The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1892-02-25

RAr.cAroAlNo IN ENGLAND.
A Sport in Which Many Bold Dritons
Take Great Delight


A Sport in which Many Bold Britons
Take Great Delight.
Though the tenant and the landlord,
the game-kecper and the gardener be-
wall the plague of rats, says the Lon
don Globe, there is one parsonage who
is delighted at its existence, and that is
the lazy, sport-loving, poaching village
wastrel, who finds in ratcatching an
employment that at once gratifies his
inclination for out-of-doors recreation
and yields q respectable wage without
excessive toll. In Norfolk there hardly
seems to be hamlet without one or
two men of this kind in it, and, being
in that county about fortnight ago, l
took fancy to watch forenoon's rat
catching. That was no difficult matter.
You cannot take q walk without COM
ing across some one engaged in it.
The specimen stumbled upon was
stifiiy-built but strong-made veteran OF
sixty or so, with bristly gray mus
tache, big voice, sharp eye, and
joke ready for every occasion.
His implements were long spade
with an iron hook on the handle, a
sickle for clearing away nettles and un-
dergrowth, and box which contained
his ferrets and q number of glass-stop-
pered bottles. The varrnin bit so," he
explained, 'he had to carry ointments
and balsams to dress the wounds"
Taking up one of his ferrets he showed
where it's head was all Scared with
toothmarlss. For the protection of his
own hands he wore stout chamois-
,r11 p,,< H., ;y,fa
ing part of his equipment consisted of
the sharpest looking dogs l have ever
seen. The fancier who administers
small doses Of arsenic in order to make
the coats look we'll on the bench might
we'll have envied them the healthy,
glistening skins produced by constant
work in the open. Yet the creatures
themselves We're hopeless mongrels, in
color and shape not unlike Scotch ter
riers, but larger.
A hole was just being finished as I
went up. ''Is there any more, Bob?"
asked the rat catcher, addressing, just
as if he had been a Christian, the most
aged of his followers. Bob shifted and
turned away. "All right" said his
master. 'go on to the next" Bob
"dSSCu hio Illl dlltk oSO oA dloLS WIG
bank of the dyke, merely glancing at
several little borrowings. 81 follows
Bob" remarked the man, as he gath
cred up his traps together. There!
he's found 'em;" and sure enough the
terrier had stopped and made a dead
| point" fifty yards along the ditch, and
no sooner was ferret taken out Of the
box than he planted himself in front of
one "bolt hole" His companions chose
| two more, and the whole three stood
alert and vigilant, but perfectly still,
| while the ferret was put in. Hardly
| had that been done for couple of min
utes ere the rats, large and small, be-
gan to dash out into the very jaws Of
| the dogs.
Fifteen had been killed and then
came an interval that made us think
| the last was finished. But when we at
tempted to move Bob gave whimper
and little scratch at the earth he was
watching. ~ mum dig him out" said
the man, and few well-directed pokes
with spade disclosed rat that might
| have been the father of the tribe,
caught in q blind alley. A single snap
was enough to lay him dead, and Bob,
| with his customary sniff, turned heels
and was off to new quarters. This time
his point was made opposite thick
hedge, the dry ditch running alongside
being quite choled up with briars, net
| ties and weeds.
With the reaping hook these were
soon cleared away, however, and some
idea of the extent to which the vermin
prevail may be judged from the fact
| that at least half a dozen "loose' rats
We're killed before the ferrets were
used at all. l imagined splendid
| days work had been accomplished
when eighty-six rats had been killed,
| and both terriers, ferrets and men were
obviously becoming tagged with the
| work.
For it must be remembered that the
creatures had not congregated in one
place, as they do in corn rick, but
We're all found in open country--that is
| to say, in the boundary ditch and
hedges of turnip field. But subse-
quent inquiry showed that the slaugh-
ter had not been exceptionally large,
two men having between them killed
two hundred and forty-three in single
morning on an adjacent farm.