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  LONDON LABOUR
  AND THE LONDON POOR

  A Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings

  OF

  THOSE THAT _WILL_ WORK
  THOSE THAT _CANNOT_ WORK, AND
  THOSE THAT _WILL NOT_ WORK

  BY

  HENRY MAYHEW

  THE LONDON STREET-FOLK

  COMPRISING

  STREET SELLERS · STREET BUYERS · STREET FINDERS
  STREET PERFORMERS · STREET ARTIZANS · STREET LABOURERS

  WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

  VOLUME THREE

  First edition                                  1851
  (_Volume One only and parts of Volumes Two and Three_)
  Enlarged edition (Four volumes)             1861-62
  New impression                                 1865

CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME III.

THE STREET-FOLK.

                                                  PAGE
  THE DESTROYERS OF VERMIN                           1
  STREET-EXHIBITORS                                 43
  STREET-MUSICIANS                                 158
  STREET-VOCALISTS                                 190
  STREET-ARTISTS                                   204
  EXHIBITORS OF TRAINED ANIMALS                    214
  SKILLED AND UNSKILLED LABOUR                     221
  GARRET-MASTERS                                   221
  THE COAL-HEAVERS                                 234
  BALLAST-MEN                                      265
  LUMPERS                                          288
  THE DOCK-LABOURERS                               300
  CHEAP LODGING-HOUSES                             312
  THE TRANSIT OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE METROPOLIS  318
  LONDON WATERMEN, LIGHTERMEN, AND STEAMBOAT-MEN   327
  LONDON OMNIBUS-DRIVERS AND CONDUCTORS            336
  LONDON CAB-DRIVERS                               351
  LONDON CARMEN AND PORTERS                        357
  LONDON VAGRANTS                                  368
  MEETING OF TICKET-OF-LEAVE MEN                   430

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

                                                         PAGE
  RAT-KILLING AT SPORTING PUBLIC-HOUSES                     7
  JACK BLACK, RAT-KILLER TO HER MAJESTY                    11
  PUNCH’S SHOWMAN, WITH ASSISTANT                          45
  GUY FAUX                                                 63
  STREET-TELESCOPE EXHIBITOR                               81
  STREET-ACROBATS PERFORMING                               93
  STREET-CONJUROR                                         117
  CIRCUS-CLOWN AT FAIR                                    132
  STREET-PERFORMERS ON STILTS                             150
  OLD SARAH                                               160
  ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS                                    190
  INTERIOR OF PHOTOGRAPHER’S TRAVELLING CARAVAN           207
  A GARRET-MASTER, OR CHEAP CABINET-MAKER                 225
  GANG OF COAL-WHIPPERS AT WORK BELOW BRIDGE              241
  COAL-PORTERS FILLING WAGGONS AT COAL-WHARF              261
  BALLAST-HEAVERS AT WORK IN THE POOL                     279
  LUMPERS DISCHARGING TIMBER-SHIP IN COMMERCIAL DOCK      297
  A DINNER AT A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE                       314
  THAMES LIGHTERMEN TUGGING AWAY AT THE OAR               333
  CAB-DRIVER                                              351
  STREET TICKET-PORTERS WITH KNOT                         364
  VAGRANT IN THE CASUAL WARD OF WORKHOUSE                 387
  VAGRANT, FROM THE REFUGE IN PLAYHOUSE-YARD, CRIPPLEGATE 406
  VAGRANT, FROM ASYLUM FOR THE HOUSELESS POOR             423
  MEETING OF TICKET-OF-LEAVE MEN                          430

  LONDON LABOUR

  AND

  THE LONDON POOR.

  THE DESTROYERS OF VERMIN.

THE RAT-KILLER.

In “the Brill,” or rather in Brill-place, Somers’-town, there is a
variety of courts branching out into Chapel-street, and in one of the
most angular and obscure of these is to be found a perfect nest of
rat-catchers--not altogether professional rat-catchers, but for the
most part sporting mechanics and costermongers. The court is not easily
to be found, being inhabited by men not so well known in the immediate
neighbourhood as perhaps a mile or two away, and only to be discovered
by the aid and direction of the little girl at the neighbouring
cat’s-meat shop.

My first experience of this court was the usual disturbance at the
entrance. I found one end or branch of it filled with a mob of eager
listeners, principally women, all attracted to a particular house by
the sounds of quarrelling. One man gave it as his opinion that the
disturbers must have earned too much money yesterday; and a woman,
speaking to another who had just come out, lifting up both her hands
and laughing, said, “Here they are--_at it_ again!”

The rat-killer whom we were in search of was out at his stall in
Chapel-street when we called, but his wife soon fetched him. He was a
strong, sturdy-looking man, rather above the middle height, with light
hair, ending in sandy whiskers, reaching under his chin, sharp deep-set
eyes, a tight-skinned nose that looked as if the cuticle had been
stretched to its utmost on its bridge. He was dressed in the ordinary
corduroy costermonger habit, having, in addition, a dark blue Guernsey
drawn over his waistcoat.

The man’s first anxiety was to show us that rats were not his only
diversion; and in consequence he took us into the yard of the house,
where in a shed lay a bull-dog, a bull-bitch, and a litter of pups just
a week old. They did not belong to him, but he said he did a good deal
in the way of curing dogs when he could get ’em.

On a shelf in this shed were two large dishes, the one containing
mussels without the shells, and the other eels; these are the
commodities in which he deals at present, so that he is properly what
one would call a “pickled-eel seller.”

We found his room on the first-floor clean and tidy, of a good
size, containing two bedsteads and a large sea-chest, besides an
old-fashioned, rickety, mahogany table, while in a far corner of the
room, perhaps waiting for the cold weather and the winter’s fire, was
an arm-chair. Behind the door hung a couple of dog-leads, made of
strong leather, and ornamented with brass. Against one side of the
wall were two framed engravings of animals, and a sort of chart of
animated nature, while over the mantel-shelf was a variety of most
characteristic articles. Among these appeared a model of a bull-dog’s
head, cut out of sandstone, and painted in imitation of nature--a most
marvellous piece of ugliness. “He was the best dog I ever see,” said
the host, “and when I parted with him for a ten-pound note, a man as
worked in the New Road took and made this model--he was a real beauty,
was that dog. The man as carved that there, didn’t have no difficulty
in holdin’ him still, becos he was very good at that sort o’ thing; and
when he’d looked at anything he couldn’t be off doin’ it.”

There were also a great many common prints about the walls, “a penny
each, frame and all,” amongst which were four dogs--all ratting--a game
cock, two Robinson Crusoes, and three scripture subjects.

There was, besides, a photograph of another favourite dog which he’d
“had give him.”

The man apologised for the bareness of the room, but said, “You see,
master, my brother went over to ’Merica contracting for a railway
under Peto’s, and they sends to me about a year ago, telling me to get
together as many likely fellows as I could (about a dozen), and take
them over as excavators; and when I was ready, to go to Peto’s and get
what money I wanted. But when I’d got the men, sold off all my sticks,
and went for the money, they told me my brother had got plenty, and
that if he wanted me he ought to be ashamed of hisself not to send some
over hisself; so I just got together these few things again, and I
ain’t heard of nothing at all about it since.”

After I had satisfied him that I was not a collector of dog-tax, trying
to find out how many animals he kept, he gave me what he evidently
thought was “a treat”--a peep at his bull-dog, which he fetched from
upstairs, and let it jump about the room with a most unpleasant
liberty, informing me the while how he had given five pound for him,
and that one of the first pups he got by a bull he had got five pounds
for, and that cleared him. “That Punch” (the bull-dog’s name), he
said, “is as quiet as a lamb--wouldn’t hurt nobody; I frequently takes
him through the streets without a lead. Sartainly he killed a cat the
t’other afternoon, but he couldn’t help that, ’cause the cat flew at
him; though he took it as quietly as a man would a woman in a passion,
and only went at her just to save his eyes. But you couldn’t easy get
him off, master, when he once got a holt. He was a good one for rats,
and, he believed, the stanchest and tricksiest dog in London.”

When he had taken the brute upstairs, for which I was not a little
thankful, the man made the following statement:--

“I a’n’t a Londoner. I’ve travelled all about the country. I’m a
native of Iver, in Buckinghamshire. I’ve been three year here at these
lodgings, and five year in London altogether up to last September.

“Before I come to London I was nothink, sir--a labouring man, an
eshkewator. I come to London the same as the rest, to do anythink I
could. I was at work at the eshkewations at King’s Cross Station. I
work as hard as any man in London, I think.

“When the station was finished, I, having a large family, thought
I’d do the best I could, so I went to be foreman at the Caledonian
Sawmills. I stopped there a twelvemonth; but one day I went for a load
and a-half of lime, and where you fetches a load and a-half of lime
they always gives you fourpence. So as I was having a pint of beer out
of it, my master come by and saw me drinking, and give me the sack.
Then he wanted me to ax his pardon, and I might stop; but I told him I
wouldn’t beg no one’s pardon for drinking a pint of beer as was give
me. So I left there.

“Ever since the Great Western was begun, my family has been distributed
all over the country, wherever there was a railway making. My brothers
were contractors for Peto, and I generally worked for my brothers; but
they’ve gone to America, and taken a contract for a railway at St.
John’s, New Brunswick, British North America. I can do anything in the
eshkewating way--I don’t care what it is.

“After I left the Caledonian Sawmills I went to Billingsgate, and
bought anythink I could see a chance of gettin’ a shilling out on, or
to’ards keeping my family.

“All my lifetime I’ve been a-dealing a little in rats; but it was not
till I come to London that I turned my mind fully to that sort of
thing. My father always had a great notion of the same. We all like the
sport. When any on us was in the country, and the farmers wanted us to,
we’d do it. If anybody heerd tell of my being an activish chap like, in
that sort of way, they’d get me to come for a day or so.

“If anybody has a place that’s eaten up with rats, I goes and gets some
ferruts, and takes a dog, if I’ve got one, and manages to kill ’em.
Sometimes I keep my own ferruts, but mostly I borrows them. This young
man that’s with me, he’ll sometimes have an order to go fifty or sixty
mile into the country, and then he buys his ferruts, or gets them the
best way he can. They charges a good sum for the loan of ’em--sometimes
as much as you get for the job.

“You can buy ferruts at Leadenhall-market for 5_s._ or 7_s._--it all
depends; you can’t get them all at one price, some of ’em is real
cowards to what others is; some won’t even kill a rat. The way we tries
’em is, we puts ’em down anywhere, in a room maybe, with a rat, and if
they smell about and won’t go up to it, why they won’t do; ’cause you
see, sometimes the ferrut has to go up a hole, and at the end there may
be a dozen or sixteen rats, and if he hasn’t got the heart to tackle
one on ’em, why he ain’t worth a farden.

“I have kept ferruts for four or five months at a time, but they’re
nasty stinking things. I’ve had them get loose; but, bless you, they
do no harm, they’re as hinnocent as cats; they won’t hurt nothink;
you can play with them like a kitten. Some puts things down to ketch
rats--sorts of pison, which is their secret--but I don’t. I relies upon
my dogs and ferruts, and nothink else.

“I went to destroy a few rats up at Russell-square; there was a shore
come right along, and a few holes--they was swarmed with ’em there--and
didn’t know how it was; but the cleverest men in the world couldn’t
ketch many there, ’cause you see, master, they run down the hole into
the shore, and no dog could get through a rat-hole.

“I couldn’t get my living, though, at that business. If any gentleman
comes to me and says he wants a dog cured, or a few rats destroyed, I
does it.

“In the country they give you fourpence a rat, and you can kill
sometimes as many in a farmyard as you can in London. The most I
ever got for destroying rats was four bob, and then I filled up the
brickwork and made the holes good, and there was no more come.

“I calls myself a coster; some calls theirselves general dealers, but
I doesn’t. I goes to market, and if one thing don’t suit, why I buys
another.

“I don’t know whether you’ve heerd of it, master, or not, but I’m the
man as they say kills rats--that’s to say, I kills ’em like a dog. I’m
almost ashamed to mention it, and I shall never do it any more, but
I’ve killed rats for a wager often. You see it’s only been done like
for a lark; we’ve bin all together daring one another, and trying to
do something as nobody else could. I remember the first time I did it
for a wager, it was up at ----, where they’ve got a pit. There was a
bull-dog a killing rats, so I says,

“‘Oh, that’s a duffin’ dog; any dog could kill quicker than him. I’d
kill again him myself.’

“Well, then they chaffed me, and I warn’t goin’ to be done; so I says,

“‘I’ll kill again that dog for a sov’rin.’

“The sov’rin was staked. I went down to kill eight rats again the dog,
and I beat him. I killed ’em like a dog, with my teeth. I went down
hands and knees and bit ’em. I’ve done it three times for a sov’rin,
and I’ve won each time. I feels very much ashamed of it, though.

“On the hind part of my neck, as you may see, sir, there’s a scar;
that’s where I was bit by one; the rat twisted hisself round and held
on like a vice. It was very bad, sir, for a long time; it festered, and
broke out once or twice, but it’s all right now.”

RATS.

“The rat, though small, weak, and contemptible in its appearance,
possesses properties that render it a more formidable enemy to mankind,
and more injurious to the interests of society, than even those animals
that are endued with the greatest strength and the most rapacious
dispositions. To the one we can oppose united powers and superior arts;
with regard to the other, experience has convinced us that no art can
counteract the effects of its amazing fecundity, and that force is
ineffectually directed against an animal possessed of such variety of
means to elude it.

“There are two kinds of rats known in this country,--the black rat,
which was formerly universal here, but is now very rarely seen, having
been almost extirpated by the large brown kind, which is generally
distinguished by the name of the _Norway rat_.

