The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-12-15
darkness, not relieved by even the
faint glimmer of candle, but with

| faint glimmer OF a candle, but with
a CLINT of light twinkling through
| the rim of the lantern with its bulls
eye closed, the rat catcher stood mo-
tionless at one corner Of the room.
For an hour he stood there without
budging or any sign of restlessness.
! Only his breath stole through the
| silence with rhythmic whisper as a
a clock on the wall beats out the
time with a steady tick-tack.
Presently there was another sound.
It came very family at first. like the
rustling of dead leaves down a path
way. Then there came queer little
noises-tiny voices, piping and
squeaking, tiny feet, pattering, run
ming, frisking along the ground floor
dining room of the city restaurant.
These sounds of little footsteps came
from one direction only at first.
Then from other parts of the room
they twittered and pattered, and
there were creakings down the old
wainscoating of the walls, and little
rushes and dashes along bare boards,
and little thumps and bumps against
wooden partitions, and general
hurrying and scurrying and chivying
and scampering. The room was
alive!
Then for the first time the silent
man in the corner moved. He, too,
came to life again. He opened the
bull's-eye of his lantern and the light
flashed like sword through the
darkness. 1t lighted up his face, in
which his eyes blazed like cats eyes
at night. It lighted up the white
willow wand with which he began to
beat the floor so that it made noise
like pistol shots. It lighted up a
swarm of rats on the restaurant
floor, on the chairs and tables, on the
lodges round the walls. Rats! Gray
rats, black rats, brown rats, big old
fellows with full grown whiskers, fat
old females and youngsters from the
rat nurseries.
The noise of the white willow wand
whipping the floor filled the swarm
ing mass of vermin with the ecstacy
of fear, and to add to their terror
the man, who was in the midst of
them now, was making peculiar
noise, most startling as it rang out
in that restaurant. It was a strange,
beast-like cry in his throat-a kind of
jodel, high and shrill. 1t put a
panic fear into those beasts. They
hurled themselves from the marble
topped tables where they had been
nosing for bits. They tumbled of
chairs. They rushed wildly toward
the passages and the wainscoating
squeaking, clawing and tearing, jost-
hing and scrimmaging, with the fe-
rocious little eyes glinting in the half
darkness. But their swift mad rush
was barred by the nets which had
been put across the doorways, and
round the room, and as they toppled
against these webs they were caught
in the tolls. Like poaehers' nets for
trapping rabbits and hares, these had
pockets, from which there was no es-
cape.
The rat catcher now dropped his
wand, and the strange cry in his
throat was silent. On the floor were
the two steel cages, and into them he
thrust the victims Of his night at
tack. Then he covered them over
with white cloths, and in a little
while he closed his bull's-eye lantern
again, stood motionless for another
hour, until hunger brought out an
other horde of rats, and the same
| method of capture was repeated. In
the early morning, when the dawn
was coming with it's pale gray light
4
into London streets, the rat catcher
I left the City Restaurant, and in his
cages were S0tof those horrid small
beasts, which the fancy gentlemen
of Mitcham, and other suburbs, go
hunting with their terriers on Sun
day.
This is no fairy tale. The rat
catcher to the city of London is re-
ally in the directory, and he does his
| work exactly as I have described.
have examined his books, and have
seen that in some city restaurants
and restaurants further west, along
the line of the river, he has caught
as many as 100 rats in one night and
in some city warehouses as many as
800 at a time. Londoners do not
realize what vast hordes of rats are
! swarming in the cellars and under
ground hiding places Of old streets
l / o~r