April 17, 1816

Samuel Austin Allibone (April 17, 1816 to September 2, 1889) is the full name of an American author and bibliographer. Allibone, a native of Philadelphia, whose background was French Huguenot and Quaker ancestry, wrote or compiled books with titles like A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, (1854,  and 1871). He died near Lucerne, Switzerland, on a trip designed to improve his health. In addition to his Critical Dictionary he published three large anthologies and religious tracts.

Another anthology he compiled is Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay, (1875). It is said to  contain 8,810 quotations from 544 authors on 571 subjects. There are several cat references in this book and here is one:

I know a little damsel now who, when her temper is crossed, tells her governess that she hates her pet cat, and is not above giving the innocent pussy a sly blow or kick as proxy for its much-enduring mistress.

Or from another social perspective we find a Dickensian reality reflected, and a different kind of cat:

Hang me all the thieves in Gibbet Street to-morrow, and the place will be crammed with fresh tenants in a week; but catch me up the young thieves from the gutter and the door-steps;..... teach and wash me this young unkempt vicious colt, ...give him some soap, instead of whipping him for stealing a cake of brown Windsor; teach him the Gospel, instead of sending him to the treadmill for haunting chapels and purloining prayer-books out of pews; put him in the way of filling shop-tills, instead of transporting him when he crawls on his hands and knees to empty them; let him know that he has a body ...made for something better than to be kicked, bruised, chained, pinched with hunger, clad in rags or prison gray, or mangled with gaoler’s cat; let him know that he has a soul to be saved. In God’s name, take care of the children, somebody; and there will soon be an oldest inhabitant in Gibbet Street, and never a new one to succeed him!

And last, here is an obituary of Mr. Allibone, written by his peers at The American Bookseller: A Semi-monthly Journal  Volume 26 (1889):

[This]... scholar was born in Philadelphia in the year 1816, on the 17th of April, and was for a long time engaged in business pursuits. He was not so engrossed, however, in the amassing of wealth as to extinguish his love of literature, and his leisure hours were devoted to literary pursuits. His earlier writings were mainly of a theological character,....The labor of correspondence to obtain material [for the Dictionary] was enormous...
In the preface to this invaluable work, Dr. Allibone gives his reason for undertaking such a task. The multiplicity of books render selection necessary, for no one man can read even the books that would repay perusal. “ Suppose I wish to know," he continues, " whether Hume’s or Lingard's History, or other works, are desirable for my school, my library, or my parlor-table; or if I wish to know the personal history of these authors, what trouble to obtain information!” ....To supply this deficiency he set to work on the Dictionary, and he reckoned not the least important part, the record of the “opinions of great men upon great men." ...[O]f such critical and biographical notices there are no fewer than 46,000....

About ten years ago Dr. Allibone became Librarian of the Lenox Library, [now the New York Public Library] and in that cemetery of books he labored till about a year ago, when ill-health compelled him to go to Europe. Dr. Allibone was a devout member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and took great interest in Sunday-schools, being the corresponding secretary of the American Sunday school Union. Besides a widow, who assisted him in his literary labors, he leaves a daughter, the wife of Mr. Charles Carver of Philadelphia.