University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF POISON FOR RATS.

The number of Vermin-Destroyers and Rat-
Catchers who ply their avocation in London
has of late years become greatly diminished.
One cause which I heard assigned for this
was that many ruinous old buildings and old
streets had been removed, and whole colonies of
rats had been thereby extirpated. Another was
that the race of rat-catchers had become distrusted,
and had either sought some other mode of sub-
sistence, or had resorted to other fields for the
exercise of their professional labours.

The rat-catcher's dress is usually a velveteen
jacket, strong corduroy trowsers, and laced boots.
Round his shoulder he wears an oil-skin belt, on
which are painted the figures of huge rats, with
fierce-looking eyes and formidable whiskers. His
hat is usually glazed and sometimes painted after
the manner of his belt. Occasionally — and in the
country far more than in town — he carries in his
hand an iron cage in which are ferrets, while two
or three crop-eared rough terriers dog his footsteps.
Sometimes a tamed rat runs about his shoulders
and arms, or nestles in his bosom or in the large
pockets of his coat. When a rat-catcher is thus
accompanied, there is generally a strong aromatic
odour about him, far from agreeable; this is owing
to his clothes being rubbed with oil of thyme and
oil of aniseed, mixed together. This composition
is said to be so attractive to the sense of the rats
(when used by a man who understands its due ap-
portionment and proper application) that the vermin
have left their holes and crawled to the master of
the powerful spell. I heard of one man (not a rat-
catcher professionally) who had in this way tamed
a rat so effectually that the animal would eat out
of his mouth, crawl upon his shoulder to be fed,
and then "smuggle into his bosom" (the words of
my informant) "and sleep there for hours." The
rat-catchers have many wonderful stories of the
sagacity of the rat, and though in reciting their
own feats, these men may not be the most trust-
worthy of narrators, any work on natural history
will avouch that rats are sagacious, may be trained
to be very docile, and are naturally animals of
great resources in all straits and difficulties.

One great source of the rat-catcher's employment
and emolument thirty years ago, or even to a later
period, is now comparatively a nonentity. At that
time the rat-catcher or killer sometimes received a
yearly or quarterly stipend to keep a London
granary clear of rats. I was told by a man who
has for twenty-eight years been employed about
London granaries, that he had never known a rat-
catcher employed in one except about twenty or
twenty-two years ago, and that was in a granary by
the river-side. The professional man, he told me,
certainly poisoned many rats, "which stunk so,"
continued my informant — but then all evil odours
in old buildings are attributed to dead rats — "that
it was enough to infect the corn. He poisoned
two fine cats as well. But I believe he was a
young hand and a bungler." The rats, after these
measures had been taken, seem to have deserted
the place for three weeks or a month, when they
returned in as great numbers as ever; nor were
their ravages and annoyances checked until the
drains were altered and rebuilt. It is in the
better disposition of the drains of a corn-maga-
zine, I am assured, that the great check upon the
inroads of these "varmint" is attained — by strong
mason work and by such a series and arrangement
of grates, as defy even the perseverance of a rat.
Otherwise the hordes which prey upon the garbage
in the common sewers, are certain to find their
way into the granary along the drains and chan-
nels communicating with those sewers, and will
increase rapidly despite the measures of the rat-
catcher.

The same man told me that he had been five or
six times applied to by rat-catchers, and with
liberal offers of beer, to allow them to try and cap-
ture the black rats in the granary. One of these
traders declared that he wanted them "for a gent
as vas curous in them there hinteresting warmint;"
But from the representations of the other applicants,
my informant was convinced that they were
wanted for rat-hunts, the Dog Billy being backed
for 100l. to kill so many rats in so many
minutes. "You see, sir," the corn merchant's man
continued, "ours is an old concern, and there's
black rats in it, great big fellows; some of 'em
must be old, for they 're as white about the muzzle
as is the Duke of Wellington, and they have the
character of being very strong and very fierce. One
of the catchers asked me if I knew what a stun-
ning big black rat would weigh, as if I weighed
rats! I always told them that I cared nothing
about rat-hunts and that I knew our people
wouldn't like to be bothered; and they was gen-
tlemen that didn't admire sporting characters."

