boston magazine, The Black Cat, are quite as fascinating as its exquisite covers.
Evansville, Ind., Daily Courier:—With its beautiful appearance and excellent short stories—all for five cents—The Black Cat is bound to become a general favorite and popular success.
New York Mail and Express:—The Black Cat will prove a literary pet. It publishes good, strong short stories,—the most difficult literary product to obtain. It is clean, stirring, enterprising. ”

“ Boston, Mass., Daily Herald:—The Black Cat has reached the climax of the story-telling art. Both press and public seem to have agreed upon this. In street cars and hotels, in drawing-rooms and in railroad stations, this magazine's outward attractiveness and interesting inwardness are the subject of continued conversation. ”

“ Springfield, Ill., Daily News:—The Black Cat is exactly such a new departure in story-telling as any man or woman will appreciate. It furnishes the most delightful five cents' worth ever put into print.
Boston, Mass., Daily Post:—Surely any one who buys a copy of the new five-cent story magazine, The Black Cat, will pronounce it the most fascinating five cents' worth on earth. ”

“ The Black Cat is devoted exclusively to original, unusual, fascinating stories—every number is complete in itself. It publishes no serials, translations, borrowings, or stealings. It pays nothing for the name or reputation of a writer, but the highest price on record for Stories that are Stories, and it pays not according to length, but according to strength. ”

“ Black goes mad; it calls to him, he feels; it pulls him ... and he hurls himself forward—to be reduced to sheer spitting and spluttering at the sight that confronts him.
A cat like himself, but with feathers and wings, rolls a beaked head forward out of the bundle before him! It hoots mournfully, like the wind sighing among the giant stones—and tears his nose with its claws....
Black, also, blows himself out and glares fiercely at the enemy, while his tail whips restlessly to and fro. He is suddenly a cat of nine tails standing there! What is more, his body does not stand on all fours ”

“ In one story, in place of rubbing the Aladdin lamp, that what one wishes may happen, one must pull the black cat's tail. It is gratifying to reflect that black cats have their own peculiar method of retaliation for such experiments. ”

“ Surely I must approach that apparition as a philosopher like Sir David Brewster would approach the black cat seated on a hearth-rug, which he tells us that some lady of his acquaintance constantly saw till she went into a world into which black cats are not held to be admitted. The more I think of it the less it appears to me possible that I can be really in love with a wild, half-educated, anomalous creature, merely because the apparition of her face haunts me. ”

“ The cunning bird has long ago noticed that Black is an earthbound animal—and now he has been so foolhardy as to leave the ground and venture up into his opponent’s hunting-ground—yes, into its very nest—he should soon be made to regret his insolence!
The old crow is also strongly influenced by the prospect of an easy victory and a good feast afterwards. With all its might it fastens its claws in the black cat’s shoulder. ”

“ For a whole month I lay in ambush, witnessing the same spectacle every morning, when one day I saw a huge black cat arrive first at the place of meeting and hide itself behind a rock, almost under my hand. A black cat could be nothing else than an enchanter, according to what I had learned in my childhood, and I resolved to watch him. ”

“ But the depredations still go on, and you cannot convince the honest old house-servant that a black cat has ever been killed—and looking out into the garden just now, as that sleek black rascal lies in the grass, with a waving motion of his tail and his yellow eye fixed upon a callow brood, it is clearer than ever before that the succession of black cats is eternal. ”

“ The black cat's name was Charlie, but Auntie May never knew that, and she christened him Blackavice, because he had a black face. He was a really comfortable old thing, and the night after I came back we all listened to him, sitting on different high things in the room. We cats never like to be crowded up together unless we are sleeping, and then we prefer it because of the warmth. ”

“ Did he not share with me as a brother the firewater of his gourd, to give me strength to sit my horse, and rejoin the warriors Of my tribe? Black Cat is a great chief. Ingratitude is a white vice; gratitude is a red virtue. Black Cat will save his brother. ”

