The cat is on fire

Last night I browsed through Sam Harris' book 'The end of Faith'. Not as good as I expected but pretty ok. One thing in the book that caught my attention was cat burning, practiced in Paris (and surely elsewhere) during the 16th century. During midsummer celebrations a number of cats kept in a net would be lowered onto a big bonfire from a special stage. The onlookers

shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.

They say that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but I definitely hope that cat burning is an amusement of the past.