“This formidable invader is now universally diffused through the whole
country, from whence every method has been tried in vain to exterminate
it. This species is about nine inches long, of a light-brown colour,
mixed with tawny and ash; the throat and belly are of a dirty white,
inclining to grey; its feet are naked, and of a pale flesh-colour;
the tail is as long as the body, covered with minute dusky scales,
thinly interspersed with short hairs. In summer it frequents the banks
of rivers, ponds, and ditches, where it lives on frogs, fishes, and
small animals. But its rapacity is not entirely confined to these. It
destroys rabbits, poultry, young pigeons, &c. It infests the granary,
the barn, and the storehouse; does infinite mischief among corn and
fruit of all kinds; and not content with satisfying its hunger,
frequently carries off large quantities to its hiding-place. It is a
bold and fierce little animal, and when closely pursued, will turn and
fasten on its assailant. Its bite is keen, and the wound it inflicts is
painful and difficult to heal, owing to the form of its teeth, which
are long, sharp, and of an irregular shape.

“The rat is amazingly prolific, usually producing from twelve to
eighteen young ones at one time. Their numbers would soon increase
beyond all power of restraint, were it not for an insatiable appetite,
that impels them to destroy and devour each other. The weaker always
fall a prey to the stronger; and a large male rat, which usually
lives by itself, is dreaded by those of its own species as their most
formidable enemy.

“It is a singular fact in the history of those animals, that the skins
of such of them as have been devoured in their holes have frequently
been found curiously turned inside out, every part being completely
inverted, even to the ends of the toes. How the operation is performed
it would be difficult to ascertain; but it appears to be effected in
some peculiar mode of eating out the contents.

“Besides the numbers that perish in these unnatural conflicts, they
have many fierce and inveterate enemies, that take every occasion to
destroy them. Mankind have contrived various methods of exterminating
these bold intruders. For this purpose traps are often found
ineffectual, such being the sagacity of the animals, that when any
are drawn into the snare, the others by such means learn to avoid the
dangerous allurement, notwithstanding the utmost caution may have
been used to conceal the design. The surest method of killing them
is by poison. Nux vomica ground and mixed with oatmeal, with a small
proportion of oil of rhodium and musk, have been found from experience
to be very effectual.

“The water-rat is somewhat smaller than the Norway rat; its head larger
and its nose thicker; its eyes are small; its ears short; scarcely
appearing through the hair; its teeth are large, strong, and yellow;
the hair on its body thicker and longer than that of the common rat,
and chiefly of a dark brown colour mixed with red; the belly is grey;
the tail five inches long, covered with short black hairs, and the tip
with white.

“The water-rat generally frequents the sides of rivers, ponds, and
ditches, where it burrows and forms its nest. It feeds on frogs, small
fish and spawn, swims and dives remarkably fast, and can continue a
long time under water.”[1]

[1] Bewick’s _History of Quadrupeds_, 1790, 354 _et seq._

In Mr. Charles Fothergill’s _Essay on the Philosophy, Study, and Use of
Natural History_ (1813), we find some reflections which remind us of
Ray and Derham. We shall extract a few paragraphs which relate to the
subject in hand.

“Nothing can afford a finer illustration of the beautiful order and
simplicity of the laws which govern the creation, than the certainty,
precision, and regularity with which the natural checks in the
superabundant increase of each tribe of animals are managed; and
every family is subject to the operation of checks peculiar to the
species--whatever it may be--and established by a wise law of the
Most High, to counteract the fatal effects that might arise from an
ever-active populative principle. It is by the admirable disposition
of these checks, the contemplation of which is alone sufficient to
astonish the loftiest and most comprehensive soul of man, that the
whole system of animal life, in all its various forms, is kept in due
strength and equilibrium.

“This subject is worthy of the naturalist’s most serious consideration.”

“This great law,” Mr. F. proceeds, “pervades and affects the whole
animal creation, and so active, unwearied, and rapid is the principle
of increase over the means of subsistence amongst the inferior animals,
that it is evident whole genera of carnivorous beings amongst beasts,
birds, fish, reptiles, and insects, have been created for the _express
purpose_ (?) of suppressing the redundancy of others, and restraining
their numbers within proper limits.

“But even the natural checks are insufficient to restrain the effects
of a too-rapid populative principle in some animals, which have,
therefore, certain destructive propensities given to them by the
Creator, that operate powerfully upon themselves and their offspring,
as may be particularly observed in the natural history of the _rabbit_,
but which is still more evidently and strikingly displayed in the life
and economy of the _rat_.

“It has been calculated by Mr. Pennant, and there can be no doubt of
the truth of the statement, that the astonishing number of 1,274,840
may be produced from a single pair of rabbits in the short space of
four years, as these animals in their wild state breed seven times in
a-year, and generally produce eight young ones each time. They are
capable of procreation at the age of five or six months, and the doe
carries her burthen no more than thirty days.

“But the principle of increase is much more powerful, active, and
effective in the common grey rat than in any other animal of equal
size. This destructive animal is continually under the _furor_ of
animal love. The female carries her young for one month only; and she
seldom or never produces a less number than twelve, but sometimes as
many as eighteen at a litter--the medium number may be taken for an
average--and the period of gestation, though of such short continuance,
is confined to no particular season of the year.

“The embraces of the male are admitted immediately after the birth
of the vindictive progeny; and it is a fact which I have ascertained
beyond any doubt, that the female suckles her young ones almost to the
very moment when another litter is dropping into the world as their
successors.

“A celebrated Yorkshire rat-catcher whom I have occasionally employed,
one day killed a large female rat, that was in the act of suckling
twelve young ones, which had attained a very considerable growth;
nevertheless, upon opening her swollen body, he found thirteen
quick young, that were within a few days of their birth. Supposing,
therefore, that the rat produces ten litters in the course of a year,
and that no check on their increase should operate destructively for
the space of four years, a number not far short of 3,000,000 might be
produced from a single pair in that time!

“Now, the consequence of such an active and productive principle of
increase, if suffered continually to operate without check, would soon
be fatally obvious. We have heard of fertile plains devastated, and
large towns undermined, in Spain, by rabbits; and even that a military
force from Rome was once requested of the great Augustus to suppress
the astonishing numbers of the same animal overrunning the island of
Majorca and Minorca. This circumstance is recorded by Pliny.

“If, therefore, rats were suffered to multiply without the restraint
of the most powerful and positive natural checks, not only would
fertile plains and rich cities be undermined and destroyed, but the
whole surface of the earth in a very few years would be rendered
a barren and hideous waste, covered with myriads of famished grey
rats, against which man himself would contend in vain. But the same
Almighty Being who perceived a necessity for their existence, has also
restricted their numbers within proper bounds, by creating to them many
very powerful enemies, and still more effectually by establishing a
propensity in themselves, the gratification of which has continually
the effect of lessening their numbers, even more than any of their
foreign enemies.

“The male rat has an insatiable thirst for the blood of his own
offspring; the female, being aware of this passion, hides her young
in such secret places as she supposes likely to escape notice or
discovery, till her progeny are old enough to venture forth and stand
upon their own energies; but, notwithstanding this precaution, the
male rat frequently discovers them, and destroys as many as he can;
nor is the defence of the mother any very effectual protection, since
she herself sometimes falls a victim to her temerity and her maternal
tenderness.

“Besides this propensity to the destruction of their own offspring,
when other food fails them, rats hunt down and prey upon each other
with the most ferocious and desperate avidity, inasmuch as it not
unfrequently happens, in a colony of these destructive animals, that
a single male of more than ordinary powers, after having overcome and
devoured all competitors with the exception of a few females, reigns
the sole bloody and much-dreaded tyrant over a considerable territory,
dwelling by himself in some solitary hole, and never appearing abroad
without spreading terror and dismay even amongst the females whose
embraces he seeks. In this relentless and bloody character may be found
one of the most powerful and positive of the checks which operate to
the repression of this species within proper bounds; a character which
attaches, in a greater or less degree, to the whole _Mus_ genus, and in
which we may readily perceive the cause of the extirpation of the old
black rats of England, _Mus rathus_; for the large grey rats, having
superior bodily powers united to the same carnivorous propensities,
would easily conquer and destroy their black opponents wherever
they could be found, and whenever they met to dispute the title of
possession or of sovereignty.”

When the young rats begin to issue from their holes, the mother
watches, defends, and even fights with the cats, in order to save them.
A large rat is more mischievous than a young cat, and nearly as strong:
the rat uses her fore-teeth, and the cat makes most use of her claws;
so that the latter requires both to be vigorous and accustomed to
fight, in order to destroy her adversary.

The weasel, though smaller, is a much more dangerous and formidable
enemy to the rat, because it can follow it into its retreat. Its
strength being nearly equal to that of the rat, the combat often
continues for a long time, but the method of using their arms by the
opponents is very different. The rat wounds only by repeated strokes
with his fore-teeth, which are better formed for gnawing than biting;
and, being situated at the extremity of the lever or jaw, they have
not much force. But the weasel bites cruelly with the whole jaw, and,
instead of letting go its hold, sucks the blood from the wounded part,
so that the rat is always killed.

A NIGHT AT RAT-KILLING.

Considering the immense number of rats which form an article of
commerce with many of the lower orders, whose business it is to keep
them for the purpose of rat matches, I thought it necessary, for the
full elucidation of my subject, to visit the well-known public-house
in London, where, on a certain night in the week, a pit is built up,
and regular rat-killing matches take place, and where those who have
sporting dogs, and are anxious to test their qualities, can, after such
matches are finished, purchase half a dozen or a dozen rats for them to
practise upon, and judge for themselves of their dogs’ “performances.”

To quote the words printed on the proprietor’s card, “he is always at
his old house at home, as usual, to discuss the FANCY generally.”

I arrived at about eight o’clock at the tavern where the performances
were to take place. I was too early, but there was plenty to occupy my
leisure in looking at the curious scene around me, and taking notes of
the habits and conversation of the customers who were flocking in.

The front of the long bar was crowded with men of every grade of
society, all smoking, drinking, and talking about dogs. Many of them
had brought with them their “fancy” animals, so that a kind of “canine
exhibition” was going on; some carried under their arm small bull-dogs,
whose flat pink noses rubbed against my arm as I passed; others
had Skye-terriers, curled up like balls of hair, and sleeping like
children, as they were nursed by their owners. The only animals that
seemed awake, and under continual excitement, were the little brown
English terriers, who, despite the neat black leathern collars by which
they were held, struggled to get loose, as if they smelt the rats in
the room above, and were impatient to begin the fray.

There is a business-like look about this tavern which at once lets you
into the character of the person who owns it. The drinking seems to
have been a secondary notion in its formation, for it is a low-roofed
room without any of those adornments which are now generally considered
so necessary to render a public-house attractive. The tubs where the
spirits are kept are blistered with the heat of the gas, and so dirty
that the once brilliant gilt hoops are now quite black.

Sleeping on an old hall-chair lay an enormous white bulldog, “a
great beauty,” as I was informed, with a head as round and smooth as
a clenched boxing-glove, and seemingly too large for the body. Its
forehead appeared to protrude in a manner significant of water on the
brain, and almost overhung the short nose, through which the animal
breathed heavily. When this dog, which was the admiration of all
beholders, rose up, its legs were as bowed as a tailor’s, leaving a
peculiar pear-shaped opening between them, which, I was informed, was
one of its points of beauty. It was a white dog, with a sore look, from
its being peculiarly pink round the eyes, nose, and indeed at all the
edges of its body.

On the other side of the fire-place was a white bull-terrier dog, with
a black patch over the eye, which gave him rather a disreputable look.
This animal was watching the movements of the customers in front, and
occasionally, when the entrance-door was swung back, would give a growl
of inquiry as to what the fresh-comer wanted. The proprietor was kind
enough to inform me, as he patted this animal’s ribs, which showed
like the hoops on a butter-firkin, that he considered there had been a
“little of the greyhound in some of his back generations.”

About the walls were hung clusters of black leather collars, adorned
with brass rings and clasps, and pre-eminent was a silver dog-collar,
which, from the conversation of those about me, I learnt was to be the
prize in a rat-match to be “killed for” in a fortnight’s time.

As the visitors poured in, they, at the request of the proprietor “not
to block up the bar,” took their seats in the parlour, and, accompanied
by a waiter, who kept shouting, “Give your orders, gentlemen,” I
entered the room.

I found that, like the bar, no pains had been taken to render the room
attractive to the customers, for, with the exception of the sporting
pictures hung against the dingy paper, it was devoid of all adornment.
Over the fireplace were square glazed boxes, in which were the stuffed
forms of dogs famous in their day. Pre-eminent among the prints was
that representing the “Wonder” Tiny, “five pounds and a half in
weight,” as he appeared killing 200 rats. This engraving had a singular
look, from its having been printed upon a silk handkerchief. Tiny had
been a great favourite with the proprietor, and used to wear a lady’s
bracelet as a collar.

Among the stuffed heads was one of a white bull-dog, with tremendous
glass eyes sticking out, as if it had died of strangulation. The
proprietor’s son was kind enough to explain to me the qualities that
had once belonged to this favourite. “They’ve spoilt her in stuffing,
sir,” he said; “made her so short in the head; but she was the wonder
of her day. There wasn’t a dog in England as would come nigh her.
There’s her daughter,” he added, pointing to another head, something
like that of a seal, “but she wasn’t reckoned half as handsome as her
mother, though she was very much admired in her time.

“That there _is_ a dog,” he continued, pointing to one represented with
a rat in its mouth, “it was as good as any in England, though it’s so
small. I’ve seen her kill a dozen rats almost as big as herself, though
they killed _her_ at last; for sewer-rats are dreadful for giving dogs
canker in the mouth, and she wore herself out with continually killing
them, though we always rinsed her mouth out well with peppermint and
water while she were at work. When rats bite they are pisonous, and
an ulcer is formed, which we are obleeged to lance; that’s what killed
her.”