“ Black cats were always more especially connected with superstitious feelings, and I was once accosted by a peasant's wife, who, with a phial in her hand to contain it, requested I would give her a few drops of blood from the tail of my black kitten; not only to bring luck to her hearth, but to keep pestilence from her doors. Even lately, a working woman told me not to turn a stray black cat from my house ”

“ People who will stumble over the logic of politics for a lifetime can appreciate the logic of the black cat in a fraction of a second. Black cats, indeed, are one of the very few things in which a good many unbelievers nowadays believe. These are the substitute for the angels and devils of our grandfathers. We are sceptics in everything but our superstitions. ”

“ The Black Cat has many of the characteristics of the tortoiseshell, but is essentially a town cat, and is wont to dream his life away in shady corners, in underground cellars, in theatres, and in all places where he can, in fact, retire to monastic quiet. ”

“ It is not, in my belief, a distinct breed, but merely a light-coloured form of the black cat. In fact, I have ascertained that one shown at the Crystal Palace, and which won many prizes on account of its beautiful blue colour slightly tinged with purple, was the offspring of a tabby and white she-cat and a black-and-white he-cat, and I have seen the same colour occur when bred from the cats usually kept about a farmhouse as a protection from rats and mice, though none of the parents had any blue colour. ”

“ Nowadays, there is a current superstition that a black cat brings good luck to a house; but in the Middle Ages they believed that the devil borrowed the form of a black cat when he wanted to torment or get control of his victims. There are plenty of old traditions about cats having spoken to human beings, and been kicked, or struck, or burned by them in return; and invariably, these tales tell us, those who are so bespoken meet some one the next day with plain marks of the injury they had inflicted on the froward cat,—which was sure evidence of witchery and sorcery. ”

“ Black cats are only the showy properties of magic, easily materialised, even by beginners, at will. It must be confusing for such an orderly animal as the cat to exist in this intermittent way, never knowing, so to speak, whether it is there or not there, from one moment to another. ”

“ I must confess, too, that, at times, there is about a black Tom cat a look which you can only designate as Satanical—Mephistophelean, then, if you object to the other word—and I have no doubt it is this look of devil-beauty in Tom which has often led him to be suspected of being either an imp of darkness or possessed of one. A witch, you know, is generally supposed to have as a companion a familiar spirit in the shape of a black cat. Superstitions connected with the black cat are still common in some parts of the country and among sailors. ”

“ Hartford, Conn., Daily Times:—What sets the Black Cat magazine apart from any other is the fact that its stories are not only absolutely new, but that they are well told, and offered on their merits as stories. ”

“ She sang in G-sharp how the Aldermen and the Mayor considered her an imposter, and did not think she was wise at all, and they wished her to take her Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city. She sang it beautifully; it sounded like the very finest Italian opera-music.
"Deary me," piped the Wise Woman, when she had finished, "how very grand these gentlemen are." Her Black Cat put up his back and spit.
"Five times one Black Cat are five Black Cats," said the Wise Woman. And, directly, there were five Black Cats, spitting and miauling. ”

“ Even "Polly's," crowded as it is, is not noisy. In the Brevoort there is a steady, low rumble of talk, but not actual noise. At the Black Cat it is one continual and all-pervading roar—a joyous roar, too; these people are having a simply gorgeous time and don't care who knows it. It [Pg 218] is a wonder that the high-set rafters do not fall—that the lofty, whitewashed walls of brick do not tremble, and that the little black cats set in a rigid conventional design around the whole room do not come to life in horror, and fly spitting up the short stairway and out of the door! ”

“ Girt around with fear, and mystery, and subtle associations of evil, the cat comes down to us through the centuries; and from every land fresh traditions of sorcery claim it for their own. In Brittany is still whispered the dreadful tale of the cats that danced with sacrilegious glee around the crucifix until their king was slain; and in Sicily men know that if a black cat serves seven masters in turn he carries the soul of the seventh into hell. In Russia black cats become devils at the end of seven years, and in southern Europe they are merely serving their apprenticeship as witches. ”

