own children is born dumb, he counts it a tragedy. Even that mere hesitation in speech, known as stammering, he deems a misfortune.

   So precious to a simian is the privilege of making sounds with his tongue, that when he wishes to punish severely those men he calls criminals, he forbids them to chatter, and forces them by threats to be silent. It is felt that this punishment is entirely too cruel however, and that even the worst offenders should be allowed to talk part of each day.

   Whatever a simian does, there must always be some talking about it. He can't even make peace without a kind of chatter called a peace conference. Super-cats would not have had to "make" peace: they would have just walked off and stopped fighting.

   In a world of super-cat-men, I suppose there would have been fewer sailors; and people would have cared less for seaside resorts, or for swimming. Cats hate getting wet, so men descended from them might have hated it. They would have felt that even going in wading was a sign of great hardihood, and only the most daring young fellows, showing off, would have done it.

   Among them there would have been no anti-vivisection societies:

   No Young Cats Christian Associations or Red Cross work:

   No vegetarians:

   No early closing laws:

   Much more hunting and trapping:

   No riding to hounds; that's pure simian. Just think how it would have entranced the old-time monkeys to foresee such a game! A game where they'd all prance off on captured horses, tearing pell-mell through the woods in gay red coats, attended by yelping packs of servant-dogs. It is excellent sport--but how cats would scorn to hunt in that way!

   They would not have knighted explorers--they would have all been explorers.

   Imagine that you are strolling through a super-cat city at night. Over yonder is the business quarter, its evening shops blazing with jewels. The great stock-yards lie to the east where you hear those sad sounds: that low mooing as of innumerable herds, waiting slaughter. Beyond lie the silent aquariums and the crates of fresh mice. (They raise mice instead of hens in the country, in Super-cat Land.) To the west is a beautiful but weirdly bacchanalian park, with long groves of catnip, where young super-cats have their fling, and where a few crazed catnip addicts 

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