The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1875-02-26

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corners In the hull of ship, that it is
almost impossible to get rid of them.
Ships take out rats as well as passengers
and cargo every voyage whether the
former remain in the ship when in port
| Is best known to themselves. When the
East India Company had ships of their
own, they employed a rat-catcher, who
sometimes captured five hundred rats in
| one ship just returned from Calcutta.
The shlp-rat is often the black species.
Sometimes black and brown inhabit the
same vessel and unless they carry on
perpetual hostiHhes, the one party Will
keep to the head of the vessel and the
other to the stern. The ship-rat is very
anxious that his supply of fresh water
shall not fail he will come on deck when
it rains, and climb up the wet sails to
suck them. Sometimes he mistakes a
spirit cask for o water cask and gets
drunk. A captain of an American
merchant ship is credited (or discredited)
with an ingenious bit of sharp practice
as means of clearing his ship from rats.
Having discharged cargo at port in
Holland, he found his ship in juxtaposi-
ton to another which had just taken in a
cargo of Dutch cheeses. He laid a
plank at night from one vessel to the
other the rats, tempted by the odor,
trooped along the plank, and began their
feast. He took care that the plank
should not be there to serve them as n
pathway back again and SO the cheese
laden ship had cruel addition to its
outward cargo.
Some years ago the rats wrought such
execution at the Geological Gardens, in
the Regents Park, that it became neces-
sary to surround the duck ponds with O.
wire net fencing. Other parts of the
garden were similarly infested, the rats
being attracted by the large quantity
and variety of food stored there every
day Soon after the construction of the
new monkey house, they ate through the
floor, whereupon the floor was filed In
with concrete, and the open roof was
ceiled but they quickly made their way
through the plaster of the latter, deter
mined if possible to get at the monkeys
bread. They also got into the den of
! the rhinoceros. The cunning rogues
were sometimes seen IN the evening
swimming across the Regents canal, to
| spend a night in feasting in the gardens,
and returned at morn to secure retreat
during the daytime. It became neces-
sary to hunt them with terriers, and then
| their carcasses were thrown as dainty bits
J to the eagles and vultures.
Parent Duchatelet gives graphic ac-
count of the prodigious colony of rats in
the abattoirs of MontfauGon, near Paris
6 An old proprietor of one of the
slaughter-houses had a certain space of
ground entirely surrounded by walls,
with holes only large enough for the in
gress and egress of rats. Within this
enclosure he left the carcasses of two
or three horses. The rats swarned in
thlckly to partake of the feast. He
caused the holes to be quietly stopped
up, and entered the inclosure, with
thick stick in one hand, and
lighted torch in the other. They
were SO congregrated that blow with
stick anywhere did execution. Before he
than two thousand SIX hundred"
Some years ago perhaps recent
attentions have changed the state
ofaffairs) the Paris sewers formed
an extensive hunting ground for
the men who captured rats alive,
to sell to the rat-killing sporting
fraternity. Several men, working in q
party, formed a plan as to the spot
towards which the animals should be
driven. Each man carried a lighted candle,
with tin reflector, bag, q sieve, and
spade. The moment the rats saw 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
sometimes turned upon their pursuers
with desperate fierceness but the latter
were always masters of the sitllation in
the long run. As to London, the excel
lent brickwork 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 rat-catching have
been written about more voluminously
than most persons would think. The
royal rat-catcher, in the time of George
the Third, was immortahzed in an en-
graved portrait. Eleven years ago, a
local board of health, in or near Bristol, |
granted an annuity Of four pounds year
to John Leaky, on the representation of
the butchers s for his services rendered
in ndding 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 small room in the middle of a |
house, lay 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
allurse by whistling to initiate the rat
cry. And there are many others. But |
in truth the professional rat-catchers do
not care to reveal their secrets Many |
years ago, the Society of Arts offered 3 |
prize of fifty pounds for the best prepa-
ration to catch rats alive; but the only |
men who could give reliable information |
held aloof, as the reward was too small to |
ternDt them Prof .Ju1aes Mnckiafo8h |
Suppression OF Quachs.
A bill has been introduced IN the |