_Tom_’s _Education.—His Manner of Life with his Mistress, whose
History is introduced here in a short Narrative._
It was Tom’s peculiar beauty, and size that saved his life, for
his Mistress _had Eyes_, and chose him out of ten, so that he
was a kind of _tythe Cat_, and survived the unhappy fate of his
brothers, and sisters by decimation, proving to the disgrace of
Methodists, that even among Cats, one in ten may be saved, though
according to their illustrious tenets, that will not be the portion
of one in ten of themselves. However Tom grew up and gave earnest
of being a most promising youth, having gone thro’ all the gambols
and feats of childhood, peculiar to those of his kind, and to the
great satisfaction of all who knew him, or had the honour of his
acquaintance.—His Mistress, however was inexcuseable in point of
tenderness, who not being sufficiently pleased with his beauty,
thought the cutting off his Ears would be an abundant addition to
that article; a barbarous instance of her love for him, but in
consequence of her resolution Tom lost his Ears, for having done no
crime to deserve amputation, when thousands walk the Streets with
their ears on, who have a thousand times deserved to lose them. His
mistress, whose name was Mrs. Clotilda-Skin-Flint, began to take
another more cruel thought into her head, and that was to deprive
him of his manhood, by equipping him for the Opera, and was advised
to put this dreadful scheme into execution by a female neighbour
of hers, called _Rugana_, but as this was as troublesome as it was
expensive, she permitted him to keep his pebbles, as marks of that
virility, which he afterwards testified to several young Cats of
his acquaintance.—Whether Tom ever came to the knowledge of this
sanguinary intent of his Mistress, we never could learn, if he did,
he must no doubt be sensibly affected with delight to find, that by
its being laid aside, he found himself in possession of that treasure
which entitled him to the honourable appellation of _Ram-Cat_. His
mistress, after having bred him up to feed himself, and to provide
for his own sustenance, left him to shift for the necessaries of
life, by all those means, which most of his kind make use of to get
a livelyhood, namely by _Mouseing_, and having before he was half
a year old, rid not only her house, but that neighbourhood of the
rats and mice which infested them, he bore the credit of being an
excellent mowser, for he got no other reward, and was forced for
sometime to live upon that empty saying, _Virtue is its own Reward_,
verifying that fine anecdote of _Juvenal_, _Ladatum Virtus et alget_,
which for the sake of our English Reader, we will suppose to signify,
that _a good or a wise man may starve in the midst of Fleet-Market,
for any thing he is likely to get from either fools or knaves_. Mrs.
Clotilda-Skin-Flint, was one of those admirable ladies, who go in
quest of obsolete robes, and had raised a tolerable sum by levying
contributions on the necessitous, who where glad to part with their
vestments for the tenth part of their intrinsic value: she had, to
make her own employment more lucrative, wedded an old taylor, whom
she married purely on the account of his dexterity and skill in, or
repairing the breaches of old clothes, and making them pass for new:
by this profitable business she was enabled to keep a very sightly
shop in the purlieus of Monmouth-Street, and was by her lending
out small sums of money to the butchers, who dealt with her at an
extravagant usury, in possession of five hundred pounds in money and
stock.
Tom did not approve of his Mistress’s niggarly temper, and though
he made several attempts upon her larder, he seldom availed himself
of the expedition, being glad to get off with whole bones, he being
a rival in these purloinings with the old taylor, his master, who
was as narrowly watched as himself in these kind of invasions, and
whom his wife had starved, cudgel’d, and cuckolded into the bargain.
However, one day, Tom laid a plot, and being determined to assuage
the cries of hunger, he resolutely attacked two pound of beef-stakes,
which were contrary to former caution left to his mercy, as the
mistress had indulged herself too plentifully with the ratifai of
St. _Giles_’s, commonly called _Gin_. The maid had been absent by
accident, at the time of this depredation, Tom prudently withdrew,
when he had eat up his delicious cates, and left the blame to fall
upon either the maid, or the old taylor, the former of which fasted
that day for her negligence, and was discharged without payment of
her wages, while old snip had like to have been destroyed by the
weight of the goose, with which his tender rib did belabour him to
his no small mortification, and of which he lay ill for three days to
his wife’s utter discontent, as she was forced to hire a journeyman
to finish some work he had begun.