The St. Johns herald., 1892-10-06
RA7-oATctlIne IN ENGLAND.
A Sport in Which Many Bold Britons
 Take Great Delight.

RAT-CATCHING IN ENGLAND. A Sport in Which Many Bold Eritoas
 Take Great Delight
 Though the tenant and the landlord, the game-kceper and the gardener be- wall the plague of rats, says the Lon- don Globe, there is one parsonage who is delighted at it's existence, and that is the lazy. sport-loving, poaehing village wastrel. who finds in rat-catching an employment that at once gratifies his inclination for out-of-doors recreation and yields respectable wage without excessive toll. h Norfolk there hardly seems to be hamlet without one or two men of this kind in 1t, and, being in that county about fortnight ago, took fancy to watch forenoon's rat catching. That was no difficult matter. You cannot take walk without com ing across some one engaged in it. The specimen I stumbled upon was stifiy-built but strong-made veteran of sixty or so, with bristly gray mus tache, a big voice, sharp eye, and joke ready for every occasion.
 His implements were long spade with an iron hook on the handle, sickle for clearing away nettles and r11- dergrowth and box which contained his ferrets and number of glass-stop- pered bottles. ''The varmin 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 toothmarks. For the protection of his own hands he wore stout chamois- leather gloves. But the most interest 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 well on the bench might well have envied them the healthy, glistening skins produced by constant work in the open. Yet the creatures themselves were hopeless mongrels, in color and shape not unlike Scotch ter riers, but larger.
 A hole was just being finished as 1 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 sniffed and turned away. ''All right" said his master, Ego on to $he next" Bob wagged his tail and set off along the bank of the dyke, merely glancing at several little borrowings. ''I 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 ''dead point" fifty yards along the ditch, and no sooner was ferret taken out of the box than he planted himself in front of 1 one "bolt hole" His companions chose l 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 a 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 att tempted to move Bob gave a whimper and little scratch at the earth he was watching. ''I nun dig him out" said the man, and few well-directed pokes with a spade disclosed a rat that might have been the father of the tribe, caught in 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 a thick hedge, the dry ditch running alongside being quite cho1ed 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 vernin prevail may be judged from the fact that at least half dozen 'loose' rats were killed before the. ferrets were used at all. I imagined a splendid days work had been accomplished when eighty-six rats had been killed, and both terriers, ferrets and men were obviously becoming Jagged with the work.
 For it must be remembered that the creatures had not congregated in one place, as they do in a corn rick, but were 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 a single morning on an adjacent farm.
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