Alluding to the pewter pots so called

Alluding to the pewter pots so called

"Cat and Kittens. A public-house sign, alluding to the pewter pots so called. Stealing these pots is termed 'Cat and kitten sneaking.' We still call a large kettle a kitchen, and speak of a soldier's kit (Saxon, cytel, a pot, pan, or vessel generally)." Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

May not this sign be intended to mean merely what is shown, "The Cat and Kittens," indicative of comfort and rest? Or may it have been "Cat and Chitterlings," in allusion to the source from which fiddlestrings were said to be derived?

Cat and Tortoise. This seems to have no meaning other than at a tavern extremes meet, the fast and the slow, the lively and the stolid; or it is possibly a corruption of something widely different.

Fonte: Cats