The company assembled in “the parlour” consisted of sporting men, or
those who, from curiosity, had come to witness what a rat-match was
like. Seated at the same table, talking together, were those dressed
in the costermonger’s suit of corduroy, soldiers with their uniforms
carelessly unbuttoned, coachmen in their livery, and tradesmen who had
slipped on their evening frock-coats, and run out from the shop to see
the sport.

The dogs belonging to the company were standing on the different
tables, or tied to the legs of the forms, or sleeping in their owners’
arms, and were in turn minutely criticised--their limbs being stretched
out as if they were being felt for fractures, and their mouths looked
into, as if a dentist were examining their teeth. Nearly all the
little animals were marked with scars from bites. “Pity to bring him
up to rat-killing,” said one, who had been admiring a fierce-looking
bull-terrier, although he did not mention at the same time what line in
life the little animal ought to pursue.

At another table one man was declaring that his pet animal was the
exact image of the celebrated rat-killing dog “Billy,” at the same time
pointing to the picture against the wall of that famous animal, “as he
performed his wonderful feat of killing 500 rats in five minutes and a
half.”

There were amongst the visitors some French gentlemen, who had
evidently witnessed nothing of the kind before; and whilst they
endeavoured to drink their hot gin and water, they made their
interpreter translate to them the contents of a large placard hung upon
a hatpeg, and headed--

  “EVERY MAN HAS HIS FANCY.

  RATTING SPORTS IN REALITY.”

About nine o’clock the proprietor took the chair in the parlour, at the
same time giving the order to “shut up the shutters in the room above,
and light up the pit.” This announcement seemed to rouse the spirits
of the impatient assembly, and even the dogs tied to the legs of the
tables ran out to the length of their leathern thongs, and their tails
curled like eels, as if they understood the meaning of the words.

“Why, that’s the little champion,” said the proprietor, patting a dog
with thighs like a grasshopper, and whose mouth opened back to its
ears. “Well, it _is_ a beauty! I wish I could gammon you to take a
‘fiver’ for it.” Then looking round the room, he added, “Well, gents,
I’m glad to see you look so comfortable.”

[Illustration: RATTING--“THE GRAHAM ARMS,” GRAHAM STREET.

[_From a Photograph._]]

The performances of the evening were somewhat hurried on by the
entering of a young gentleman, whom the waiters called “Cap’an.”

“Now, Jem, when is this match coming off?” the Captain asked
impatiently; and despite the assurance that they were getting
ready, he threatened to leave the place if kept waiting much longer.
This young officer seemed to be a great “fancier” of dogs, for he
made the round of the room, handling each animal in its turn, feeling
and squeezing its feet, and scrutinising its eyes and limbs with such
minuteness, that the French gentlemen were forced to inquire who he was.

There was no announcement that the room above was ready, though
everybody seemed to understand it; for all rose at once, and
mounting the broad wooden staircase, which led to what was once
the “drawing-room,” dropped their shillings into the hand of the
proprietor, and entered the rat-killing apartment.

“The pit,” as it is called, consists of a small circus, some six feet
in diameter. It is about as large as a centre flower-bed, and is fitted
with a high wooden rim that reaches to elbow height. Over it the
branches of a gas lamp are arranged, which light up the white painted
floor, and every part of the little arena. On one side of the room
is a recess, which the proprietor calls his “private box,” and this
apartment the Captain and his friend soon took possession of, whilst
the audience generally clambered upon the tables and forms, or hung
over the sides of the pit itself.

All the little dogs which the visitors had brought up with them were
now squalling and barking, and struggling in their masters’ arms, as if
they were thoroughly acquainted with the uses of the pit; and when a
rusty wire cage of rats, filled with the dark moving mass, was brought
forward, the noise of the dogs was so great that the proprietor was
obliged to shout out--“Now, you that have dogs _do_ make ’em shut up.”

The Captain was the first to jump into the pit. A man wanted to sell
him a bull-terrier, spotted like a fancy rabbit, and a dozen of rats
was the consequent order.

The Captain preferred pulling the rats out of the cage himself, laying
hold of them by their tails and jerking them into the arena. He was
cautioned by one of the men not to let them bite him, for “believe me,”
were the words, “you’ll never forget, Cap’an; these ’ere are none of
the cleanest.”

Whilst the rats were being counted out, some of those that had been
taken from the cage ran about the painted floor and climbed up the
young officer’s legs, making him shake them off and exclaim, “Get out,
you varmint!” whilst others of the ugly little animals sat upon their
hind legs, cleaning their faces with their paws.

When the dog in question was brought forth and shown the dozen rats, he
grew excited, and stretched himself in his owner’s arms, whilst all the
other animals joined in a full chorus of whining.

“Chuck him in,” said the Captain, and over went the dog; and in a
second the rats were running round the circus, or trying to hide
themselves between the small openings in the boards round the pit.

Although the proprietor of the dog endeavoured to speak up for it, by
declaring “it was a good ’un, and a very pretty performer,” still it
was evidently not worth much in a rat-killing sense; and if it had not
been for his “second,” who beat the sides of the pit with his hand, and
shouted “Hi! hi! at ’em!” in a most bewildering manner, we doubt if
the terrier would not have preferred leaving the rats to themselves,
to enjoy their lives. Some of the rats, when the dog advanced towards
them, sprang up in his face, making him draw back with astonishment.
Others, as he bit them, curled round in his mouth and fastened on his
nose, so that he had to carry them as a cat does its kittens. It also
required many shouts of “Drop it--dead ’un,” before he would leave
those he had killed.

We cannot say whether the dog was eventually bought; but from its
owner’s exclaiming, in a kind of apologetic tone, “Why, he never saw a
rat before in all his life,” we fancy no dealings took place.

The Captain seemed anxious to see as much sport as he could, for he
frequently asked those who carried dogs in their arms whether “his
little ’un would kill,” and appeared sorry when such answers were given
as--“My dog’s mouth’s a little out of order, Cap’an,” or “I’ve only
tried him at very small ’uns.”

One little dog was put in the pit to amuse himself with the dead
bodies. He seized hold of one almost as big as himself, shook it
furiously till the head thumped the floor like a drumstick, making
those around shout with laughter, and causing one man to exclaim, “He’s
a good ’un at shaking heads and tails, ain’t he?”

Preparations now began for the grand match of the evening, in which
fifty rats were to be killed. The “dead ’uns” were gathered up by their
tails and flung into the corner. The floor was swept, and a big flat
basket produced, like those in which chickens are brought to market,
and under whose iron wire top could be seen small mounds of closely
packed rats.

This match seemed to be between the proprietor and his son, and the
stake to be gained was only a bottle of lemonade, of which the father
stipulated he should have first drink.

It was strange to observe the daring manner in which the lad introduced
his hand into the rat cage, sometimes keeping it there for more than a
minute at a time, as he fumbled about and stirred up with his fingers
the living mass, picking out, as he had been requested, “only the big
’uns.”

When the fifty animals had been flung into the pit, they gathered
themselves together into a mound which reached one-third up the sides,
and which reminded one of the heap of hair-sweepings in a barber’s shop
after a heavy day’s cutting. These were all sewer and water-ditch
rats, and the smell that rose from them was like that from a hot drain.

The Captain amused himself by flicking at them with his pocket
handkerchief, and offering them the lighted end of his cigar, which the
little creatures tamely snuffed at, and drew back from, as they singed
their noses.

It was also a favourite amusement to blow on the mound of rats, for
they seemed to dislike the cold wind, which sent them fluttering about
like so many feathers; indeed, whilst the match was going on, whenever
the little animals collected together, and formed a barricade as it
were to the dog, the cry of “Blow on ’em! blow on ’em!” was given by
the spectators, and the dog’s second puffed at them as if extinguishing
a fire, when they would dart off like so many sparks.

The company was kept waiting so long for the match to begin that
the impatient Captain again threatened to leave the house, and was
only quieted by the proprietor’s reply of “My dear friend, be easy,
the boy’s on the stairs with the dog;” and true enough we shortly
heard a wheezing and a screaming in the passage without, as if some
strong-winded animal were being strangled, and presently a boy entered,
carrying in his arms a bull-terrier in a perfect fit of excitement,
foaming at the mouth and stretching its neck forward, so that the
collar which held it back seemed to be cutting its throat in two.

The animal was nearly mad with rage--scratching and struggling to get
loose. “Lay hold a little closer up to the head or he’ll turn round and
nip yer,” said the proprietor to his son.

Whilst the gasping dog was fastened up in a corner to writhe its
impatience away, the landlord made inquiries for a stop-watch, and also
for an umpire to decide, as he added, “whether the rats were dead or
alive when they’re ‘killed,’ as Paddy says.”

When all the arrangements had been made the “second” and the dog jumped
into the pit, and after “letting him see ’em a bit,” the terrier was
let loose.

The moment the dog was “free,” he became quiet in a most business-like
manner, and rushed at the rats, burying his nose in the mound till he
brought out one in his mouth. In a short time a dozen rats with wetted
necks were lying bleeding on the floor, and the white paint of the pit
became grained with blood.

In a little time the terrier had a rat hanging to his nose, which,
despite his tossing, still held on. He dashed up against the sides,
leaving a patch of blood as if a strawberry had been smashed there.

“He doesn’t squeal, that’s one good thing,” said one of the lookers-on.

As the rats fell on their sides after a bite they were collected
together in the centre, where they lay quivering in their death-gasps!

“Hi, Butcher! hi, Butcher!” shouted the second, “good dog!
bur-r-r-r-r-h!” and he beat the sides of the pit like a drum till the
dog flew about with new life.

“Dead ’un! drop it!” he cried, when the terrier “nosed” a rat kicking
on its side, as it slowly expired of its broken neck.

“Time!” said the proprietor, when four of the eight minutes had
expired, and the dog was caught up and held panting, his neck stretched
out like a serpent’s, staring intently at the rats which still kept
crawling about.

The poor little wretches in this brief interval, as if forgetting their
danger, again commenced cleaning themselves, some nibbling the ends of
their tails, others hopping about, going now to the legs of the lad in
the pit, and sniffing at his trousers, or, strange to say, advancing,
smelling, to within a few paces of their enemy the dog.

The dog lost the match, and the proprietor, we presume, honourably paid
the bottle of lemonade to his son. But he was evidently displeased with
the dog’s behaviour, for he said, “He won’t do for me--he’s not one of
my sort! Here, Jim, tell Mr. G. he may have him if he likes; I won’t
give him house room.”

A plentiful shower of halfpence was thrown into the pit as a reward for
the second who had backed the dog.

A slight pause now took place in the proceedings, during which the
landlord requested that the gentlemen “would give their minds up to
drinking; you know the love I have for you,” he added jocularly, “and
that I don’t care for any of you;” whilst the waiter accompanied the
invitation with a cry of “Give your orders, gentlemen,” and the lad
with the rats asked if “any other gentleman would like any rats.”

Several other dogs were tried, and amongst them one who, from the
size of his stomach, had evidently been accustomed to large dinners,
and looked upon rat-killing as a sport and not as a business. The
appearance of this fat animal was greeted with remarks such as “Why
don’t you feed your dog?” and “You shouldn’t give him more than five
meals a-day.”

Another impatient bull-terrier was thrown into the midst of a dozen
rats. He did his duty so well, that the admiration of the spectators
was focussed upon him.

“Ah,” said one, “_he’d_ do better at a hundred than twelve;” whilst
another observed, “Rat-killing’s _his_ game, I can see;” while the
landlord himself said, “He’s a very pretty creetur’, and I’d back him
to kill against anybody’s dog at eight and a half or nine.”

The Captain was so startled with this terrier’s “cleverness,” that he
vowed that if she could kill fifteen in a minute “he’d give a hundred
guineas for her.”

It was nearly twelve o’clock before the evening’s performance
concluded. Several of the spectators tried their dogs upon two or
three rats, either the biggest or the smallest that could be found: and
many offers as to what “he wanted for the dog,” and many inquiries as
to “who was its father,” were made before the company broke up.

At last the landlord, finding that no “gentleman would like a few
rats,” and that his exhortations to “give their minds up to drinking”
produced no further effect upon the company, spoke the epilogue of the
rat tragedies in these words;--

“Gentlemen, I give a very handsome solid silver collar to be killed for
next Tuesday. Open to all the world, only they must be novice dogs, or
at least such as is not considered _phee_nomenons. We shall have plenty
of sport, gentlemen, and there will be loads of rat-killing. I hope to
see all my kind friends, not forgetting your dogs, likewise; and may
they be like the Irishman all over, who had good trouble to catch and
kill ’em, and took good care they didn’t come to life again. Gentlemen,
there is a good parlour down-stairs, where we meets for harmony and
entertainment.”

JIMMY SHAW.

The proprietor of one of the largest sporting public-houses in London,
who is celebrated for the rat-matches which come off weekly at his
establishment, was kind enough to favour me with a few details as
to the quality of those animals which are destroyed in his pit. His
statement was certainly one of the most curious that I have listened
to, and it was given to me with a readiness and a courtesy of manner
such as I have not often met with during my researches. The landlord
himself is known in pugilistic circles as one of the most skilful
boxers among what is termed the “light weights.”

His statement is curious, as a proof of the large trade which is
carried on in these animals, for it would seem that the men who make a
business of catching rats are not always employed as “exterminators,”
for they make a good living as “purveyors” for supplying the demands of
the sporting portion of London.

“The poor people,” said the sporting landlord, “who supply me with
rats, are what you may call barn-door labouring poor, for they are the
most ignorant people I ever come near. Really you would not believe
people could live in such ignorance. Talk about Latin and Greek,
sir, why English is Latin to them--in fact, I have a difficulty to
understand them myself. When the harvest is got in, they go hunting
the hedges and ditches for rats. Once the farmers had to pay 2_d._
a-head for all rats caught on their grounds, and they nailed them up
against the wall. But now that the rat-ketchers can get 3_d._ each by
bringing the vermin up to town, the farmers don’t pay them anything
for what they ketch, but merely give them permission to hunt them in
their stacks and barns, so that they no longer get their 2_d._ in the
country, though they get their 3_d._ in town.

