Part 2 (1/2)

The damage Rats can do to property, commodities, etc., is almost incredible. I have had so many examples of this that I scarcely know which to submit as ill.u.s.tration. I think the worst case I have seen was where they gnawed a hole half way through a 2-1/4 inch lead pipe, and often I have known them to bite through a one-inch lead pipe. The worst damage is done when they get under the flag floors of cottage houses out of the drains. They scratch the soil from beneath the flags, which then sink, and the consequent stench from the drains is abominable, jeopardising the health of the tenants. I have seen a great many of these cases in the poorer parts of Manchester. The damage the Rats will do in the silk and similar trades, to the goods of merchants, or in the grocery business, is enormous, and not so much by reason of what they actually eat as by what they carry away, which is often ten times as much as they eat. I have often proved this when ferreting at a wholesale grocery warehouse. When we have taken up the boards between the laths and plaster we have found the ceiling almost full of lump sugar, nuts, candles, etc., which have been there for years, h.o.a.rded by the Rats. Now, this all means heavy loss, and that is why I say that any business man so suffering ought to engage the services of a professional Rat-catcher once a year in order to keep the Rats down, and catch as many as possible before they begin breeding.

Another Rat habit may be noticed where the Rodents are accustomed to have their holes and runs among flags and stones. If they find any soft wood such as pine or white deal, they will nibble at it until it is eaten through. I have often known them to eat right through the legs of tables in the middle of cooking kitchens. This, I think, they do simply to keep their teeth clean and in order; I have known half-grown Rats to do the same.

Rats can exist a long time on herbage, if they can get nothing more palatable. It is a very common thing to find Rats in the rabbit burrows when ferreting; in fact, I have seen, not once, but many times, Rats, rabbits, and weasels all bolt from the same burrow. I have also unearthed a Rat and a rabbit together out of one single burrow.

Now as to keeping Rats in store cages at home. Look well after them, and I think it is possible to keep them alive for quite a year; but if you keep, say, 20 in one store cage and neglect their feeding,, you will find that when hungry in the night they will kill the weakest of their number and eat it, sometimes even eating two or three in one night, leaving the skin as clean as if a man had skinned them. It is always the best plan to put the Rats in different cages, according to their sizes. The young ones together, the old ones together, and the middle-aged ones together, as they keep themselves much cleaner when thus divided, and do not fight so much as they would otherwise. They must also be kept in a warm place; if not, they soon have cramp. Also keep them in a dark place and see that they have plenty of water; sprinkle them now and then with it so that they will wash themselves. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what a hungry Rat will do. I have seen them in the summer at dusk run at an old hen with her chickens under her, and almost as quick as I tell it, the Rat has s.n.a.t.c.hed a live chicken and run with it under a pigsty floor.

I have known them to take half-grown young ducks from the water side. I remember once ferreting round a pit, near a barn, and when I put my ferret in the hole, it pulled out two dead chickens and three middle-sized dead ducks, and behind them, not more than a yard deep in the pit bank, was an old Rat. I have also known them to get into the coops where a gamekeeper was rearing his pheasants, and to kill nine young ones in a single night all from under the same hen.

Rats are also fond of eggs. I have read of many ways in which Rats take eggs, but in my quarter-of-a-century's experience of Ratting I never saw Rats take eggs save in one way, and that is, dragging or rolling them along the floor with their front paws, until they get them to the mouth of the hole. I remember one place where I was ferreting. There was an old cellar, the door of which at the top of the steps had to my knowledge been nailed up two or three years. Out of the hen house the Rats had eaten a hole at each side of the cellar door at the bottom. One day we burst open the door, went into the cellar (where it was impossible for a hen to get whilst the door was closed) and beneath the bottom step we caught two Rats. On lifting the flag at the bottom of the steps, we found 15 whole eggs, some good and some bad, all of which I am quite satisfied the Rats had carried down those nine stone steps! How they had done so I cannot explain, but content myself with stating only the plain facts of my own personal observation.

Rats are also very cunning in the water, say a pit or a river. Now, a Rat can exist in water for at most about seven minutes, and you will find when a dog is swimming after a Rat that the Rat is watching the dog all the time, for as soon as the dog gets within a yard of the Rat the latter will dive under water and come to the surface again about 15 yards away.

