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such as have eyes to lose, to wander where the epidemic rages.

In the North, however, the same game is called "Piggie." I learn by the newspaper that a young woman at Leeds nearly lost her eye-sight by a blow from one of these piggies or cats, and the magistrates sent the boy who was the cause of it to an industrial school, ordering his father to pay half-acrown a week for his maintenance.

The shrill whistle indulged in upon the first night of a pantomime by those young gentlemen with the figure six curls in the front row of the gallery are denominated cat-calls. This is, I am given to understand, a difficult art to acquire—I know I have tried very hard myself and can't; and to arrive at perfection you must lose a front tooth. Such a thing has been known before this, as a young costermonger having one of his front teeth pulled out to enable him to whistle well. Let us hope that his talent was properly appreciated in the circles in which he moved.

With respect to cat-calls or cat-cals, also termed cat-pipes, it would appear that there was an instrument by that name used by the audiences at the theatre, the noise of which was very different to that made by whistling through the fingers, as now

practised. In the Covent Garden Journal for 1810 the O. P. Riots are thus spoken of :-" Mr. Kemble made his appearance in the costume of Macbeth,' and, amid vollies of hissing, hooting, groans, and cat-calls, seemed as though he meant to speak a steril and pointless addressa nnounced for the occasion."

In book iii. chap. vi. of Joseph Andrews, occurs this passage :-" You would have seen cities in embroidery transplanted from the boxes to the pit, whose ancient inhabitants were exalted to the galleries, where they played upon cat-calls."

In Lloyd's Law Student we find :—

66 'By law let others strive to gain renown!
Florio's a gentleman, a man o' th' town.
He nor courts clients, or the law regarding,
Hurries from Nando's down to Covent Garden.
Zethe's a scholar-mark him in the pit,

With critic Cat-call sound the stops of wit."

In Chetwood's History of the Stage (1741), there is a story of a sea-officer who was much plagued by "a couple of sparks, prepared with their offensive instruments, vulgarly termed Cat-calls;" and describes how "the squeak was stopped in the middle by a blow from the officer, which he gave with so strong a will that his child's trumpet was struck through his cheek."

The Cat-call used at theatres in former times was a small circular whistle, composed of two plates of tin of about the size of a half-penny perforated by a hole in the centre, and connected by a band or border of the same metal about one-eighth of an inch thick. The instrument was readily concealed within the mouth, and the perpetrator of the noise could not be detected.

There used to be a public-house of some notoriety at the corner of Downing-street, next to Kingstreet, called the "Cat and Bagpipes." It was also a chop house used by many persons connected with the public offices in the neighbourhood. George Rose, so well known in after life as the friend of Pitt, Clerk of the Parliament, Secretary of the Treasury, etc., and executor of the Earl of Marchmont, but then "a bashful young man," was one of the frequenters of this tavern.

Madame Catalini is thus alluded to with disrepectful abbreviation of her name in a new song on Covent Garden Theatre, printed and sold by J. Pitts, No. 14, Great St. Andrew-street, Seven Dials.

"This noble building, to be sure, has beauty without bounds,
It cost upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds;
They've Madame Catalini there to open her white throat,
But to hear your foreign singers I would not give a groat;

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