“I have some twenty families depending upon me. From Clavering, in
Essex, I suppose I have hundreds of thousands of rats sent to me in
wire cages fitted into baskets. From Enfield I have a great quantity,
but the ketchers don’t get them all there, but travel round the country
for scores of miles, for you see 3_d._ a-head is money; besides, there
are some liberal farmers who will still give them a halfpenny a-head
into the bargain. Enfield is a kind of head-quarters for rat-ketchers.

“It’s dangerous work, though, for you see there is a wonderful deal of
difference in the specie of rats. The bite of sewer or water-ditch rats
is very bad. The water and ditch rat lives on filth, but your barn-rat
is a plump fellow, and he lives on the best of everything. He’s well
off. There’s as much difference between the barn and sewer-rats as
between a brewer’s horse and a costermonger’s. Sewer-rats are very bad
for dogs, their coats is poisonous.

“Some of the rats that are brought to me are caught in the warehouses
in the City. Wherever there is anything in the shape of provisions,
there you are sure to find Mr. Rat an intruder. The ketchers are paid
for ketching them in the warehouses, and then they are sold to me
as well, so the men must make a good thing of it. Many of the more
courageous kind of warehousemen will take a pleasure in hunting the
rats themselves.

“I should think I buy in the course of the year, on the average, from
300 to 700 rats a-week.” (Taking 500 as the weekly average, this gives
a yearly purchase of 26,000 live rats.) “That’s what I kill taking all
the year round, you see. Some first-class chaps will come here in the
day-time, and they’ll try their dogs. They’ll say, ‘Jimmy, give the dog
100.’ After he’s polished them off they’ll say, perhaps, ‘Hang it, give
him another 100.’ Bless you!” he added, in a kind of whisper, “I’ve
had noble ladies and titled ladies come here to see the sport--on the
quiet, you know. When my wife was here they would come regular, but now
she’s away they don’t come so often.

“The largest quantity of rats I’ve bought from one man was five
guineas’ worth, or thirty-five dozen at 3_d._ a-head, and that’s a
load for a horse. This man comes up from Clavering in a kind of cart,
with a horse that’s a regular phenomena, for it ain’t like a beast nor
nothing. I pays him a good deal of money at times, and I’m sure I can’t
tell what he does with it; but they _do_ tell me that he deals in old
iron, and goes buying it up, though he don’t seem to have much of a
head-piece for that sort of fancy neither.

“During the harvest-time the rats run scarcer you see, and the ketcher
turns up rat-ketching for harvest work. After the harvest rats gets
plentiful again.

“I’ve had as many as 2000 rats in this very house at one time. They’ll
consume a sack of barley-meal a week, and the brutes, if you don’t give
’em good stuff, they’ll eat one another, hang ’em!

“I’m the oldest canine fancier in London, and I’m the first that
started ratting; in fact, I know I’m the oldest caterer in rat-killing
in the metropolis. I began as a lad, and I had many noble friends,
and was as good a man then as I am now. In fact, when I was seventeen
or eighteen years of age I was just like what my boy is now. I used
at that time to be a great public charakter, and had many liberal
friends--very liberal friends. I used to give them rat sports, and I
have kept to it ever since. My boy can handle rats now just as I used
to then.

“Have I been bit by them? Aye, hundreds of times. Now, some people will
say, ‘Rub yourself over with caraway and stuff, and then rats won’t
bite you.’ But I give you my word and honour it’s all nonsense, sir.

“As I said, I was the first in London to give rat sports, and I’ve kept
to it ever since. Bless you, there’s nothing that a rat won’t bite
through. I’ve seen my lads standing in the pit with the rats running
about them, and if they haven’t taken the precaution to tie their
trousers round with a bit of string at the bottom, they’d have as many
as five or six rats run up their trouser-legs. They’ll deliberately
take off their clothes and pick them out from their shirts, and bosoms,
and breeches. Some people is amused, and others is horror-struck.
People have asked them whether they ain’t rubbed? They’ll say ‘Yes,’
but that’s as a lark; ’cos, sometimes when my boy has been taking
the rats out of the cage, and somebody has taken his attention off,
talking to him, he has had a bite, and will turn to me with his finger
bleeding, and say, ‘Yes, I’m rubbed, ain’t I, father? look here!’

“A rat’s bite is very singular, it’s a three-cornered one, like a
leech’s, only deeper, of course, and it will bleed for ever such a
time. My boys have sometimes had their fingers go dreadfully bad from
rat-bites, so that they turn all black and putrid like--aye, as black
as the horse-hair covering to my sofa. People have said to me, ‘You
ought to send the lad to the hospital, and have his finger took off;’
but I’ve always left it to the lads, and they’ve said, ‘Oh, don’t mind
it, father; it’ll get all right by and by.’ And so it has.

“The best thing I ever found for a rat-bite was the thick bottoms
of porter-casks put on as a poultice. The only thing you can do is
to poultice, and these porter bottoms is so powerful and draws so,
that they’ll actually take thorns out of horses’ hoofs and feet after
steeplechasing.

“In handling rats, it’s nothing more in the world but nerve that does
it. I should faint now if a rat was to run up my breeches, but I have
known the time when I’ve been kivered with ’em.

“I generally throw my dead rats away now; but two or three years since
my boys took the idea of skinning them into their heads, and they did
about 300 of them, and their skins was very promising. The boys was,
after all, obliged to give them away to a furrier, for my wife didn’t
like the notion, and I said, ‘Throw them away;’ but the idea strikes me
to be something, and one that is lost sight of, for the skins are warm
and handsome-looking--a beautiful grey.

“There’s nothing turns so quickly as dead rats, so I am obleeged to
have my dustmen come round every Wednesday morning; and regularly
enough they call too, for they know where there is a bob and a pot. I
generally prefers using the authorised dustmen, though the others come
sometimes--the flying dustmen they call ’em--and if they’re first, they
has the job.

“It strikes me, though, that to throw away so many valuable skins is a
good thing lost sight of.

“The rats want a deal of watching, and a deal of sorting. Now you can’t
put a sewer and a barn-rat together, it’s like putting a Roosshian and
a Turk under the same roof.

“I can tell a barn-rat from a ship-rat or a sewer-rat in a minute, and
I have to look over my stock when they come in, or they’d fight to the
death. There’s six or seven different kinds of rats, and if we don’t
sort ’em they tear one another to pieces. I think when I have a number
of rats in the house, that I am a lucky man if I don’t find a dozen
dead when I go up to them in the morning; and when I tell you that at
times--when I’ve wanted to make up my number for a match--I’ve given
21_s._ for twenty rats, you may think I lose something that way every
year. Rats, even now, is occasionally 6_s._ a-dozen; but that, I think,
is most inconsistent.

“If I had my will, I wouldn’t allow sewer ratting, for the rats in the
shores eats up a great quantity of sewer filth and rubbish, and is
another specie of scavenger in their own way.”

After finishing his statement, the landlord showed me some very curious
specimens of tame rats--some piebald, and others quite white, with pink
eyes, which he kept in cages in his sitting-room. He took them out from
their cages, and handled them without the least fear, and even handled
them rather rudely, as he showed me the peculiarities of their colours;
yet the little tame creatures did not once attempt to bite him. Indeed,
they appeared to have lost the notion of regaining their liberty, and
when near their cages struggled to return to their nests.

In one of these boxes a black and a white rat were confined together,
and the proprietor, pointing to them, remarked, “I hope they’ll
breed, for though white rats is very scarce, only occurring in fact by
a freak of nature, I fancy I shall be able, with time and trouble, to
breed ’em myself. The old English rat is a small jet-black rat; but the
first white rat as I heard of come out of a burial-ground. At one time
I bred rats very largely, but now I leaves that fancy to my boys, for
I’ve as much as I can do continuing to serve my worthy patrons.”

JACK BLACK.

[Illustration: JACK BLACK, HER MAJESTY’S RATCATCHER.

[_From a Photograph._]]

As I wished to obtain the best information about rat and vermin
destroying, I thought I could not do better now than apply to that
eminent authority “the Queen’s ratcatcher,” and accordingly I sought an
interview with Mr. “Jack” Black, whose hand-bills are headed--“V.R. Rat
and mole destroyer to Her Majesty.”

I had already had a statement from the royal bug-destroyer relative to
the habits and means of exterminating those offensive vermin, and I was
desirous of pairing it with an account of the personal experience of
the Queen of England’s ratcatcher.

In the sporting world, and among his regular customers, the Queen’s
ratcatcher is better known by the name of Jack Black. He enjoys the
reputation of being the most fearless handler of rats of any man
living, playing with them--as one man expressed it to me--“as if they
were so many blind kittens.”

The first time I ever saw Mr. Black was in the streets of London, at
the corner of Hart-street, where he was exhibiting the rapid effects
of his rat poison, by placing some of it in the mouth of a living
animal. He had a cart then with rats painted on the panels, and at the
tailboard, where he stood lecturing, he had a kind of stage rigged up,
on which were cages filled with rats, and pills, and poison packages.

Here I saw him dip his hand into this cage of rats and take out as many
as he could hold, a feat which generally caused an “oh!” of wonder to
escape from the crowd, especially when they observed that his hands
were unbitten. Women more particularly shuddered when they beheld him
place some half-dozen of the dusty-looking brutes within his shirt next
his skin; and men swore the animals had been tamed, as he let them run
up his arms like squirrels, and the people gathered round beheld them
sitting on his shoulders cleaning their faces with their front-paws, or
rising up on their hind legs like little kangaroos, and sniffing about
his ears and cheeks.

But those who knew Mr. Black better, were well aware that the animals
he took up in his hand were as wild as any of the rats in the sewers of
London, and that the only mystery in the exhibition was that of a man
having courage enough to undertake the work.

I afterwards visited Jack Black at his house in Battersea. I had some
difficulty in discovering his country residence, and was indebted to
a group of children gathered round and staring at the bird-cage in the
window of his cottage for his address. Their exclamations of delight at
a grey parrot climbing with his beak and claws about the zinc wires of
his cage, and the hopping of the little linnets there, in the square
boxes scarcely bigger than a brick, made me glance up at the door to
discover who the bird-fancier was; when painted on a bit of zinc--just
large enough to fit the shaft of a tax cart--I saw the words, “J.
Black, Rat Destroyer to Her Majesty,” surmounted by the royal initials,
V.R., together with the painting of a white rat.

Mr. Black was out “sparrer ketching,” as his wife informed me, for he
had an order for three dozen, “which was to be shot in a match” at some
tea-gardens close by.

When I called again Mr. Black had returned, and I found him kneeling
before a big, rusty iron-wire cage, as large as a sea-chest, and
transferring the sparrows from his bird-catching apparatus to the more
roomy prison.

He transacted a little business before I spoke to him, for the boys
about the door were asking, “Can I have one for a penny, master?”

There is evidently a great art in handling birds; for when Mr. Black
held one, he took hold of it by the wings and tail, so that the little
creature seemed to be sitting upright and had not a feather rumpled,
while it stretched out its neck and looked around it; the boys, on the
contrary, first made them flutter their feathers as rough as a hair
ball, and then half smothered them between their two hands, by holding
them as if they wished to keep them hot.

I was soon at home with Mr. Black. He was a very different man from
what I had expected to meet, for there was an expression of kindliness
in his countenance, a quality which does not exactly agree with one’s
preconceived notions of ratcatchers. His face had a strange appearance,
from his rough, uncombed hair, being nearly grey, and his eyebrows and
whiskers black, so that he looked as if he wore powder.

Mr. Black informed me that the big iron-wire cage, in which the
sparrows were fluttering about, had been constructed by him for rats,
and that it held over a thousand when full--for rats are packed like
cups, he said, one over the other. “But,” he added, “business is bad
for rats, and it makes a splendid havery; besides, sparrers is the rats
of birds, sir, for if you look at ’em in a cage they always huddles up
in a corner like rats in a pit, and they are a’most vermin in colour
and habits, and eats anything.”

The ratcatcher’s parlour was more like a shop than a family apartment.
In a box, with iron bars before it, like a rabbit-hutch, was a white
ferret, twisting its long thin body with a snake-like motion up and
down the length of its prison, as restlessly as if it were a miniature
polar bear.

When Mr. Black called “Polly” to the ferret, it came to the bars and
fixed its pink eyes on him. A child lying on the floor poked its
fingers into the cage, but Polly only smelt at them, and, finding them
not good to eat, went away.

Mr. Black stuffs animals and birds, and also catches fish for vivaria.
Against the walls were the furred and feathered remains of departed
favourites, each in its glazed box and appropriate attitude. There was
a famous polecat--“a first-rater at rats” we were informed. Here a
ferret “that never was equalled.” This canary “had earned pounds.” That
linnet “was the wonder of its day.” The enormous pot-bellied carp, with
the miniature rushes painted at the back of its case, was caught in the
Regent’s Park waters.

In another part of the room hung fishing-lines, and a badger’s skin,
and lead-bobs and curious eel-hooks--the latter as big as the curls on
the temples of a Spanish dancer, and from here Mr. Black took down a
transparent-looking fish, like a slip of parchment, and told me that
it was a fresh-water smelt, and that he caught it in the Thames--“the
first he ever heard of.” Then he showed me a beetle suspended to a
piece of thread, like a big spider to its web, and this he informed me
was the Thames beetle, “which either live by land or water.”

“You ketch ’em,” continued Mr. Black, “when they are swimming on their
backs, which is their nature, and when they turns over you finds ’em
beautifully crossed and marked.”

Round the room were hung paper bags, like those in which housewives
keep their sweet herbs. “All of them there, sir, contain cured fish for
eating,” Mr. Black explained to me.