When the dog has tired the Rat out with swimming, you will very often see the Rat dive again and come up very quietly and just put its nose out of the water, or rest its head on a floating leaf. It is so cunning that it will remain still there, and if the leaf or reed gives way it will come up at the water side and just thrust out its nose to breathe. By this means the dog loses full scent of the Rat.

I have also noticed how useful are the Rat's front paws and tail. I have seen a Rat on the top of a swill tub at a pigsty, when the swill has been about ten inches from the top of the tub. The Rat was too cunning to jump down on the wet swill and drown, but I saw it reach as far down the inside of the tub as possible with its front paws and sc.r.a.pe the grease from around the sides! I have also seen the same Rat, when unable to sc.r.a.pe any further down the tub sides, turn round, clutch the top of the tub with its front paws, dip its tail into the swill, and then gain the top of the tub and commence licking its tail.

I have also tried an experiment with the same tub, which consisted of covering the top of the wet swill with bran, which floated on the surface, and placing a bit of lumpy swill in the middle of the bran, in the hope that the Rat would jump on the bran in the expectation of getting at the swill in the middle. However, it did not do so, no doubt instinctively guided against the danger.

I have also watched Rats run round a set wire or cage trap for a full hour. I have seen them go half way in and out again, look at the bait and never touch it, but go away and never return to the same trap that night. These examples show the cunning instinct of Rats.

There is, however, one power that the Rat is not favoured with, and I am afraid if they were they would be a greater pest. It is the ability of high jumping. A Rat cannot, I think, jump higher than three feet six inches, and will have to be very hungry before doing that to obtain food.

Many people may not know how fierce Rats are when fighting. Let me instance. I have often taken, one in each hand, two good Rats from my cage before a hundred spectators and set the Rats at each other on the top of a table. To see them fight would be surprising. They will fight like two bulldogs. When they have got a grip of each other with their teeth I have taken away my hands, and they have stuck and shook one another for at least half-a-minute, although you must understand that the moment they are loose of one another they are off if you don't catch them again.

There are several other cunning ways of Rats which I can scarcely explain. One must be amongst them regularly to know their wonderful ways and habits. Yet another little incident, in conclusion, may be of interest. I once called at a farm where they had been thres.h.i.+ng a wheat stack. A Rat-catcher had been there but without a dog, and when I arrived two hours afterwards my dog made a set, and commenced scratching amongst the old chaff left at the bottom of the stack, and to the astonishment of myself and the farmer I pulled out of the hole where the dog was scratching 73 live Rats! The other Rat-catcher, who had been at the thres.h.i.+ng all day, had caught only 14 Rats. This will serve to show that a Rat-catcher must not be without a good dog.

And now, respecting the ways and habits of Rats I think I have given my readers interesting and varied ill.u.s.trations of what I have seen and experienced during my time.

PART IV. LIFE OF THE RAT-CATCHER.

This work will not be complete if I do not deal with the Rat-catcher's life. The profession is a peculiar and exciting one, but all right if pursued in the right way. Although the calling takes one into dirty and obnoxious places, there is no reason why the Rat-catcher should not always appear respectable. The Rat-catcher has many temptations to dishonest conducts, for instance, when Rat-catching on a farm or private estate where there are numerous rabbits and game. It looks rather hard lines for the Rat-catcher to come off a farm with his cage full of Rats and see rabbits running about whilst he has all the requisites in his possession for catching them; and yet he must not touch one, but go home and merely reflect on what a good Sunday's dinner he is leaving behind.

This I have experienced many a time, but I have always found even from the business view-point that the old advice still remains true, ”Honesty is the best policy.” Leaving the rabbits to themselves has always turned out to be the best, for to take a rabbit worth a s.h.i.+lling, and get caught in the act, means that you can never go on the same estate again. And from that same estate you might have got 500 Rats in a year, worth four s.h.i.+llings a dozen.

I must also put in a good word here for the gamekeepers. My opinion is that if you go on a keeper's ground and do what is right, you will be able to go again, for in the whole of my experience never having carried any nets but Rat nets when on private estates, I have the consolation of knowing that I should always be welcome on going again to such estates.

