“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.  It has moved from place to place, unable to settle in any one spot for any length of time, had frequent fits of shivering, gone to the door, sniffed the atmosphere, thrown back its head and mewed in a low, plaintive key, and shown the greatest reluctance to being alone in the dark.

“This faculty—­possessed by certain cats—­may in some measure explain certain of the superstitions respecting them.  Take, for example, that of cats crossing one’s path predicting death.

“The cat is drawn to the spot because it scents the phantom of death, and cannot resist its magnetic attraction.

“From this, it does not follow that the person who sees the cat is going to die, but that death is overtaking someone associated with that person; and it is in connection with the latter that the spirit of the grave is present, employing, as a medium of prognostication, the cat, which has been given the psychic faculty of smell that it might be so used.

“But although I regard this theory as very feasible, I do not attribute to cats, with the same degree of certainty, the power to presage good fortune, simply because I have had no experience of it myself.  Yet, adopting the same lines of argument, I see no reason why cats should not prognosticate good as well as evil.

“There may be phantoms representative of prosperity, in just the same manner as there are those representative of death; they, too, may also have some distinguishing scent (flowers have various odours, so why not spirits?) and certain cats, i.e. white cats in particular, may be attracted by it.