“I’m called down here the Battersea otter,” he went on, “for I can go
out at four in the morning, and come home by eight with a barrowful of
freshwater fish. Nobody knows how I do it, because I never takes no
nets or lines with me. I assure them I ketch ’em with my hands, which I
do, but they only laughs increderlous like. I knows the fishes’ harnts,
and watches the tides. I sells fresh fish--perch, roach, dace, gudgeon,
and such-like, and even small jack, at threepence a pound, or what
they’ll fetch; and I’ve caught near the Wandsworth ‘Black Sea,’ as we
calls it, half a hundred weight sometimes, and I never took less than
my handkerchey full.”

I was inclined--like the inhabitants of Battersea--to be incredulous of
the ratcatcher’s hand-fishing, until, under a promise of secrecy, he
confided his process to me, and then not only was I perfectly convinced
of its truth, but startled that so simple a method had never before
been taken advantage of.

Later in the day Mr. Black became very communicative. We sat chatting
together in his sanded bird shop, and he told me all his misfortunes,
and how bad luck had pressed upon him, and driven him out of London.

“I was fool enough to take a public-house in Regent-street, sir,” he
said. “My daughter used to dress as the ‘Ratketcher’s Daughter,’ and
serve behind the bar, and that did pretty well for a time; but it was a
brewer’s house, and they ruined me.”

The costume of the “ratketcher’s daughter” was shown to me by her
mother. It was a red velvet bodice, embroidered with silver lace.

“With a muslin skirt, and her hair down her back, she looked wery
genteel,” added the parent.

Mr. Black’s chief complaint was that he could not “make an appearance,”
for his “uniform”--a beautiful green coat and red waistcoat--“were
pledged.”

Whilst giving me his statement, Mr. Black, in proof of his assertions
of the biting powers of rats, drew my attention to the leathern
breeches he wore, “as were given him twelve years ago by Captain B----.”

These were pierced in some places with the teeth of the animals, and
in others were scratched and fringed like the washleather of a street
knife-seller.

His hands, too, and even his face, had scars upon them from bites.

Mr. Black informed me that he had given up tobacco “since a haccident
he met with from a pipe. I was smoking a pipe,” he said, “and a friend
of mine by chance jobbed it into my mouth, and it went right through to
the back of my palate, and I nearly died.”

Here his wife added, “There’s a hole there to this day you could put
your thumb into; you never saw such a mouth.”

Mr. Black informed me in secret that he had often, “unbeknown to his
wife,” tasted what cooked rats were like, and he asserted that they
were as moist as rabbits, and quite as nice.

“If they are shewer-rats,” he continued, “just chase them for two or
three days before you kill them, and they are as good as barn-rats, I
give you my word, sir.”

Mr. Black’s statement was as follows:--

“I should think I’ve been at ratting a’most for five-and-thirty year;
indeed, I may say from my childhood, for I’ve kept at it a’most all my
life. I’ve been dead near three times from bites--as near as a toucher.
I once had the teeth of a rat break in my finger, which was dreadful
bad, and swole, and putrified, so that I had to have the broken bits
pulled out with tweezers. When the bite is a bad one, it festers and
forms a hard core in the ulcer, which is very painful, and throbs very
much indeed; and after that core comes away, unless you cleans ’em out
well, the sores, even after they seemed to be healed, break out over
and over again, and never cure perfectly. This core is as big as a
boiled fish’s eye, and as hard as a stone. I generally cuts the bite
out clean with a lancet, and squeege the humour well from it, and
that’s the only way to cure it thorough--as you see my hands is all
covered with scars from bites.

“The worst bite I ever had was at the Manor House, Hornsey, kept by
Mr. Burnell. One day when I was there, he had some rats get loose, and
he asked me to ketch ’em for him, as they was wanted for a match that
was coming on that afternoon. I had picked up a lot--indeed, I had
one in each hand, and another again my knee, when I happened to come
to a sheaf of straw, which I turned over, and there was a rat there.
I couldn’t lay hold on him ’cause my hands was full, and as I stooped
down he ran up the sleeve of my coat, and bit me on the muscle of the
arm. I shall never forget it. It turned me all of a sudden, and made me
feel numb. In less than half-an-hour I was took so bad I was obleeged
to be sent home, and I had to get some one to drive my cart for me. It
was terrible to see the blood that came from me--I bled awful. Burnell
seeing me go so queer, says, ‘Here, Jack, take some brandy, you look
so awful bad.’ The arm swole, and went as heavy as a ton weight pretty
well, so that I couldn’t even lift it, and so painful I couldn’t bear
my wife to ferment it. I was kept in bed for two months through that
bite at Burnell’s. I was so weak I couldn’t stand, and I was dreadful
feverish--all warmth like. I knew I was going to die, ’cause I remember
the doctor coming and opening my eyes, to see if I was still alive.

“I’ve been bitten nearly everywhere, even where I can’t name to you,
sir, and right through my thumb nail too, which, as you see, always
has a split in it, though it’s years since I was wounded. I suffered
as much from that bite on my thumb as anything. It went right up to my
ear. I felt the pain in both places at once--a regular twinge, like
touching the nerve of a tooth. The thumb went black, and I was told I
ought to have it off; but I knew a young chap at the Middlesex Hospital
who wasn’t out of his time, and he said, ‘No, I wouldn’t, Jack;’ and
no more I did; and he used to strap it up for me. But the worst of it
was, I had a job at Camden Town one afternoon after he had dressed the
wound, and I got another bite lower down on the same thumb, and that
flung me down on my bed, and there I stopped, I should think, six weeks.

“I was bit bad, too, in Edwards-street, Hampstead-road; and that time
I was sick near three months, and close upon dying. Whether it was the
poison of the bite, or the medicine the doctor give me, I can’t say;
but the flesh seemed to swell up like a bladder--regular blowed like.
After all, I think I cured myself by cheating the doctor, as they calls
it; for instead of taking the medicine, I used to go to Mr. ----’s
house in Albany-street (the publican), and he’d say, ‘What’ll yer have,
Jack?’ and I used to take a glass of stout, and that seemed to give me
strength to overcome the pison of the bite, for I began to pick up as
soon as I left off doctor’s stuff.

“When a rat’s bite touches the bone, it makes you faint in a minute,
and it bleeds dreadful--ah, most terrible--just as if you had been
stuck with a penknife. You couldn’t believe the quantity of blood that
come away, sir.

“The first rats I caught was when I was about nine years of age.
I ketched them at Mr. Strickland’s, a large cow-keeper, in Little
Albany-street, Regent’s-park. At that time it was all fields and
meaders in them parts, and I recollect there was a big orchard on one
side of the sheds. I was only doing it for a game, and there was lots
of ladies and gents looking on, and wondering at seeing me taking the
rats out from under a heap of old bricks and wood, where they had
collected theirselves. I had a little dog--a little red ’un it was, who
was well known through the fancy--and I wanted the rats for to test my
dog with, I being a lad what was fond of the sport.

“I wasn’t afraid to handle rats even then; it seemed to come nat’ral to
me. I very soon had some in my pocket, and some in my hands, carrying
them away as fast as I could, and putting them into my wire cage. You
see, the rats began to run as soon as we shifted them bricks, and I had
to scramble for them. Many of them bit me, and, to tell you the truth,
I didn’t know the bites were so many, or I dare say I shouldn’t have
been so venturesome as I was.

“After that I bought some ferruts--four of them--of a man of the name
of Butler, what was in the rat-ketching line, and afterwards went out
to Jamaicer, to kill rats there. I was getting on to ten years of age
then, and I was, I think, the first that regularly began hunting rats
to sterminate them; for all those before me used to do it with drugs,
and perhaps never handled rats in their lives.

“With my ferruts I at first used to go out hunting rats round by
the ponds in Regent’s-park, and the ditches, and in the cow-sheds
roundabout. People never paid me for ketching, though, maybe, if they
was very much infested, they might give me a trifle; but I used to make
my money by selling the rats to gents as was fond of sport, and wanted
them for their little dogs.

“I kept to this till I was thirteen or fourteen year of age, always
using the ferruts; and I bred from them, too,--indeed, I’ve still got
the ‘strain’ (breed) of them same ferruts by me now. I’ve sold them
ferruts about everywhere; to Jim Burn I’ve sold some of the strain;
and to Mr. Anderson, the provision-merchant; and to a man that went to
Ireland. Indeed, that strain of ferruts has gone nearly all over the
world.

“I never lost a ferrut out ratting. I always let them loose, and put a
bell on mine--arranged in a peculiar manner, which is a secret--and I
then puts him into the main run of the rats, and lets him go to work.
But they must be ferruts that’s well trained for working dwellings,
or you’ll lose them as safe as death. I’ve had ’em go away two houses
off, and come back to me. My ferruts is very tame, and so well trained,
that I’d put them into a house and guarantee that they’d come back
to me. In Grosvenor-street I was clearing once, and the ferruts went
next door, and nearly cleared the house--which is the Honourable Mrs.
F----’s--before they came back to me.

“Ferruts are very dangerous to handle if not well trained. They are
very savage, and will attack a man or a child as well as a rat. It
was well known at Mr. Hamilton’s at Hampstead--it’s years ago this
is--there was a ferrut that got loose what killed a child, and was
found sucking it. The bite of ’em is very dangerous--not so pisonous as
a rat’s--but very painful; and when the little things is hungry they’ll
attack anythink. I’ve seen two of them kill a cat, and then they’ll
suck the blood till they fills theirselves, after which they’ll fall
off like leeches.

“The weasel and the stoat are, I think, more dangerous than the ferrut
in their bite. I had a stoat once, which I caught when out ratting
at Hampstead for Mr. Cunningham, the butcher, and it bit one of my
dogs--Black Bess by name, the truest bitch in the world, sir--in the
mouth, and she died three days arterwards at the Ball at Kilburn. I was
along with Captain K----, who’d come out to see the sport, and whilst
we were at dinner, and the poor bitch lying under my chair, my boy
says, says he, ‘Father, Black Bess is dying;’ and had scarce spoke the
speech when she was dead. It was all through the bite of that stoat,
for I opened the wound in the lip, and it was all swole, and dreadful
ulcerated, and all down the throat it was inflamed most shocking, and
so was the lungs quite red and fiery. She was hot with work when she
got the bite, and perhaps that made her take the pison quicker.

“To give you a proof, sir, of the savage nature of the ferruts, I was
one night at Jimmy Shaw’s, where there was a match to come off with
rats, which the ferrut was to kill; and young Bob Shaw (Jim’s son) was
holding the ferrut up to his mouth and giving it spittle, when the
animal seized him by the lip, and bit it right through, and hung on as
tight as a vice, which shows the spitefulness of the ferrut, and how it
will attack the human frame. Young Shaw still held the ferrut in his
hand whilst it was fastened to his lip, and he was saying, ‘Oh, oh!’ in
pain. You see, I think Jim kept it very hard to make it kill the rats
better. There was some noblemen there, and also Mr. George, of Kensal
New-town, was there, which is one of the largest dog-fanciers we have.
To make the ferrut leave go of young Shaw, they bit its feet and tail,
and it wouldn’t, ’cos--as I could have told ’em--it only made it bite
all the more. At last Mr. George, says he to me, ‘For God’s sake, Jack,
take the ferrut off.’ I didn’t like to intrude myself upon the company
before, not being in my own place, and I didn’t know how Jimmy would
take it. Everybody in the room was at a standstill, quite horrerfied,
and Jimmy himself was in a dreadful way for his boy. I went up, and
quietly forced my thumb into his mouth and loosed him, and he killed a
dozen rats after that. They all said, ‘Bravo, Jack, you are a plucked
one;’ and the little chap said, ‘Well, Jack, I didn’t like to holla,
but it was dreadful painful.’ His lip swole up directly as big as a
nigger’s, and the company made a collection for the lad of some dozen
shillings. This shows that, although a ferrut will kill a rat, yet,
like the rat, it is always wicious, and will attack the human frame.

“When I was about fifteen, sir, I turned to bird-fancying. I was
very fond of the sombre linnet. I was very successful in raising
them, and sold them for a deal of money. I’ve got the strain of them
by me now. I’ve ris them from some I purchased from a person in the
Coal-yard, Drury-lane. I give him 2_l._ for one of the periwinkle
strain, but afterwards I heard of a person with, as I thought, a better
strain--Lawson of Holloway--and I went and give him 30_s._ for a bird.
I then ris them. I used to go and ketch the nestlings off the common,
and ris them under the old trained birds.

“Originally linnets was taught to sing by a bird-organ--principally
among the weavers, years ago,--but I used to make the old birds teach
the young ones. I used to molt them off in the dark, by kivering the
cages up, and then they’d learn from hearing the old ones singing, and
would take the song. If any did not sing perfectly I used to sell ’em
as cast-offs.

“The linnet’s is a beautiful song. There are four-and-twenty changes
in a linnet’s song. It’s one of the beautifullest song-birds we’ve
got. It sings ‘toys,’ as we call them; that is, it makes sounds which
we distinguish in the fancy as the ‘tollock eeke eeke quake le wheet;
single eke eke quake wheets, or eek eek quake chowls; eege pipe chowl;
laugh; eege poy chowls; rattle; pipe; fear; pugh and poy.’

“This seems like Greek to you, sir, but it’s the tunes we use in the
fancy. What we terms ‘fear’ is a sound like fear, as if they was
frightened; ‘laugh’ is a kind of shake, nearly the same as the ‘rattle.’

“I know the sounds of all the English birds, and what they say. I could
tell you about the nightingale, the black cap, hedge warbler, garden
warbler, petty chat, red start--a beautiful song-bird--the willow
wren--little warblers they are--linnets, or any of them, for I have
got their sounds in my ear and my mouth.”

As if to prove this, he drew from a side-pocket a couple of tin
bird-whistles, which were attached by a string to a button-hole. He
instantly began to imitate the different birds, commencing with their
call, and then explaining how, when answered to in such a way, they
gave another note, and how, if still responded to, they uttered a
different sound.