“ Your glance lights again on the gentle author herself, and you watch the pen gliding easily over the page, which rests on a diminutive shred of well-worn blotting-paper. The face is fair and smooth, the hair, slightly grey, is simply parted back from the forehead, and the three-quarter profile, which presents itself to your gaze, is straight and well-cut. She wears a little white cap, and a long black gown, trimmed with jet, and close by her side lies an enormous Persian tabby cat of great age.
The study is divided from the adjoining room by heavy curtains drawn aside and a Japanese screen. ”

“ It was a black cat—a very large one — fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. ”

“ A black cat is the theatrical emblem of good-luck, and when a new piece is produced the proper thing to do to secure success is to entice a black cat to come on behind. At the Haymarket they apparently take fortune by the forelock by keeping a black cat in front. ”

“ It is very remarkable—and most students of feline nature must have had an opportunity of observing this—the great difference in the temperament, constitution, and nature of cats, which colour alone, apparently, has the power of truly indicating; and this is nowhere more easily seen than in the peculiar characteristics of the pure black pussy and the all-white one. The black cat, on the one hand, is bold, and free, and fierce; the white, far from brave, more fond of petting and society, and as gentle as a little white mouse. The black cat is full of life and daring ”

“ The time came at length when the cat lost its good name and people began to look upon it as an imp of evil and the companion of the witch and the sorcerer. A black cat was the worst of all and its life was a hard one. ”

“ Up, up, to vanish in the gusty sky.
The black cat—look! he leaves his wonted place,
And hark! he speaks: “Then, king of cats am I!“
And with this first and last word for good-by,
Up, up the chimney he hath vanished quite.
“Our dear, our good Black Prince!” the children cry ”

“ It bites and pecks unceasingly at Black’s fur, aiming cunningly at the soft places; for it knows by instinct the cat’s most vulnerable points—eyes and nose.
But Black does not budge until the last breath is squeezed from the crow’s lifeless body.
“Madness,” having killed his foe, straight-way sits down and begins gnawing its head. At the sound of the crunching several of the other kittens, who have watched terror-stricken the great black clump flutter through the air, understand at last the nature of the situation.
Big rushes to the spot with giant leaps ”

“ A new feature this season is the Free delivery of Seeds at Catalogue prices to any Post Office. This “New Catalogue” we will mail on receipt of a 2-cent stamp, or to those who will state where they saw this advertisement, the Catalogue will be mailed Free!
PETER HENDERSON & CO.
35 & 37 Cortlandt St., New York.
Every reader of “The Black Cat” should read the very remarkable Novel,
A SINGULAR LIFE,
the Last and the Greatest Story by ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, author of “The Gates Ajar,” “Jack the Fisherman,” etc. ”

“ But you mustn’t run away with the idea that black Tom is a pugnacious animal, or fond of fighting for fighting’s sake. No, Tom is never aggressive; he stands a good deal before he is thoroughly roused, and, to tell the truth, I have more than once seen a tortoiseshell thrash a black cat double its size. But if there is a lady cat in the play, the affections of a queen to be gained, or if black Tom has made up his mind to carry war into the heart of a rival’s camp, doesn’t he go at it with a will! ”

“ As the traditional companion of witches, the black cat has become an omen that misfortune and ill luck will quickly follow in its wake... In early times superstitious people believed that witches and evil spirits could assume the forms of black animals, particularly black cats—and during the middle ages the brain of a black cat was considered an important ingredient in witchcraft recipes and prescriptions! ”

“ It takes but little pains to teach a black cat to be perfectly cleanly, but much more to train a pure white one. In constitution the black cat is much more hardy and lasting, the white cat being often delicate, and longing apparently for a sunnier clime. A black cat is often afflicted with kleptomania, while a properly-educated white puss is as honest as the day is long. ”