Of course there are inconveniences that the Rat-catcher has to put up with. Whatever engagements he takes in a town, the only time he can catch Rats with a good result is in the night. On one occasion, when going round with my bull's-eye lamp to examine the traps, I was taken for a burglar by the policeman on the beat, and he doubted me so much that he would not release me until I had shown him my cage with Rats in and my traps set all over the place. Then he took almost as much interest in the catching of Rats as myself, and also brought in the other policemen who were outside waiting for me to attempt an escape. Ever after that, when I had a night's engagement in any town, I always went to the police station to tell the man on that beat where I was.

It behoves the Rat-catcher to be always attentive to his customers, those, I mean, who want live Rats wherewith to try their dogs. Amongst mine I have the honour to include clients of highest rank and position, barristers, magistrates, solicitors and a host of sporting gentry. If the Rat-catcher's efforts commend themselves to such gentlemen, and he always maintains a respectable appearance, he will obtain some very nice outings in the country. Oft-times a party of gentlemen have sent for me in the summer, having arranged with me to bring four or five ferrets and Ratting appliances, and we have gone 50 miles up the country. They would bring their terrier dogs, and we would hunt all along the brooks and rivers, and round the corn and wheat fields, putting the Rats we caught into the cage, and after lunch, taking the Rats to a meadow and coursing them with their dogs, which I think it real good sport. We would put up at the best hotels and repeat the procedure next day, very often taking a drag or coach, and driving ten or a dozen miles farther up the country.

I can a.s.sure my readers that the Rat-catcher is well remunerated for the trouble he undertakes in these cases, and moreover this is the cla.s.s of people he requires to fraternise with. There is always a plentiful supply of ”refreshments” on these outings, and I would therefore advise the Rat-catcher not to indulge too freely.

The foregoing is, of course, a brief sketch of the pleasantest part of a Rat-catcher's life, and to complete the picture I may as well describe some of the other features, and the way he has to rough it sometimes.

Well, Rat-catchers are generally called upon to supply Rats for the Rat coursings usually held at beerhouses, etc., on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, which one often sees advertised. Now, if he binds himself to supply a coursing at a certain date, the bills announcing the event are printed and posted, all of which means expense. Then you are bound to secure the live Rats, whatever be the weather. In doing this I always followed the thres.h.i.+ng machine to the bays and stacks. (Anyone that catches Rats regularly can tell by looking at the bays or stacks whether there are many Rats in or not.) I remember many times when the men have started thres.h.i.+ng a bay of wheat in which were a great many Rats, and by dark they have threshed only half of the bay. At such times the Rat-catcher must not leave the remaining half, no, not for half-an-hour throughout the whole night, for if he does the Rats will run out. To stop the Rats from leaving, the Rat- catcher has to lie on the top of the bay or go about every thirty minutes and beat the bottom with sticks until daylight, in order to keep the Rats in. Then, after the machine re-starts, and the bottom of the bay is reached, the Rat-catcher will be well paid for his trouble, for he may get, say, 150 good Rats for the coursing, at six s.h.i.+llings per dozen. The reason I call them good coursing Rats is because they have not been handled, and that enables them to run well.

Now, when you go to these coursings (which are mostly in the colliery districts) you will find about 60 dogs entered. It is the Rat-catcher's business to measure and handicap the dogs, and a very unpleasant job it is. He has also to be the referee at these coursings, and if it is a ”near thing” with two dogs running at one rat, and you decide to award the victory to a given one, then the owner of the other dog will probably accuse you of wrong-doing and favouritism. Then is the time the Rat-catcher has to be prepared to pull off his coat and start fighting before, perhaps, 500 spectators. This has often occurred with me. This, I can a.s.sure my readers, is what I call ”roughing it.”

Of course, what I have just related occurred a few years ago, but when the Muzzling Order came into force, the authorities practically stopped Rat coursing, for they would not let a dog run at a Rat unless the dog was muzzled. This was about the worst thing that the authorities could do for Manchester and district, for at that time I was supplying for coursings about 100 Rats per week, and at the same time sending 50 Rats a week into Yorks.h.i.+re, and all the Rats I supplied were caught within 15 miles of Manchester. This in my opinion, speaks very bad of the Muzzling Order, which I think is nothing but a farce, for at the very time I was going ratting, dogs were muzzled in some parts of the country but not in others. My opinion of dog muzzling is, muzzle all or muzzle none.