In fact, he gave me the whole of the conversation he usually carried
on with the different kinds of birds, each one being as it were in a
different language. He also showed me how he allured them to him, when
they were in the air singing in the distance, and he did this by giving
their entire song. His cheeks and throat seemed to be in constant
motion as he filled the room with his loud imitations of the lark, and
so closely did he resemble the notes of the bird, that it was no longer
any wonder how the little things could be deceived.

In the same manner he illustrated the songs of the nightingale, and
so many birds, that I did not recognise the names of some of them. He
knew all their habits as well as notes, and repeated to me the peculiar
chirp they make on rising from the ground, as well as the sound by
which he distinguishes that it is “uneasy with curiosity,” or that it
has settled on a tree. Indeed, he appeared to be acquainted with all
the chirps which distinguished any action in the bird up to the point
when, as he told me, it “circles about, and then falls like a stone to
the ground with its pitch.”

“The nightingale,” he continued, “is a beautiful song-bird. They’re
plucky birds, too, and they hear a call and answer to anybody; and
when taken in April they’re plucked enough to sing as soon as put in
a cage. I can ketch a nightingale in less than five minutes; as soon
as he calls, I calls to him with my mouth, and he’ll answer me (both
by night or day), either from a spinny (a little copse), a dell, or a
wood, wherever he may be. I make my scrapes, (that is, clear away the
dirt), set my traps, and catch ’em almost before I’ve tried my luck.
I’ve ketched sometimes thirty in a day, for although people have got
a notion that nightingales is scarce, still those who can distinguish
their song in the daytime know that they are plentiful enough--almost
like the lark. You see persons fancy that them nightingales as sings at
night is the only ones living, but it’s wrong, for many on them only
sings in the day.

“You see it was when I was about eighteen, I was beginning to get such
a judge about birds, sir. I sold to a butcher, of the name of Jackson,
the first young un that I made money out of--for two pounds it was--and
I’ve sold loads of ’em since for thirty shillings or two pounds each,
and I’ve got the strain by me now. I’ve also got by me now the bird
that won the match at Mr. Lockwood’s in Drury-lane, and won the return
match at my own place in High-street, Marabun. It was in the presence
of all the fancy. He’s moulted pied (pie-bald) since, and gone a little
white on the head and the back. We only sang for two pounds a side--it
wasn’t a great deal of money. In our matches we sing by both gas and
daylight. He was a master-baker I sang against, but I forget his name.
They do call him ‘Holy Face,’ but that’s a nick-name, because he’s very
much pock-marked. I wouldn’t sell that bird at all for anythink; I’ve
been offered ten pounds for it. Captain K---- put ten sovereigns down
on the counter for him, and I wouldn’t pick ’em up, for I’ve sold lots
of his strain for a pound each.

“When I found I was a master of the birds, then I turned to my rat
business again. I had a little rat dog--a black tan terrier of the
name of Billy--which was the greatest stock dog in London of that day.
He is the father of the greatest portion of the small black tan dogs
in London now, which Mr. Isaac, the bird-fancier in Princes-street,
purchased one of the strain for six or seven pounds; which Jimmy Massey
afterwards purchased another of the strain, for a monkey, a bottle of
wine, and three pounds. That was the rummest bargain I ever made.

“I’ve ris and trained monkeys by shoals. Some of mine is about now in
shows exhibiting; one in particular--Jimmy.

“One of the strain of this little black tan dog would draw a badger
twelve or fourteen lbs. to his six lbs., which was done for a wager,
’cos it was thought the badger had his teeth drawn, but he hadn’t, as
was proved by his biting Mr. P---- from Birmingham, for he took a piece
clean out of his trousers, which was pretty good proof, and astonished
them all in the room.

“I’ve been offered a sovereign a-pound for some of my little terriers,
but it wouldn’t pay me at that price, for they weren’t heavier than two
or three pounds. I once sold one of the dogs, of this same strain, for
fourteen pounds, to the Austrian Ambassador. Mrs. H---- the banker’s
lady, wished to get my strain of terriers, and she give me five pounds
for the use of him; in fact, my terrier dog was known to all the London
fancy. As rat-killing dogs, there’s no equal to that strain of black
tan terriers.

“It’s fifteen year ago since I first worked for Goverment. I found
that the parks was much infested with rats, which had underminded the
bridges and gnawed the drains, and I made application to Mr. Westley,
who was superintendent of the park, and he spoke of it, and then it was
wrote to me that I was to fulfil the siterwation, and I was to have
six pounds a-year. But after that it was altered, and I was to have
so much a-head, which is threepence. After that, Newton, what was a
warmint destroyer to her Majesty, dying, I wrote in to the Board of
Hordnance, when they appointed me to each station in London--that was,
to Regentsey-park-barracks, to the Knightsbridge and Portland-barracks,
and to all the other barracks in the metropolis. I’ve got the letter
now by me, in which they says ‘they is proud to appint me.’

“I’ve taken thirty-two rats out of one hole in the islands
in Regentsey-park, and found in it fish, birds, and loads of
eggs--duck-eggs, and every kind.

“It must be fourteen year since I first went about the streets
exhibiting with rats. I began with a cart and a’most a donkey; for it
was a pony scarce bigger; but I’ve had three or four big horses since
that, and ask anybody, and they’ll tell you I’m noted for my cattle.
I thought that by having a kind of costume, and the rats painted on
the cart, and going round the country, I should get my name about, and
get myself knowed; and so I did, for folks ’ud come to me, so that
sometimes I’ve had four jobs of a-day, from people seeing my cart. I
found I was quite the master of the rat, and could do pretty well what
I liked with him; so I used to go round Finchley, Highgate, and all the
sububs, and show myself, and how I handled the warmint.

“I used to wear a costume of white leather breeches, and a green coat
and scarlet waistkit, and a goold band round my hat, and a belt across
my shoulder. I used to make a first-rate appearance, such as was
becoming the uniform of the Queen’s rat-ketcher.

“Lor’ bless you! I’ve travell’d all over London, and I’ll kill rats
again anybody. I’m open to all the world for any sum, from one pound
to fifty. I used to have my belts painted at first by Mr. Bailey, the
animal painter--with four white rats; but the idea come into my head
that I’d cast the rats in metal, just to make more appearance for
the belt, to come out in the world. I was nights and days at it, and
it give me a deal of bother. I could manage it no how; but by my own
ingenuity and persewerance I succeeded. A man axed me a pound a-piece
for casting the rats--that would ha’ been four pound. I was very
certain that my belt, being a handsome one, would help my business
tremenjous in the sale of my composition. So I took a mould from a dead
rat in plaster, and then I got some of my wife’s sarsepans, and, by
G--, I casted ’em with some of my own pewter-pots.”

The wife, who was standing by, here exclaimed--

“Oh, my poor sarsepans! I remember ’em. There was scarce one left to
cook our wittels with.”

“Thousands of moulders,” continued Jack Black, “used to come to see me
do the casting of the rats, and they kept saying, ‘You’ll never do it,
Jack.’ The great difficulty, you see, was casting the heye--which is a
black bead--into the metal.

“When the belt was done, I had a great success; for, bless you, I
couldn’t go a yard without a crowd after me.

“When I was out with the cart selling my composition, my usual method
was this. I used to put a board across the top, and form a kind of
counter. I always took with me a iron-wire cage--so big a one, that Mr.
Barnet, a Jew, laid a wager that he could get into it, and he did. I
used to form this cage at one end of the cart, and sell my composition
at the other. There were rats painted round the cart--that was the only
show I had about the wehicle. I used to take out the rats, and put them
outside the cage; and used to begin the show by putting rats inside
my shirt next my buzzum, or in my coat and breeches pockets, or on my
shoulder--in fact, all about me, anywhere. The people would stand to
see me take up rats without being bit. I never said much, but I used to
handle the rats in every possible manner, letting ’em run up my arm,
and stroking their backs and playing with ’em. Most of the people used
to fancy they had been tamed on purpose, until they’d see me take fresh
ones from the cage, and play with them in the same manner. I all this
time kept on selling my composition, which my man Joe used to offer
about; and whenever a packet was sold, I always tested its wirtues by
killing a rat with it afore the people’s own eyes.

“I once went to Tottenham to sell my composition, and to exhibit with
my rats afore the country people. Some countrymen, which said they were
rat-ketchers, came up to me whilst I was playing with some rats, and
said--‘Ugh, you’re not a rat-ketcher; that’s not the way to do it.’
They were startled at seeing me selling the pison at such a rate, for
the shilling packets was going uncommon well, sir. I said, ‘No, I ain’t
a rat-ketcher, and don’t know nothink about it. You come up and show me
how to do it.’ One of them come up on the cart, and put his hand in the
cage, and curous enough he got three bites directly, and afore he could
take his hands out they was nearly bit to ribands. My man Joe, says
he, ‘I tell you, if we ain’t rat-ketchers, who is? We are the regular
rat-ketchers; my master kills ’em, and then I eats ’em’--and he takes
up a live one and puts its head into his mouth, and I puts my hand in
the cage and pulls out six or seven in a cluster, and holds ’em up in
the air, without even a bite. The countrymen bust out laughing; and
they said, ‘Well, you’re the best we ever see.’ I sold near 4_l._ worth
of composition that day.

“Another day, when I’d been out flying pigeons as well--carriers,
which I fancies to--I drove the cart, after selling the composition,
to the King’s Arms, Hanwell, and there was a feller there--a tailor
by trade--what had turned rat-ketcher. He had got with him some fifty
or sixty rats--the miserablest mangey brutes you ever seed in a
tub--taking ’em up to London to sell. I, hearing of it, was determined
to have a lark, so I goes up and takes out ten of them rats, and puts
them inside my shirt, next my buzzum, and then I walks into the parlour
and sits down, and begins drinking my ale as right as if nothink had
happened. I scarce had seated myself, when the landlord--who was in the
lay--says, ‘I know a man who’ll ketch rats quicker than anybody in the
world.’ This put the tailor chap up, so he offers to bet half-a-gallon
of ale he would, and I takes him. He goes to the tub and brings out a
very large rat, and walks with it into the room to show to the company.
‘Well,’ says I to the man, ‘why I, who ain’t a rat-ketcher, I’ve got
a bigger one here,’ and I pulls one out from my buzzum. ‘And here’s
another, and another, and another,’ says I, till I had placed the whole
ten on the table. ‘That’s the way I ketch ’em,’ says I,--‘they comes
of their own accord to me.’ He tried to handle the warmints, but the
poor fellow was bit, and his hands was soon bleeding fur’ously, and
I without a mark. A gentleman as knowed me said, ‘This must be the
Queen’s rat-ketcher,’ and that spilt the fun. The poor fellow seemed
regular done up, and said, ‘I shall give up rat-ketching, you’ve beat
me! Here I’ve been travelling with rats all my life, and I never see
such a thing afore.’

“When I’ve been in a mind for travelling I’ve never sold less than ten
shillings’ worth of my composition, and I’ve many a time sold five
pounds’ worth. Ten shillings’ worth was the least I ever sold. During
my younger career, if I’d had a backer, I might, one week with another,
have made my clear three pounds a-week, after paying all my expenses
and feeding my horse and all.

“I challenge my composition, and sell the art of rat-destroying,
against any chemical rat-destroyer in the world, for any sum--I don’t
care what it is. Let anybody, either a medical or druggist manufacturer
of composition, come and test with rats again me, and they’ll pretty
soon find it out. People pay for composition instead of employing
the Queen’s rat-ketcher, what kills the warmint and lays down his
composition for nothink into the bargain likewise.

“I also destroy black beedles with a composition which I always keep
with me again it’s wanted. I often have to destroy the beedles in
wine-cellars, which gnaw the paper off the bottles, such as is round
the champagne and French wine bottles. I’ve killed lots of beedles
too for bakers. I’ve also sterminated some thousands of beedles for
linen-drapers and pork-sassage shops. There’s two kinds of beedles, the
hard-shell and the soft-shell beedle. The hard-shell one is the worst,
and that will gnaw cork, paper, and anythink woollen. The soft-shell’d
one will gnaw bread or food, and it also lays its eggs in the food,
which is dreadful nasty.

“There’s the house ant too, which there is some thousands of people
as never saw--I sterminate them as well. There’s a Mrs. B. at the
William the Fourth public-house, Hampstead; she couldn’t lay her
child’s clothes down without getting ’em full of ants. They’ve got a
sting something in feel like a horse-fly’s, and is more annoying than
dangerous. It’s cockroaches that are found in houses. They’re dreadful
nasty things, and will bite, and they are equal to the Spanish flies
for blistering. I’ve tried all insects on my flesh to see how they
bite me. Cockroaches will undermine similar to the ant, and loosen the
bricks the same as the cricket. It’s astonishing how so small an insect
as them will scrape away such a quantity of mortar as they do--which
thing infests grates, floorings, and such-like.

“The beedle is a most ’strordinary thing, which will puzzle most people
to sterminate, for they lays sitch a lot of eggs as I would never
guarantee to do away with beedles--only to keep them clear; for if you
kills the old ones the eggs will rewive, and young ones come out of the
wainskitting and sitch-like, and then your employers will say, ‘Why you
were paid for sterminating, and yet here they are.’

“One night in August--the night of a very heavy storm, which, maybe,
you may remember, sir--I was sent for by a medical gent as lived
opposite the Load of Hay, Hampstead, whose two children had been
attacked by rats while they was sleeping in their little cots. I traced
the blood, which had left lines from their tails, through the openings
in the lath and plaster, which I follered to where my ferruts come out
of, and they must have come up from the bottom of the house to the
attics. The rats gnawed the hands and feet of the little children.
The lady heard them crying, and got out of her bed and called to the
servant to know what the child was making such a noise for, when they
struck a light, and then they see the rats running away to the holes;
their little night-gownds was kivered with blood, as if their throats
had been cut. I asked the lady to give me one of the night-gownds to
keep as a cur’osity, for I considered it a _phee_nomenon, and she give
it to me, but I never was so vexed in all my life as when I was told
the next day that a maid had washed it. I went down the next morning
and sterminated them rats. I found they was of the specie of rat
which we term the blood-rat, which is a dreadful spiteful feller--a
snake-headed rat, and infests the dwellings. There may have been some
dozens of ’em altogether, but it’s so long ago I a’most forget how many
I took in that house. The gent behaved uncommon handsome, and said,
‘Mr. Black, I can never pay you for this;’ and ever arterwards, when
I used to pass by that there house, the little dears when they see me
used to call out to their mamma, ‘O, here’s Mr. Ratty, ma!’ They were
very pretty little fine children--uncommon handsome, to be sure.

