must admit that the small man has already passed. There is hardly any place for him if he is untrained and insists on being completely isolated, noncoöperative and "on his own". The small man today is either drawing very heavily upon organized knowledge to keep afloat, and voluntarily limiting his individuality, or else he is actually operating in part as a group member. volved. How effective this policy has been is seen in the case of several well known chains, operated on variations of the principle of making local store managers actual financial partners, with shares purchased from earnings, with a wide scope of authority, and the privilege of training others open other stores and keep an ownership interest. Such managers give to their task that extra value which men give only when their own property and money are at stake. They are employ-evitable economic tendency need ees, it is true, but it is equally true that they are owners and general managers. to T HERE are two other significant developments among small business men. One is, the hand-to-mouth buying habit, which has so grieved the wholesaler and manufacturer, who once habitually oversold retailers and by this means held them in bondage. The small man has rightfully shunted back nearer to the source of manufacture, and to stronger hands than his, those risks of business not properly belonging to him, under which he once staggered and so often was crushed. On the other hand, many independents are relinquishing their ancient individualistic suzerainty in favor of coöperation, in their struggle to hold their own. They are entering into of fensive and defensive alliances with each other. It is not uncommon in American business for local or national trade associations composed of "the little fellows" to inaugurate group buying, selling or advertising, with the large scale firms in the industry not included. They cannot individually buy or advertise so advantageously as the large firm, so they do it collectively. In a particular sense, therefore, we fear the recent growth of nationally integrated business organizations. No matter how individualistic he may be, the wise man perceives that large scale enterprise means greater economy, service and safety, and that he must find his level within it. Indeed, the whole history of business indicates this process. The small man in business is the cell in the body politic, and his health will always be essential to the health of the organism; but, as in the case of the cells in the healthy body, his work must be coördinated and functionalized. And to those who are now crying out against the fate of the small retailer in conflict with big business chains, I suggest the following: Compare in your own community the home, the cars, the radio, and the general living conditions of today's chain store manager who is also part owner with the living conditions of his predecessor, the small proprietor of an independent store, who often lived in penury above it and called upon wife and children to wait on customers. Today the chain store's hired clerk can live at least as well as could the average small proprietor himself in those earlier days of the small man's "business independence". I Sing of Cats! By K. C. MCINTOSH A philosophic Captain, U. S. N., regards the physiology, the psychology and the philanthropy of Felis Catus with somewhat unusual but not unconvincing results. T HERE is a persistent tradition that men and cats are but are but slightly less antipathetic than are dogs and cats. So firmly is it established that the average man, who probably has a sneaking desire to rub a casual kitten behind the ears, feels almost as shy about it as he would over confessing that he likes to cook or to embroider. It is taken for granted that the cat is a feminine pet, that only dogs are fit company for men. I boast of no new discovery nor deep research in denying the above theory in toto. I come of a race which has never adhered to the current notions regarding cats. When Agricola found the forbears of the Scottish nation in 81, A.D., they were already known as Cattani and speculation was rife even then as to whether they owed their name to their favorite weapon, called cat or catai, to their warlike history epitomized in the Erse word cath which means "battle", to their supposed consanguinity with the German tribe called Catti by Cæsar, or merely to the fact that their hilly, densely wooded country was overrun by actual cats. As late as 1830, Dr. Browne could not solve the riddle, but stated that "even at this day the Gaelic inhabitants of this district (Caithness, Sutherland, Badenoch and the shores of Moray Firth) are ambitious to derive their ancestry from this tribe." I submit that the four explanations offered above, all of them advocated by scholars, all refer to the affinity of cats and men. First of all, Caithness was overrun with cats; and the pictures given in the heraldic devices of that region do not show lynxes or bobcats. The Caithness cats were thin-eared, long-tailed, common tigercats, ranging in color from dark brindle to tortoiseshell. Second, the weapon