"Where we do what cats may do," from The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1858.

The expression about letting the cat out of the bag is commonly traced to a 1760 issue of The London Magazine, but we've followed it all the way back to Fulvia, the first non-mythological woman to appear on Roman coins.  We find her letting the cat out of the bag in The Comic History of Rome by Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett and illustrated by John Leech, 1897.

"It was the cat": an illustration from A Tramp Abroad by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1880).

From Funny Books for Boys and Girls, 1856.

An illustration from A Bid for Fortune by Guy Newell Boothby (1895).  The caption reads: "The black cat looked through the smoke at the three men."

"Mrs. Forster uttered a hideous yell, and threw the animal at the heads of the spectators."  From Newton Forster by Frederick Marryat and illustrated by E. J. Sullivan, 1897.

The reason cats dart is revealed in this illustrarion from Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald (1894).

Here's a precursor to the Bonnie Tyler song 'If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man),' from Gryll Grange by Thomas Love Peacock (1896).  The caption reads: "If you were a bachelor, and I were a maid, I should not trust myself to be your aga—aga—."

An illustration from Merriment and Mirth for Merry Little People (1889).  The caption reads: "For the owl and cats and I all grew larger every minute."

A pipe smoking black cat and its witchy familiar fly on a broomstick under cover of chimney smoke. An illustration from an 1860 issue of Punch magazine.

A precursor to Jerry slicing Tom in half, in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon: an illustration from an 1862 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from a 1906 issue of Puck magazine.  Speaking of which, one of the many things we admire about our British brethren is that they've long been consciously aware that they've slipped down the rabbit hole.  So very few nations realize they're in Wonderland.

It's raining cats, if not dogs.  The caption reads: "I saw many myriads of spectral kitten forms and unsubstantial egg-shapes."  From an 1895 issue of Punch.