The black rat, I may observe, or the English
rat, is now comparatively scarce, while the brown,
or Hanoverian, rat is abundant. This brown rat
seems to have become largely domiciled in England
about the period of the establishment of the Hano-
verian dynasty; whence its name. "A Hanover
rat" was a term of reproach applied by the Ja-
cobites to the successful party.

The rat-catchers are also rat-killers. They
destroy the animals sometimes by giving them
what is called in the trade "an alluring poison."
Every professional destroyer, or capturer, of rats
will pretend that as to poison he has his own par-
ticular method — his secret — his discovery. But

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there is no doubt that arsenic is the basis of all
their poisons. Its being inodorous, and easily
reducible to a soft fine powder, renders it the best
adapted for mixing with anything of which rats
are fond — toasted cheese, or bacon, or fried liver,
or tallow, or oatmeal. Much as the poisoner may
be able to tempt the animal's appetite, he must,
and does, proceed cautiously. If the bait be placed
in an unwonted spot, it is often untouched. If it
be placed where rats have been accustomed to find
their food, it is often devoured. But even then it
is frequently accounted best to leave the bait un-
poisoned for the first night; so that a hungry
animal may attack it greedily the second. With
oatmeal it is usual to mix for the first and even
second nights a portion of pounded white sugar.
If this be eaten it accustoms the jealous pest to
the degree of sweetness communicated by arsenic.
The "oatmeal poison" is, I am told, the most
effectual; but even when mixed only with sugar
it is often refused; as "rats is often better up to a
dodge nor Kirstians" (Christians).

Another mode of killing rats is for the pro-
fessional destroyer to slip a ferret into the rats'
haunts wherever it is practicable. The ferret
soon dislodges them, and as they emerge for
safety they are seized by terriers, who, after
watching the holes often a long time, and very
patiently, and almost breathlessly, throttle them
silently, excepting the short squeak, or half-squeak,
of the rat, who, by a "good dog," is seized un-
erringly by the part of the back where the
terrier's gripe and shake is speedy death; if the
rat still move, or shows signs of life, the well-
trained rat-killer's dog cracks the vermin's skull
between his teeth.

If the rats have to be taken alive, they are
either trapped, so as not to injure them for a rat-
hunt (or the procedure in the pit would be ac-
counted "foul"), or if driven out of their holes by
ferrets, they can only run into some cask, or other
contrivance, where they can be secured for the
"sportsman's" purposes. Although any visible
injury to the body of the rat will prevent its re-
ception into a pit, the creatures' teeth are often
drawn, and with all the cruelty of a rough
awkwardness, by means of pinchers, so that they
may be unable to bite the puppies being trained
for the pit on the rats. If the vermin be not
truly seized by the dog, the victim will twist
round and inflict a tremendous bite on his worrier,
generally on the lip. This often causes the
terrier to drop his prey with a yell, and if a puppy
he may not forget the lesson from the sharp nip
of the rat. To prevent this it is that the rat-
catchers play the dentist on their unfortunate cap-
tives.

I heard many accounts of the "dodges" prac-
tised by, or imputed to, the rat-catchers: that it
was not a very unusual thing to deposit here and
there a dead rat, when those vermin were to be
poisoned on any premises; it is then concluded
that the good poison has done its good work, and
the dead animal supplies an ocular demonstration
of professional skill. These men, also, I am in-
formed, let loose live rats in buildings adapted for
the purpose, and afterwards apply for employment
to destroy them.

I am informed that the principal scene of the
rat-catcher's labours in London is at the mews,
and in private stables, coach-houses, and out-
buildings. It is probable that the gentlemen's
servants connected with such places like the ex-
citement of rat-hunting, and so encourage the
profession which supplies them with that gratifica-
tion. In these places such labours are often
necessary as well as popular; for I was informed
by a coachman, then living with his family in a
West End mews, and long acquainted with the
mews in different parts of town, that the drainage
was often very defective, and sanitary regulations
— except, perhaps, as regarded the horses — little
cared for. Hence rats abounded, and were with
difficulty dislodged from their secure retreats in
the ill-constructed drains and kennels.