called cat weapon called cat was a curved, double-edged dagger like a cat's claw. Third, the most superficial observation of cat nature will disclose them as the perfect warriors, wary, fearless, relentless and efficient. In cat-infested woods, it is little wonder that Gael, Celt, Pict, Goidel and Scoto-Erse all used the same word to mean "cat" and "battle". And lastly, every clan and sept which can trace true line to either Cattani of North Britain or Catti of Germany proudly bears as its crest a brindled cat in some attitude or other. The branches of Clan Chattan surviving today in the Highlands wear their cat leaping forward with widespread claws. Those who have wandered south and who swelled the ranks of the London Scottish during the World War display their cat sitting with watchful eyes. Note the felinity of the mottoes of North Scotland: "Touch not the cat but a glove," "In defense," "Nemo me impune lacessit," "I bide my time." CONS ONSIDER the foundations of the dog's reputation. What has he done to deserve his title of "first friend"? I love dogs and they seem to consider me a desirable acquaintance; but I maintain that the dog's friendship has never been without its touch of servile inferiority. He is known as a fit companion for man mainly because of his willingness to be a constant second trailing and treeing the game. He stood watch while the master caught forty winks in the shade. He herded the sheep and cattle and brought the horses in from the big pasture. When beaten for a mistake, he licked the hand with the whip and begged for another chance to make good. If primitive man treated his women like dogs in the home, he treated his dogs like women in the field. From puppyhood to toothless senility, the dog is a flatterer, a worshipper of authority, a dependent, a clinging vine. Masculine? Don't make me laugh! He is the archetype of what the Victorian novel expected a lady to be though, thank Heaven, few of our grandmothers really were! His only male attribute is a baritone voice. UT the cat is different. Men also fiddle in the partnership. In the days B have been enjoined by prophets, before the Nineteenth Amendment was agitated, men drew up a code of rules for the guidance of their women and embodied it in the marriage service and the Talmud and the Epistles of St. Paul. Can you remember one obedience laid upon women by these authorities against which the meekest woman does not feel occasional resentment, or with which every proper dog does not yearn to comply, spirit and letter? The answer is easy! Man in his caves and log huts used his loud voice and superior strength to make his women obey him and wait upon him. When he left home to hunt or fish or merely to walk about, the women breathed more easily and did as they pleased. The dog took over where the women left off. He assumed the burden of the female of the species gladly and joyfully. He fetched and carried, he did all the heavy work of princes and philosophers to live according to a code; and the code swings around individualism, self-respect, and the rights of personal property. Steadfastness, singleness of purpose, rectitude and adherence to an ideal, courage, resourcefulness and independence have been drilled into the masculine mind as the highest of human goals. The proverbs range between "Unstable as water thou shalt not excel," and "Live so you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell!" And the man who succeeds even passably in conforming to this code is living a more or less perfected imitation of the life of a cat any cat. Eliminate the visible effect of the mores upon human civilization and leave only the personal ideals. There is left the code of the cat, and that alone, as a guide to mankind. It is often noted that friendships between men are marked by their ability to spend hours together without exchanging words. The tale is still told of Tennyson and Carlyle sitting over their pipes and port wine in silence until three o'clock in the morning, when Carlyle rose, stretched and uttered the first words spoken during the night: "Man, but we've had a grand evening!" and departed for bed. TOMEN are apt to outtalk and outpet a cat, with the result that however devoted the cat may be to her mistress, still she regards her much as an indulgent master regards a good dog. With men, cats assume a tacit partnership. When the man of the house enters the room, Puss will raise her head until she is sure that he knows she is there. Perhaps she may speak first, or merely answer his greeting in the language which will be later discussed; but when he is once settled comfortably, down goes her head and she speaks no more until she decides it is time to go. Then, like Carlyle, she slowly rises, always facing the man. Out go her forefeet and down go her shoulders in a long, lazy stretch. Her mouth opens in a wide smile and she audibly remarks, “So long, old top!" Shoulders rise with a jerk; one hind foot after the other is kicked out smartly. With a preliminary flourish the tail is hoisted high, and the cat goes about her business without a backward look. A dog's head would