The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-16 00:00:00

TALLOW.

Our market continues steady, and prices are a shade higher than
on Monday last. To-day P.Y.O. on the spot is selliag at 495. per cwt.
Rough fat, 2s. 7d. per Sibs.

RAT TALES.—Quite lately, in Paris, a specimen
was given of the force in which rats can muster, where
they have gained only a provisional footing. The histori-
cal Halles, or markets, having been rebuilt and re-arranged
on a more commodious plan, the 26th of October last was
fixed for the moving of the dealers in flour-stuffs, green
vegetables, poultry, and potatoes, from the ground they
have occupied near the church of St. Eustache, to their new
stalls and shops in the Halles Centreles. After the depar-
ture of the human tenants of the old provisional market, the
workmen proceeded to pull down the sheds. Beneath these
sheds a colony of rats had fixed their domicile for some time
past. A regiment of boys, armed with sticks, and backed
by all the dogs of the quarter, mustered in a pack, await-
ing the unearthing of the game from their cover. A
crowd of spectators made the lofty buildings round re-
echo with their shouts and their bursts of laughter. Seve-
ral rats, alarmed at the disturbance and the barking of
the dogs, climbed up the persons of the lookers-on to find
a refuge on their shoulders or on their heads. One girl,
feeling a rat taking a walk round her neck, was so overcome
with terror that she fainted. One thousand is the estimated
number of rats who fell victims to this inhospitable recep-
tion ; but it may be presumed that those who saved their
bacon were in considerable majority. This is nothing to
what occurs at Monte Video (unless it is greatly changed
from what it was), where the only drawback upon the
delightful way in which an evening may ho spent is the
necessity of returning home tkrough long narrow
streets, so infested with voracious rats as sometimes to
make thei way perilous. There are no sanitary regula-
tions in the town, except those provided by the showers
of rain, which at intervals carry off' the heaps of filth
from long-established resting-places. Around huge moun-
tains of carrion, vegetables, and stale fruit, here accumu-
lated, rats muster in legions. If you attempt to pass near
these formidable banditti, or to interrupt their origies, they
will gnash their teeth at you fiercely, like so many wolves.
So far are they from running off in affright to their burrows
that they will turn round, set up an ominous cry, and will
thin make a rush at your legs in a way to make your hair
stand on end. Between them and the venturesome stranger
many a hazardous affray occurs, and though sometimes he
may fight his way home victorously by the aid of a stout
stick, on other occasions he will be forced to fly down some
narrow cross-lane, leaving the rats usdisputed masters of the
field. . . . It is something to have made best French kid
gloves out of the skins of Parisian rats, and best French
beaver hats from their fur. A man of genius—a Swede, with
an unpronounceable name—has done more. Lamenting,
probably, the dearth of dramatic talent, he conceived the
idea of raising rats to the dignity of tragic and comic star..
His training succeeded admirably. Hamlet, followed by a
popular farce, acted by rats in a portable theatre, which the
manager could carry on his shoulder from place to place, ob-
tained a colossal success in Sweden and Germany.—Dickens'
household Words.