"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Newspaper Clipping of the Day




The thirteenth installment of the "Boston Post's" "Famous Cats of New England" looks at a particularly well-educated feline:
Secretarial Science is a much more fascinating course to pursue than the course of a silly little mouse around the cellar. So believes Beezel, the Boston University cat. Consequently, he has turned his back on this historic occupation of his kind. Machines that jump up and down when he bats them with his soft, mittened double paws afford him much more fun than mere squeeky mice. For sometimes when he hits a typewriter just far enough a little bell tingles and then Beezel is entranced.

From Manchester, N.H., came Beezel to pursue his course at Boston University. No less a person than Dean T.L. Davis himself conducted Beezel from his old home to the university. When Dean Davis looked around the finished Secretarial building he decided that something was lacking. Searching New England for just the cat fitted to fill the vacant niche, he chose black and white Beezel for the job, which is surely enough distinction for any cat to base its claims to fame upon.

King of the college; with the privilege of jumping into the dean's lap even in the middle of an important conference with the president is Beezel. Besides, the caresses of 500 pretty girls who are his devoted subjects and who feed him on chicken and other dainties are not to be spurned.

Installing himself as building inspector and visitor of classrooms, Beezel struts about the college with the confidence of a monarch. He looks critically at each assembled class, sits for a bit to hear the prof talking; if he likes the subject settles down and stays the hour and if it bores him frankly yawns and strolls out.

The famous Professor Carver of Harvard especially hits Beezel's fancy. The cat never misses his lectures; never sleeps at them and always trots from the classroom at the professor's heels. At one of the opening assemblies Dean Davis, seeing the front rows in the lecture hall vacant requested the students to fill up the seats in front. Up got Beezel, who had been down back; trotted down the aisle and hopped up on a front seat.

When Professor Carver came forward for his first lecture and the applause had died away, Beezel startled the class by two resounding "Meaows." Evidently they were meant for applause in cat language for he followed them by a leap to the platform and since then may always be found there when Professor Carver is lecturing.
~December 21, 1920

2 comments:

  1. Beezel was my hero at "the caresses of 500 pretty girls."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Double paws is New Englandish for polydactyl, thatis extra toes on a cat.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated. Because no one gets to be rude and obnoxious around here except the author of this blog.