American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-10-24

former remain in the ship when in port
| is best known to themselves. When the
| East India Company had ships of their
| own they employed Il rat-Catcher, who
| sometimes captured 500 rats IN one ship
just returned from Calcutta. The ship
rat is often the black species. Some
| times black and brown inhabit the same
vessel; and unless they carry on perpet-
ual hOstilities the one party will keep to
the head of the vessel and the other to
| the stern.
Parent Duchatelet gives a graphic ac-
count of the prodigious colony of rats in
| the abattoirs of the Montfaucon, near
Paris: An old proprietor of one of the
! slaughter houses had a certain space of
ground entirely surrounded by walls,
with holes large enough for the ingress
ure he left the carcasses of two or three
horses. The rats swarmed in thickly to
partakc of the feast. He caused the
holes to be quietly stopped up, and en-
| tered the Enclosure, with a thick stick in
one hand and a lighted torch in the other.
They were so congregated that blow
with a stick anywhere did execution.
Before he left the Enclosure he had killed
more than $780,
Some years ago perhaps recent altera-
tons have changed the state of atfairS)
the Paris sewers formed an extensive
hunting ground for the men who cap
tured rats alive to sell to the rat-killing
sporting fraternity. Several men. work
ing in party, formed plan as to the
spot toward which the animals should be
driven. Each man carried lighted can
die, with a tin reflector, a bag, sieve,
and a spade. The moment the rats saw
a light they ran away along the sides of
the sewer; the men followed, came up to
them, seized them behind the ears, and
bagged them. When driven to bay from
different directions into one spot they
turned upon their pursuers with desper-
ate fierceness; but the latter were al
ways masters of the situation in the long
run. As to London, the excellent brick
work of the new main drainage sewers
probably defies the rats, but they still
continue their ramblings from sewers
through house drains into the Easements
of old tenements.
Rat-catchers and ratcatching have
been written about more voluminOusly
than most persons would think. The
royal rat-catcher, in the time of George
the Third, was immortaliZed in an en-
graved portrait. Eleven years ago, a
local board of health, in or near Bristol,
granted an annuity of "a year to John
Leaky, on the representation of the
butchers, for his services rendered in
Kidding the slaughter-houses from rats,
and on condition of his keeping them
away for the future" Two celebrated
rat-catchers, Shaw and Sabin, claimed to
have caught eight or ten thousand rats
year each. AS to the modes of capture,
they are various. One mode is to select
a small room in the middle of house,
lay Il trail of favorite food from this to
the other rooms, and allure the rats with
the savory odor of toasted cheese or red
herring. A second is, to allure by whis-
Ting to initiate the rat-cry. And there
are many others. But in truth the pro-
fessional rat-catchers do not care to
reveal their secrets. Many years ago
the Society of Arts offered prize of
$50 for the best preparation to catch
rats alive; but the only men who could
give reliable information held aloof, as
the reward was too small to tempt them.
Rat-poisons are advertised in plenty;
but they are ticklish matters to deal
with.-AU the Year Round.