“I once went to Mr. Hollins’s, in Edward-street Regent’s-park--a
cow-keeper he was--where he was so infested that the cows could not
lay down or eat their food, for the rats used to go into the manger,
and fight at ’em. Mr. Hollins said to me, ‘Black, what shall I give
you to get rid of them rats?’ and I said to him, says I, ‘Well, Mr.
Hollins, you’re a poor man, and I leave it to you.’ (He’s got awful
rich since then.) I went to work, and I actually took out 300 rats from
one hole in the wall, which I had to carry them in my mouth and hands,
and under my arms, and in my buzzum and pockets, to take them to the
cage. I was bit dreadful by them, and suffered greatly by the bites;
but nothink to lay up for, though very painful to the hands. To pervent
the rats from getting out of the hole, I had to stop it up by putting
my breast again it, and then they was jumping up again me and gnawing
at my waistkit. I should think I sterminated 500 from them premises.
Ah! I did wonders round there, and everybody was talking of my feats.

“I’ll tell you about another cow-keeper’s, which Mr. Hollins was so
gratified with my skill what I had done, that he pays me handsome
and generous, and gives me a recommendation to Mrs. Brown’s, of
Camden-town, and there I sterminated above 700 rats; and I was a-near
being killed, for I was stooping down under the manger, when a cow
heerd the rats squeak, and she butts at me and sends me up again the
bull. The bull was very savage, and I fainted; but I was picked up and
washed, and then I come to.

“Whilst doing that job at Mrs. Brown’s I had to lie down on the ground,
and push my naked arm into the hole till I could reach the rats as I’d
driven up in the corner, and then pull them out with my hand. I was
dreadful bit, for I was obleeged to handle them anyhow; my flesh was
cut to ribands and dreadful lacerated.

“There was a man Mrs. Brown had got of the name of John, and he
wouldn’t believe about the rats, and half thought I brought ’em with
me. So I showed him how to ketch rats.

“You see rats have always got a main run, and from it go the branch
runs on each side like on a herring-bone, and at the end of the branch
runs is the bolt-holes, for coming in and out at. I instantly stopped
up all the bolt-holes and worked the rats down to the end of the main
run, then I broke up the branch runs and stopped the rats getting back,
and then, when I’d got ’em all together at the end of the main run, I
put my arm down and lifted them up. I have had at times to put half my
body into a hole and thrust down my arm just like getting rabbits out
of their burrers.

“Sometimes I have to go myself into the holes, for the rats make
such big ones, there’s plenty of room. There was a Mrs. Perry in
Albany-street, that kept an oil and coke shop--she were infested with
rats dreadful. Three of her shop-boys had been sent away on suspicion
of stealing fat, instead of which it was the rats, for between the
walls and the vault I found a hundred and a half of fat stowed away.
The rats was very savage, and I should think there was 200 of them. I
made a good bit of money by that job, for Mrs. Perry give the fat to me.

“I have had some good finds at times, rat-hunting. I found under one
floor in a gent’s house a great quantity of table napkins and silver
spoons and forks, which the rats had carried away for the grease on
’em--shoes and boots gnawed to pieces, shifts, aprons, gownds, pieces
of silk, and I don’t know what not. Sarvants had been discharged
accused of stealing them there things. Of course I had to give them up;
but there they was.

“I was once induced to go to a mews in Tavistock-place, near
Russell-square, which was reg’lar infested by rats. They had sent to a
man before, and he couldn’t do nothink with ’em, but I soon sterminated
them. The rats there had worried a pair of beautiful chestnut horses,
by gnawing away their hoofs and nearly driving them mad, which I saw
myself, and there was all their teeth-marks, for I could scarcely
believe it myself till I see it. I found them near a cart-load of
common bricks, under the floor, and near the partition of the stable,
which, when the men pulled the wood-work down, the coachman, says he,
‘Well, rat-ketcher, if you’d been employed years ago a deal more corn
would have gone into the horses.’

“This coachman give me a recommendation to a muffin-maker in
Hanway-yard, and I went there and killed the rats. But a most sing’lar
thing took place there; my ferret got away and run through into a house
in Oxford-street kept by a linen-draper, for the young men come to say
that the rat-ketcher’s ferret was in their shop, and had bit one of
their lady customers. I worked the ferrut through three times to make
sure of this; and each time my little dog told me it was true. You see
a well-trained dog will watch and stand and point to the ferrut working
under ground just as a pinter does to game; and although he’s above
ground, yet he’ll track the ferrut through the runs underneath by the
smell. If the ferrut is lost--which I tell by the dog being uneasy--I
say to the dog, ‘Hi, lost;’ and then he instantly goes on scent, and
smells about in every direction, and I follers him, till he stands
exactly over the spot where it may be, and then I have either to rise a
stone or lift a board to get him out.

“I’ve ratted for years for Mr. Hodges, of Hodges and Lowman’s,
in Regent-street; and he once said to me, that he was infested
dreadful with rats at the house, which he took for the children, at
Hampstead; so I went there, and witnessed, certainly, the most cur’ous
circumstance, which puzzles me to this day. I had to lay on my belly
half in the hole and pull out the rats; and, on looking at them, as I
brings them up, I am astonished to find that nearly every one of them
is blind, and has a speck in the eye. I was never so much astonished
in my life, for they was as a wall-eyed dog might be. I supposed it to
be from lightning (I couldn’t account for it no other ways), for at
that time there was very heavy lightning and floods up there, which
maybe you might remember, sir. They was chiefly of the blood-rat
specie--small snake-headed rats, with a big, fine tail. They was very
savage with me, and I had them run all over me before I ketched them.

“Rats are everywhere about London, both in rich and poor places. I’ve
ketched rats in 44 Portland-place, at a clergyman’s house there. There
was 200 and odd. They had underminded the oven so, that they could
neither bile nor bake; they had under-pinioned the stables, and let
every stone down throughout the premises, pretty well. I had to crawl
under a big leaden cistern which the rats had under-pinioned, and I
expected it would come down upon me every minute. I had one little
ferrut kill thirty-two rats under one stone, and I lifted the dead ones
up in the presence of the cook and the butler. He didn’t behave well to
me--the gent didn’t--for I had to go to my lawyer’s afore I could get
paid, and after the use of my skill; and I had to tell the lawyer I’d
pawn my bed to stick to him and get my earnings; but, after all, I had
to take one-third less than my bill. This, thinks I, isn’t the right
thing for Portland-place.

“Rats will eat each other like rabbits, which I’ve watched them, and
seen them turn the dead one’s skins out like pusses, and eat the flesh
off beautiful clean. I’ve got cages of iron-wire, which I made myself,
which will hold 1000 rats at a time, and I’ve had these cages piled
up with rats, solid like. No one would ever believe it; to look at a
quantity of rats, and see how they will fight and tear one another
about,--it’s astonishing, so it is! I never found any rats smothered,
by putting them in a cage so full; but if you don’t feed them every
day, they’ll fight and eat one another--they will, like cannibals.

“I general contracts with my customers, by the year, or month, or job.
There’s some gents I’ve worked for these fifteen years--sitch as Mr.
Robson, the coach-builder, Mivart’s Hotel, Shoulbreds’, Mr. Lloyds, the
large tobacconist, the Commercial Life Assurance, Lord Duncannon’s, and
I can’t recollect how many more. My terms is from one guinea to five
pounds per annum, according to the premises. Besides this, I have all
the rats that I ketch, and they sell for threepence each. But I’ve done
my work too well, and wherever I went I’ve cleared the rats right out,
and so my customers have fell off. I have got the best testimonials of
any man in London, and I could get a hatful more to-morrer. Ask anybody
I’ve worked for, and they’ll tell you about Jack Black.

“One night I had two hundred rats in a cage, placed in my
sitting-room, and a gent’s dog happened to get at the cage, and undid
the door, snuffing about, and let ’em all loose. Directly I come in I
knew they was loose by the smell. I had to go on my knees and stomach
under the beds and sofas, and all over the house, and before twelve
o’clock that night I had got ’em all back again into the cage, and
sold them after for a match. I was so fearful they’d get gnawing the
children, having sterminated them in a house where children had been
gnawed.

“I’ve turned my attention to everything connected with animals. I’ve
got the best composition for curing the mange in a horse or a dog,
which has reg’lar astonished medical gents. I’ve also been bit by
a mad dog--a black retriever dog, that died raving mad in a cellar
afterwards. The only thing I did was, I washed the wound with salt and
water, and used a turpentine poultice.”

Mrs. Black here interposed, exclaiming,--

“O dear me! the salt and water he’s had to his flesh, it ought to be as
hard as iron. I’ve seen him put lumps of salt into his wounds.”

Mr. Black then continued:--

“I never had any uneasiness from that bite of a mad dog; indeed, I
never troubled myself about it, or even thought of it.

“I’ve caught some other things besides rats in my time. One night, I
saw a little South African cat going along the New-road. I thought it
was a cur’ous specie of rat, and chased it, and brought it home with
me; but it proved to belong to Mr. Herring’s menagerie in the New-road,
so I let him have it back again.

“Another time I met with two racoons, which I found could handle
me just as well as I could handle a rat, for they did bite and
scratch awful. I put ’em in the cart, and brought them home in a
basket. I never found out to whom _they_ belonged. I got them in
Ratcliffe-highway, and no doubt some sailors had brought them over, and
got drunk, and let ’em loose. I tried them at killing rats, but they
weren’t no good at that.

“I’ve learnt a monkey to kill rats, but he wouldn’t do much, and only
give them a good shaking when they bit him. After I found the racoons
no good, I trained a badger to kill rats, and he was superior to any
dog, but very difficult in training to get him to kill, though they’ll
kill rabbits fast enough, or any other kind of game, for they’re rare
poachers are badgers. I used to call her Polly. She killed in my own
pit, for I used to obleege my friends that wouldn’t believe it possible
with the sight. She won several matches--the largest was in a hundred
match.

“I also sterminate moles for her Majesty, and the Woods and Forests,
and I’ve sterminated some hundreds for different farmers in the
country. It’s a cur’ous thing, but a mole will kill a rat and eat it
afterwards, and two moles will fight wonderful. They’ve got a mouth
exactly like a shark, and teeth like saws; ah, a wonderful saw mouth.
They’re a very sharp-biting little animal, and very painful. A rat is
frightened of one, and don’t like fighting them at all.

“I’ve bred the finest collection of pied rats which has ever been
knowed in the world. I had above eleven hundred of them--all wariegated
rats, and of a different specie and colour, and all of them in
the first instance bred from the Norwegian and the white rat, and
afterwards crossed with other specie.

“I have ris some of the largest tailed rats ever seen. I’ve sent them
to all parts of the globe, and near every town in England. When I sold
’em off, three hundred of them went to France. I ketched the first
white rat I had at Hampstead; and the black ones at Messrs. Hodges and
Lowman’s, in Regent-street, and them I bred in. I have ’em fawn and
white, black and white, brown and white, red and white, blue-black and
white, black-white and red.

“People come from all parts of London to see them rats, and I supplied
near all the ‘happy families’ with them. Burke, who had the ‘happy
family’ showing about London, has had hundreds from me. They got very
tame, and you could do anythink with them. I’ve sold many to ladies
for keeping in squirrel cages. Years ago I sold ’em for five and ten
shillings a-piece, but towards the end of my breeding them, I let ’em
go for two-and-six. At a shop in Leicester-square, where Cantello’s
hatching-eggs machine was, I sold a sow and six young ones for ten
shillings, which formerly I have had five pounds for, being so docile,
like a sow sucking her pigs.”

THE SEWERMAN.

He is a broad-shouldered, strongly-built man, with a stoop in his
shoulders, and a rather dull cast of features; from living so much in
the “shores” (sewers), his eyes have assumed a _peering_ kind of look,
that is quite rat-like in its furtiveness.

He answered our questions with great good humour, but in short
monosyllabic terms, peculiar to men who have little communion with
their fellows.

The “parlour” in which the man lives was literally swarming with
children when we paid him a visit (they were not all “belonging” to
him). Nor was it quite pleasant to find that the smell of the tea,
which had just been made, was overpowered by the odour of the rats
which he keeps in the same room.

The week’s wash was hanging across the apartment, and gave rather a
slovenly aspect to the room, not otherwise peculiar for its untidyness;
against the wall were pasted some children’s “characters,” which his
second son, who is at the coal-shed, has a taste for, and which, as
the “shoreman” observed, “is better than sweet-stuff for him, at all
events.”

A little terrier was jumping playfully about the room, a much more
acceptable companion than the bull-dog whose acquaintance we had been
invited to make (in the same court) by the “rat-killer.”

The furniture and appointments of the “parlour” were extremely
humble--not to say meagre in their character. After some trouble in
getting sufficiently lucid answers, the following was the result:--

“There are not so many rats about as there used to be--not a
five-hundredth part so many. I’ve seen long ago twenty or thirty in a
row near where the slaughter-houses are, and that like. I ketch them
all down the shores. I run after them and pick them up with my hand,
and I take my lantern with me.

“I have caught rats these six or seven years. When the money got to be
lowered, I took to ketching on them. One time I used to take a dog with
me, when I worked down St. John’s-wood way.

“They fetches all prices, does rats; some I get threepence a-piece for,
some twopence, some twopence-halfpenny--’cordin’ who has ’em.

