Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1874 — Rats. [ARTICLE]

Rats.

The principal kinds of rats known are the black and the brown, the latter being the more powerful of the two. Both entered Europe from Asia, the black about four centuries, the brown about two centuries ago. A few black rats still exist in old houses in London among the roof-rafters; but they are very few. The r brown rat is a famous trencherman. Nothing comes amiss to him. Corn, the offal of slaughter-houses, cheese, soap, candles, eggs, jams, pastry, butter, oil, boots and shoes, leverets and other small game, all serve him when hungry. But, sad to relate, he is also a cannibal; he eats his own species. When two rats fight, the one killed and the other sadly mutilated, the spectator-fiats set to and eat them both. A lame or decrepit companion shares the same fate. Mr. Rat displays a good deal of ingenuity working out some of his plans He can carry away eggs without .breaking them; he stretches out one foreleg under the egg, steadies it with his cheek, and hops away cautiously on the other three legs. Two of them working together have been known to carry eggs up-stairs ; one. standing upon his head, lifted an egg high up on his hind feet; his confederate, standing on the next step above, took the egg, and held it until the acrobat had come up; after which the same process was repeated again and again. Rats are caught for the value of their skins. There is a firm in Paris which buys the skins for this purpose The fur is dressed into a very good substitute for beaver; while the pelt or membrane is dressed into leather so fine, elastic, and close as to be used for the thumbs of the best gloves. If anyone -believes tliat-rat&-are-notu.sed for human., food he must change his opinion. In Paris the chiffoniers or bone-grubbers eat them. Gypsies eat such rats as are caught in and barns, and are less strong in their flavor and odor that those that feed omniverously. In China rats are bought as a dainty. An English surgeon of some note had them cooked for his own eating. In a man-of-war, where the rats made havoc with the biscuit, the sailors had a regular battue, and brought down numbers of them; Jack made rat pie, baked it and liked it. At the siege of Malta, the French garrison, when famished, ottered as much as a dollar a head for rats, or two dollars if barn-fed. During the siege of Paris, in the late Franco-German war, many tasted rat who had never tasted it before. The fecundity of the brown rat is prodigious, and it has been calculated that if Mr. and Mrs. Rat live three years after their first child is born, and if all the children, children’s children, chilchildren’s children, etc., survive, the family at the end of the three years would comprise 600,000 mouths. As a rat is credited with eating one-tenth as much as an average man, this interesting family would consume as much as an army of 60,000 men. Rats greatly infest ships, and are by them carried to every part of the world. So industriously do they make homes for themselves in the numerous crannies and corners in the hull of a ship, that it is almost impossible to get rid of them. Shipp take out rats as well as passengers and cargo evers* voyage; whether the former remain in the ship when in port is best known to themselves. When the East India Company had ships of their own they employed a rat-catcher, who sometimes captured 500 rats m one ship just returned from Calcutta. The shiprat is often the black species. Sometimes black and brown inhabit the same vessel; and unless they carry on perpetual hostilities the one party will keep to the head of the vessel and the other to the stern. Parent Duchatelet gives a graphic account of the prodigious colony of rats in the abattoirs of the Montfaucon, near Paris: “An old proprietor of one of the slaughter-houses had a certain space of ground entirely surrounded by walls, with holes large enough for the ingress and egress of rats. Within this inclosure he left the carcasses of two or three horses. The rats swarmed in thickly to partake of the feast. He caused the holes to be quietly stopped up, and entered the inclosure, with a thick stick in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. They were so congregated that a blow with a stick anywhere did execution. Before he left the inclosure he had killed more than 2,600.” Borne years ago (perhaps recent alterations have changed the state of affairs) the Paris sewers formed an extensive hunting-ground for the men who captured rats alive to sell to the rat-killing sporting fraternity. Several men, working in a party, formed a plan as to the spot toward which the animals should be driven. Each man carried a lighted candle, with a tin reflector, a bag, a sieve, and a spade. The moment the rats saw a light they ran away along the sides of the sewer; the men followed, came up to them, seized them behind the ears, and bagged them. When driven to bay from different directions into one spot they turned upon their pursuers with desperate fierceness; but the latter were always masters of the situation in the long run. As to London, the excellent brickwork of the new main drainage sewers probably defies the rats, but they still continue their ramblings from sewers through house drains into the basements of old tenements. » Rat-catchers and rat-catching have been written about more voluminously than most persons would think. The royal rat-catcher, in the time of George the Third, was immortalized in an engraved portrait. Eleven years ago, a local board of health, in or near Bristol, E anted an annuity of £4 a year to John :aky, on the representation of the butchers, “ for his services rendered in ridding the slaughter-houses from rats, and on condition of his keeping them away for the future.” Two celebrated rat-catchers, Shaw and Sabin, claimed to have caught eight or ten thousand rats a year each. As to the modes of capture, they are various. One mode, is to select a small room in the middle of a house, lay a trail of favorite food from this to the other rooms, and allure the rats with

the savory odor of toasted cheese or red herring. A second is, to allure by whistling to imitate the rat-cry. Ana there are many others. But in truth the professional rat-catchers do not care to reveal their secrets. Many years ago the Society of Arts offered a prize of £SO for the best preparation to catch rats alive; but the only men who could give reliable information held aloof, as the reward was too small to tempt them. Rat-poisons are advertised in plenty; but they are ticklish matters to deal with.—AZZ the Year Round.