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 King-street, 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 disrespectful 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;