The great sale of the rat-catchers is to the
shops supplying "private parties" with rats for
the amusement of seeing them killed by dogs.
With some "fast" men, one of these shopkeepers
told me, it was a favourite pastime in their own
rooms on the Sunday mornings. It is, however,
somewhat costly if carried on extensively, as the
retail charge from the shops is 6d. per rat. The
price from the catcher to the dealer is from 2s. 6d. to 7s. the dozen. Rats, it appears, are sometimes
scarce, and then the shopkeeper must buy, "to
keep up his connection," at enhanced cost. One
large bird-seller, who sold also plain and fancy
rats, white mice, and live hedgehogs, told me
that he had, last winter, been compelled to give
7s. a dozen for his vermin and sell them at 6d. each.

The grand consumption of rats, however, is in
Bunhill-row, at a public-house kept by a pugilist.
A rat-seller told me that from 200 to 500 rats
were killed there weekly, the weekly average
being, however, only the former number; while
at Easter and other holidays, it is not uncommon
to see bills posted announcing the destruction of
500 rats on the same day and in a given time,
admittance 6d. Dogs are matched at these and
similar places, as to which kills the greatest
number of these animals in the shortest time.
I am told that there are forty such places in Lon-
don, but in some only the holiday times are cele-
brated in this small imitation of the beast combats
of the ancients. There is, too, a frequent aban-
donment of the trade in consequence of its "not
paying," and perhaps it may be fair to estimate
that the average consumption of this vermin-game
does not exceed, in each of these places, 20 a
week, or 1040 in a year; giving an aggregate —
over and above those consumed in private sport
— of 52,000 rats in a year, or 1000 a week in
public amusement alone.

To show the nature of the sport of rat-catching,
I print the following bill, of which I procured two
copies. The words and type are precisely the
same in each, but one bill is printed on good and
the other on very indifferent paper, as if for dis-
tribution among distinct classes. The concluding
announcement, as to the precise moment at which

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killing will commence, reads supremely business-
like: —

A dealer in live animals told me that there
were several men who brought a few dozens of
rats, or even a single dozen, from the country;
men who were not professionally rat-catchers, but
worked in gardens, or on farms, and at their
leisure caught rats. Even some of the London
professional rat-catchers work sometimes as country
labourers, and their business is far greater, in
merely rat-catching or killing, in the country than
in town. From the best information I could com-
mand, there are not fewer than 2000 rats killed,
for sport, in London weekly, or 104,000 a year,
including private and public sport, for private
sport in this pursuit goes on uninterruptedly; the
public delectation therein is but periodical.

This calculation is of course exclusive of the
number of rats killed by the profession, "on the
premises," when these men are employed to "clear
the premises of vermin."

There are, I am told, 100 rat-catchers resorting,
at intervals, to London, but only a fourth of that
number can be estimated as carrying on their
labours regularly in town, and their average
earnings, I am assured, do not exceed 15s. a
week; being 975l. a year for London merely.

These men have about them much of the affected
mystery of men who are engaged on the turf.
They have their "secrets," make or pretend to
"make their books" on rat fights and other sport-
ing events; are not averse to drinking, and lead
in general irregular lives. They are usually on
intimate terms with the street dog-sellers (who
are much of the same class). Many of the rat-
catchers have been brought up in stables, and
there is little education among them. When in
London, they are chiefly to be found in White-
chapel, Westminster, and Kent-street, Borough;
the more established having their own rooms; the
others living in the low lodging-houses. None of
them remain in London the entire year.

These men also sell rat-poison (baked flour or
oatmeal sometimes) in cakes, arsenic being the
ingredient. The charge is from 2d. to 1s., "ac-
cording to the circumstances of the customer." In
like manner the charge for "clearing a house of
vermin" varies from 2s. to 1l.: a very frequent
charge is 2s. 6d.