arcel of clowns
on horseback try to beat out the ends of it, in order to show their
dexterity in escaping before the contents fall upon them."

This practice was once kept up at Kelso, in Scotland, according to
Ebenezer Lazarus, who, in his "Description of Kelso" (1789, p. 144), has
given a graphic description of the whole ceremony. He says, "This is a
sport which was common in the last century at Kelso on the Tweed. A
large concourse of men, women, and children assembled in a field about
half a mile from the town, and a cat having been put into a barrel
stuffed full of soot, was suspended on a crossbeam between two high
poles. A certain number of the whipmen, or husbandmen, who took part in
this savage and unmanly amusement, then kept striking, as they rode to
and fro on horseback, the barrel in which the unfortunate animal was
confined, until at last, under the heavy blows of their clubs and
mallets, it broke, and allowed the cat to drop. The victim was then
seized and tortured to death." He justly stigmatizes it, saying:

"The cat in the barrel exhibits such a farce,
That he who can relish it is worse than an ass."

Cats, from their great powers of resistance, are said to have nine
lives;[383] hence Mercutio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1), says: "Good
king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives." Ben Jonson, in "Every
Man in His Humour" (iii. 2), makes Edward Knowell say to Bobadil, "'Twas
pity you had not ten; a cat's and your own." And in Gay's fable of the
"Old Woman and her Cats," one of these animals is introduced, upbraiding
the witch:

"'Tis infamy to serve a hag,
Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag;
And boys against our lives combine,
Because 'tis said, your cats have nine."

[383] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. p. 42.

In Marston's "Dutch Courtezan" we read:

"Why then, thou hast nine lives like a cat."

And in Dekker's "Strange Horse-Race" (1613): "When the grand Helcat had
gotten these two furies with nine lives." This notion, it may be noted,
is quite the reverse of the well-known saying, "Care will kill a cat,"
mentioned in "Much Ado About Nothing" (v. 1), where Claudio says: "What
though care killed a cat."

For some undiscovered reason a cat was formerly called Tybert or
Tybalt;[384] hence some of the insulting remarks of Mercutio, in "Romeo
and Juliet" (iii. 1), who calls Tybalt "rat-catcher" and "king of cats."
In the old romance of "Hystorye