Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-07-20
THE RAT CATCHER OF PARA.
The Boa Constructor of Brazil and the
Work He Does.

- ~~~~
Work He Does.
The rat catcher of Para, says letter
to the Pittsburg Chronicle, is not acat,
an owl, ferret, compound of wire and
springs, a paste of poison, terrier nor
an ambitious boy with borrowed shot
gun and tle fragments of three fingers on
his left hand and otherwise mutilated and
disfigured for life, but the boa of the coun-
try, the Giboa or boa constructor, of which
have spoken in connection with Monkey
Joe. The great serpent is left at large in
many of the stores and warehouses and
in several of the residences. During the
day it coils itself in the cellar into the
likeness of a section of hawser in the hold
of a vessel; or lies in the stOrer0om be-
hind the bales and boxes in the similitude
of discarded stoYe-pipe, or it loops itself
among the sgirders and rafters of the gar
ret into the semblance of Brobdignag-
gian Bologna sausage hung up to dry; as
harmless as the usual serpent of mon
strous size depicted in glowing cOlors on
the swinging sign of canvas at the door
of the side-shoW to travelling circus in
the United States. AT night, however,
when all good people of the city are sus-
pended in their hammOcks, the ratter
awakes and takes possession of the build
ing from I0e TO Iue IOOI-Lfees
and the ease and expedition with which
the legless incarnation of longitude goes
up and down the stairs, and under, around
and about the chairs and tables, in the
pursuit of rats and mice and such small
deer, is something marvellous for the bats
and bombyxes and other night-seers and
flyers to behold imagine, from all
have heard. Presumably, many a time
and oft, the head of family, in getting
out of his hammock, steps upon the cool
body of his rat-catcher to shudder IN the
instant of his misapprehension that it is
the corpse of one of his numerous progeny
that has succumbed in the night to one of
the myriad diseases incident to childhood
and Para, and tumbled out on the floor.
Presumably, also, now and then, the chief
clerk, returning late from the club and
staggering up to his swinging and very
uncertain couch and falling across it,
gets his sprawling hands against the very
substance of the serpent in his delirium
to convince him of the error of his ways
at once and work reformation in his
habits in the course of time. Presumably,
also, occasionally, during dearth of rats
and mice, a member of the family disap-
pears mysteriously, leaving nothing be-
hind him out of which q surmise or the
smallest quantity of soothing syrup can
be sucked by the survivors, except his hat
and other monday apparel. But l have
not heard OF Jne occurrence OF any such
accident in reality, and the serpent may
be set down in truth as a remedy for rats
as safe as any in use in any other part of
the world, except China, where the peO-
pie are their own rat catchers-eVery man
for himself and the devil take the hind
most; and where, to make assurance
doubiy sure and take bond on fate, John
Chinaman, after killing rat, cooks and
eats it. But after all, when it is consid-
cred the grand role the serpent has played
in many of the religions of the globe, re-
ceiving divine honors in more than one
country at the hands OF untold millions,
it is rough on one of the most magnificent
species the world has ever seen TO take it
down from the temple of worship and put
it to catching rats In a warehouse. But
this is an ic0noclastic age; and the SER
pent is not the only god that has sue
cumbed to MammOn.