have been up and down fifty times an hour, and his nap would have been broken by a hundred anxieties as to what the man would do next. The dog's piety is real and heartfelt; without reserve he lives to serve his master or mistress. The cat, on the contrary, refuses to allow social matters to affect her code. Proud, selfrespecting and meticulous, she enjoys friendship but resents intrusion or coercion. She resents it in cavalier fashion, by dignified withdrawal. Compare also the conduct of cat and dog when suddenly frightened or hurt. The dog screams and perhaps continues to scream with a long, terrified kiyi-ing as he removes from the vicinity with tucked-in tail and cringing hindquarters. Does the cat? Not enough to make any impression! True, she leaps away with lightning speed; but she lands facing the danger, with back arched for war and tail like the brush of a chimney-sweep. Her eyes blaze with righteous wrath; and after the first startled yowl, liquid, searing profanity flows from between her bared teeth. No other word applies, for her intention is plain. She is cursing; and the worse she has been scared, the louder swells the torrent of invective. Stiff-legged, she backs away, her deep-throated vituperation rising and falling. At a safe distance, she flings one last insult, grunts disgustedly, turns her back and stalks away with switching and indignant tail. HE fighting methods of cats are Tmore nearly those of primitive humanity than those of any other beast that walks the earth. Even the great apes which wrestle and box, and bite only in the clinches, show less manlike plan of battle and joy therein. From Goliath of Gath to the Child of Calamity, the swashbuckler's technique has been feline. Sighting his enemy, he manœuvres silently for higher ground; but once there he lifts but once there he lifts up his voice. He shouts his pedigree, his strength and his record of knockouts in past bouts. He yells aloud the low birth and general worthlessness of his adversary, daring him to knock off the chip or tread on the coat tail. Stiff-legged and tense, he imperceptibly draws nearer, his scalding invective rising in raucous crescendo. Step by step, never taking a stride long enough to be off balance for an instant, he draws within range. Then, if his adversary's gaze falters for a split second, or the sting of some insult causes muscles visibly to twitch, the torrent of abuse breaks sharply into a bellowed war-cry and the champion leaps at his antagonist. Dogs and wolves, apes and weasels, spring for the throat. Men and cats, in the first charge, "bust him where he is biggest," and try for a vital spot only after punishment has weakened or slowed the enemy's defense. HE caterwauling which arises on ΤΗ Tmoonlit moonlit nights from back fences and alleys is usually translated as the effort of some feline troubadour to persuade Maria to come into the garden. This translation is fallacious. Tom calls Maria in totally different fashion, with much the same note as that with which Maria herself calls the roll of her kittens, except that for her anxious contralto, Tom substitutes a throbbing bass. No; when Tom sings aloud, he is doing one of three things. If Maria is already there, he is showing off before his beloved, singing of his exploits and invincibility. If his auditor is not Maria but Thomas from across across the railroad tracks, there is no throb in his voice, but a hard, cold edge. He is telling Thomas that while his left carries six months in hospital, his right is sudden death; that he is so tough he scares himself, and when he spits he cracks a cobblestone. But oftenest of all, singing Tom is alone with the night and the moonlight. He is a feline Finn MacCool, with ancestral memories of the wild woods, the thrill of the hunt and the keen joy of battle. He sings because he is alert, alive and alone. It is no love song that he is crooning, but a hymn, a pæan and a pibroch. He is, for a time, not just a cat, but The Cat, that drowzed in the temples of Bast or terrorized Nabeshima. For in this world of asphalt and superheterodynes, only the cat and the crow remain unchanged, independent and primæval. Ta ARRIVE at any understanding of Ta cat, while she is learning your language, you must learn hers; and the wealth of her vocabulary is surprising. Max Müller should have kept cats, for it is not improbable that it was from cats that Pithecanthropus Erectus first got the idea of speech. In cat orthography are four vowel sounds: short A (almost a French IN), long U, OW short and nasal, and OW long and drawled with much the sound of a Tidewater Virginian saying “mouse”. Of consonants, five are in common use, guttural R, a German CH, K, W and Y, with a rare N. Much depends upon pitch and intonation, for cats, like ancient Greeks and modern Chinese, sing rather than speak. "Still," demands the despiser of cats, "Why cats at all? What good are they?" Dear sir, what good is a cravat? What good is pepper? What great and humanitarian use is served by a geranium or a ship model or a fancy radiator cap? To seek even closer home, what good is a bridge partner? |