“I works on the shores, and our time to leave off is four. I comes
home and gets my tea, and if there’s sale for them, why I goes out and
ketches a few rats. When I goes out I can ketch a dozen; but, years
ago, I could ketch two or three dozen without going so far, and that
shows there’s not so many now about.

“I finds some difficulty in ketching on them. If they gets into the
drain you can’t get ’em. Where the drains lay low to the shore it’s
most difficult, but where the drain is about two feet and a-half from
the shore you gets a better chance.

“Three or four dozen I used to ketch, but I haven’t ketched any this
last two or three weeks. In this hot weather people don’t like to be in
a room where ‘killing’ is going on; but in the winter time a man will
have his pint of beer and see a little sport that way. Three or four
year ago I did ketch a good many; there was a sale for ’em. I could go
and ketch two dozen in three hours, and that sooner than I can do a
dozen now. It’s varmint as wants to be destroyed.

“Rats’ll turn round when they finds theirselves beat, and sometimes
fly at your hand. Sometimes I’ve got bit--not very badly, though. To
tell the truth, I don’t like it. When they grip, they do holt so tight
before they’ll let go.

“I’ve been a shoreman these fifteen or sixteen year, ever since this
flushing commenced. I was put on by the Commissioners in Hatting
Garding; but the Commissioners is all done away with since Government
took to it. I’m employed by the parish now. Every parish has to do its
own flushing.

“We cleanses away all the soil what’s down below, and keeps the shore
as sweet as what we possibly can.

“Before I took to this life I was what they call a navvy; I used to
help to _make_ the shores, and before that, I was in the country at
farmers’ work.

“Ketching them rats ain’t all profit, ’cause you have to keep ’em and
feed ’em. I’ve some here, if I was to get sixpence a-piece for, why it
wouldn’t pay me for their feed. I give them barley generally, and bits
of bread.

“There’s a many about now ketchin’ who does nothink else, and who goes
down in the shores when they have no business there at all. They does
well by rats when they’ve good call for ’em. They can go down two or
three times a-day, and ketch a dozen and a half a time; but they can’t
do much now, there’s no killing going on. They takes ’em to beer-shops,
and sells ’em to the landlords, who gets their own price for ’em if
there’s a pit.

“Time ago you couldn’t get a rat under sixpence. But the tax on dogs
has done away wonderful with rat-killing. London would swarm with rats
if they hadn’t been ketched as they has been. I can go along shores and
only see one or two now, sometimes see none. Times ago I’ve drove away
twenty or thirty afore me. Round Newport-market I’ve seen a hundred
together, and now I go round there and perhaps won’t ketch one.

“As for poisonin’ ’em under buildings, that’s wrong; they’re sure to
lay there and rot, and then they smells so. No, pisoning a’n’t no good,
specially where there’s many on ’em.

“I’ve sold Jack Black a good many. He don’t ketch so many as he gets
killed. He’s what they call rat-ketcher to her Majesty.

“When I goes rat ketching, I generally takes a bag with me; a trap is
too much to lug about.

“Some parts of the shores I can find my way about better than I can
up above. I could get in nigh here and come out at High Park; only
the worst of it is, you’re always on the stoop. I never heerd talk of
anybody losing theirselves in the shores, but a stranger might.

“There’s some what we calls ‘gully-hunters’ as goes about with a sieve,
and near the gratings find perhaps a few ha’pence. Years ago we used
to find a little now and then, but we may go about now and not find
twopence in a week. I don’t think any shoreman ever finds much. But
years ago, in the city, perhaps a robbery might be committed, and then
they might be afraid of being found out, and chuck the things down the
drains.

“I come from Oxfordshire, about four miles from Henley-’pon-Thames. I
haven’t got now quite so many clods to tramp over, nor so many hills to
climb.

“I gets two shillings a-dozen if I sells the rats to a dealer, but if
I takes ’em to the pit myself I gets three shillings. Rats has come
down lately. There’s more pits, and they kills ’em cheaper; they used
to kill ’em at six shillings a-dozen.

“I’ve got five children. These here are not all belonging to me. Their
mother’s gone out a-nussing, and my wife’s got to mind ’em.

“My oldest son is sixteen. He’s off for a sailor. I had him on me for
two years doin’ nothink. He couldn’t get a place, and towards the
last he didn’t care about it. He _would_ go to sea; so he went to the
Marine School, and now he’s in the East Ingy Sarvice. My second is at a
coal-shed. He gets three shillings a-week; but, Lord, what’s that? He
eats more than that, let alone clothes, and he wears out such a lot of
shoe-leather. There’s a good deal of wear and tear, I can tell yer, in
carrying out coals and such-like.”

THE PENNY MOUSE-TRAP MAKER.

This man lived in a small cottage at the back of Bethnal Green-road,
and the little railed space in front of the humble dwelling was
littered with sundry evidences of the inmate’s ingenuity. Here was
a mechanical carriage the crippled father had made to drive himself
along, and a large thaumatrope, or disc of painted figures, that seemed
to move while revolving rapidly before the eye; and this, I afterwards
learnt, the ingenious cripple had made, as a street exhibition, for a
poor man, whom he was anxious to put in the way of doing something for
himself.

The principal apartment in the little two-roomed house was blocked up
with carpenters’ benches, and long planks were resting against the
wall, while the walls themselves were partly covered with tools and
patterns of the craft pursued; and in one corner there were heaps of
the penny mouse-traps and penny money-boxes, that formed the main
articles of manufacture.

In a little room adjoining this, and about the size of a hen-house, I
found the cripple himself in bed, but still sitting up with a small
desk-like bench before him, and engaged in the act of cutting and
arranging the wires for the little wooden traps in which he dealt. And
as I sat by his bedside he told me the following story:--

“I am,” he said, “a white-wood toy-maker, in a small way; that is, I
make a variety of cheap articles,--nothing beyond a penny,--in sawed
and planed pine-wood. I manufacture penny and halfpenny money-boxes,
penny and halfpenny toy bellows, penny carts, penny garden-rollers,
penny and halfpenny dolls’ tables and washhand-stands, chiefly for
baby-houses; penny dressers, with drawers, for the same purpose; penny
wheelbarrows and bedsteads; penny crossbows; and the mouse-trap that I
am about now. I make all the things I have named for warehouses--for
what are called the cheap Birmingham and Sheffield houses. I am
paid the same price for whatever I make, with the exception of the
mouse-trap. For the principal part of the penny articles that I make
I get 7_s._ for twelve dozen, that is 7_d._ a-dozen; and for the
halfpenny articles I get 3_s._ 6_d._, at the rate of 3-1/2_d._ a-dozen.
For the penny mouse-traps, however, I am paid only 1_l._ for thirty-six
dozen, and that’s a shilling less than I get for the same quantity of
the other shilling articles; whilst for the penny boxes I’m paid only
at the rate of a halfpenny each.

“You will please to look at that, sir,” he said, handing me his
account-book with one of his employers for the last year; “you will
see there that what I am saying is perfectly correct, for there is the
price put to every article; and it is but right that you should have
proof that what I’m a-telling you is the truth. I took of one master,
for penny mouse-traps alone, you perceive, 36_l._ 10_s._ from January
to December, 1849; but that is not all gain, you’ll understand. Out of
that I have to pay above one half for material. I think, altogether,
my receipts of the different masters I worked for last year came to
about 120_l._--I can’t lay my hands on the bills just now.--Yes,
it’s about 120_l._ I know, for our income,--that is, my clear gains
is about 1_l._ to 1_l._ 5_s._ every week. So, calculating more than
one half what I take to go for the expense for material, that will
bring it to just about to what I state. To earn the 25_s._ a-week,
you’ll understand, there are four of us engaged,--myself, my wife,
my daughter, and son. My daughter is eighteen, and my son eleven:
that is my boy, sir; he’s reading the _Family Friend_ just now. It’s
a little work I take in for my girl, for her future benefit. My girl
is as fond of reading as I am, and always was. My boy goes to school
every evening, and twice on a Sunday. I am willing that they should
find as much pleasure from reading as I have in my illness. I found
books often lull my pain. Yes, I have, indeed, for many hours. For nine
months I couldn’t handle a tool; and my only comfort was the love of
my family, and my books. I can’t afford them now, for I have no wish
to incur any extraneous expense, while the weight of the labour lies
on my family more than it does on myself. Over and over again, when I
have been in acute pain with my thigh, a scientific book, or a work
on history, or a volume of travels, would carry my thoughts far away,
and I should be happy in all my misery--hardly conscious that I had
a trouble, a care, or a pang to vex me. I always had love of solid
works. For an hour’s light reading, I have often turned to a work of
imagination, such as Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, and Shakspeare’s Plays;
but I prefer science to poetry. I think every working man ought to be
acquainted with general science. If he is a mechanic--let his station
be ever so simple,--he will be sure to find the benefit of it. It
gives a man a greater insight into the world and creation, and it makes
his labour a pleasure and a pride to him, when he can work with his
head as well as his hands. I think I have made, altogether, about one
hundred and six gross of mouse-traps for the master whose account I
have given you, and as many more for other employers, in the course
of the last year. I calculate that I made more than thirty thousand
mouse-traps from January to December, 1849. There are three or four
other people in London making penny mouse-traps, besides myself. I
reckon they may make among them near upon half as many as I do; and
that would give about forty-five or fifty thousand penny mouse-traps
made in London in the course of the year. I myself brought out the
penny mouse-trap in its improved shape, and with the improved lever
spring. I have no calculations as to the number of mice in the country,
or how soon we should have caught them if we go on at this rate; but
I think my traps have to do with that. They are bought more for toys
than for use, though they are good for mice as well as children; and
though we have so many dozen mouse-traps about the house, I can assure
you we are more troubled with mice here than most people. The four
of us here can make twenty-four dozen traps in the day, but that is
all we can get through comfortable. For eighteen dozen we get about
10_s._ at the warehouse, and out of that I reckon our clear gains are
near upon 4_s._, or a little less than 1_s._ a head. Take one with
the other, we can earn about a penny an hour; and if it wasn’t for me
having been a tailor originally, and applying some of my old tools to
the business, we shouldn’t get on so quick as we do. With my shears
I can cut twenty-four wires at a time, and with my thimble I thread
the wires through the holes in the sides. I make the springs, cut the
wires, and put them in the traps. My daughter planes the wood and
gauges out the sides and bottom, bores the wire-holes and makes the
door as well. My wife nails the frames ready for wiring, and my son
fixes the wires in their places when I have entered them; then the
wife springs them, after which the daughter puts in the doors and so
completes them. I can’t form an idea as to how many penny and halfpenny
money-boxes I made last year. I might have made, altogether, eight
thousand, or five thousand halfpenny and three thousand penny ones.
I was originally brought up to the tailoring business, but my master
failed, and my sight kept growing weaker every year; so, as I found a
good deal of trouble in getting employment at my own trade, I thought
I would take to the bird-cage making--I had been doing a little at
it before, as a pastime. I was fond of birds, and fonder still of
mechanics, so I was always practising my hands at some craft or other
in my over-time. I used to make dissected maps and puzzles, and so,
when standing for employment, I managed to get through the slack of
the year. I think it is solely due to my taste for mechanics and my
love of reading scientific books that I am able to live so comfortably
as I do in my affliction. After I took to bird-cage making, I found
the employment at it so casual that I could not support my family at
it. This led my mind to toy making, for I found that cheap toys were
articles of more general sale. Then I got my children and my wife to
help me, and we managed to get along somehow, for you see they were
learning the business, and I myself was not in much of a condition to
teach them, being almost as inexperienced at the trade as they were;
and, besides that, we were continually changing the description of toy
that we manufactured, so we had no time to perfect ourselves. One day
we were all at work at garden-rollers; the next, perhaps, we should be
upon little carts; then, may-be, we should have to go to dolls’ tables
or wheelbarrows: so that, with the continual changing the description
of toy that we manufactured from one thing to another, we had a great
difficulty in getting practised in anything. While we were all learning
you may imagine that, not being so quick then as we are now, we found
a great difficulty in making a living at the penny-toy business: often
we had merely dry bread for breakfast, tea, and supper, but we ate it
with a light heart, for I knew repining wouldn’t mend it, and I always
taught myself and those about me to bear our trials with fortitude.
At last I got to work regularly at the mouse-traps, and having less
changing we learnt to turn them out of hand quicker, and to make more
money at the business: that was about four years ago, and then I was
laid up with a strumous abscess in the thigh. This caused necrosis, or
decay of the thigh-bone, to take place, and it was necessary that I
should be confined to my bed until such time as a new thigh-bone was
formed, and the old decayed one had sloughed away. Before I lay up I
stood at the bench until I was ready to drop, for I had no one who
could plane the boards for me; and what could I do? If I didn’t keep
up, I thought we should all starve. The pain was dreadful, and the
anxiety of mind I suffered for my wife and children made it a thousand
times worse. I couldn’t bear the idea of going to the workhouse, and
I kept on my feet until I couldn’t stand no longer. My daughter was
only sixteen then, and I saw no means of escape. It was at that time
my office to prepare the boards for my family, and without that they
could do nothing. Well, sir, I saw utter ruin and starvation before us.
The doctor told me it would take four years before a new bone would be
formed, and that I must lay up all the while. What was to become of us
all in the mean time I could not tell. Then it was that my daughter,
seeing the pain I suffered both in body and mind, came to me, and told
me not to grieve, for that she would do all the heavy work for me, and
plane up the boards and cut out the work as I had done; but I thought
it impossible for her to get through such hard work, even for my sake.
I knew she could do almost anything that she set her mind to, but I
little dreamt that she would be able to compass that. However, with
the instinct of her affection--I can’t call it anything else (for she
learnt at once what it had taken me months to acquire), she planed and
shaped the boards as well as I myself could have done after years of
practice. The first board she did was as cleanly done as she can do