Part 2 (1/2)
X--DESTRUCTIVENESS
The rat's bite, and especially that of old rats, is very poisonous, and its teeth are finely adapted for severe, quick, sharp, and deep cutting
It for to the peculiar structure and growth of their teeth, to keep the
The idea never co off of their tusks in attacking such flexible objects as bricks or lead, and the writer has seen cases in which the rats cheerfully went to work gnawing off corners of bricks and granite, in a persistent h for their ad is exempt from their merciless teeth They -rooiest, most plebeian sort of washtub, and they make sad havoc of upholstery of all kinds They seeainst the transnawed and naw paper, frohest value (andhas been hopelessly destroyed by their agency), to the ered Mike; or, The Terror of Hoboken” Our clothing, shoes, hat-gear, etc, is turned out by the rats in a pitifully dilapidated condition They also eat into lead pipes for the purpose of obtaining water, which it is hard for theh we have found that they can be without food for a th of time When the rats are pressed for drink on board shi+p, they lay low in the day-ti they stealthily cole file, in order to sip thethe Fire Marshal's Report of New York City from 1868 to 1882, we learn that rats have been the cause of 79 fires during 12 years, e of five fires a year This is on account of the rats' strong propensity for nibbling ainst the loose and careless manner in which matches are left in pantries and closets infested by rats and reat attraction for the rodents in the matches is the phosphorus, which these useful articles contain in abundance, and which the rats are able to scent out froreat distance
XI--RATS AS FOOD
If you were lunching on soe, and some one told you, after you had finished, that it was only domestic house rat, your interior ed--to such an extent is the bare nant to our senses and stomachs
In the course of an experiment, the writer has cooked and boiled rats, and has found that theirappearance, withal, although he never went the length of partaking of it Our objection to the rat's serving as food is too deeply rooted and profound to be rereat many animals whose flesh forms our staple food that have habits much dirtier, and who do not nearly live upon as cleanly a diet (and this is a broad stateently but firive the Chinese credit for having overcoainst the rat as food Seehly prized dish that the sons of leprosy have in their bill of fare The crews of the A in Canton harbor used to a the kicking aniside could get a good view of it The Mongolians would then get verysound, and as soon as the spluttering, frightened rat was flung from the shi+p an uproarious scramble followed, thatover a cocoanut
A writer tell us, in a ritten azine article, that he has lived fifteen years in China, and has had ”experience at public banquets, social dinners, and ordinary meals, in coly surprised at never having seen cat, dog, or rat served up in any forlects to state _whether he'd know the difference_ The odds are twenty to one that he wouldn't; because, as he knows hiood ht offal He makes the admission, however, that ”there are some peculiar people in China, as well as elsewhere--credulous and superstitious--sos, cats, and rats, possesses medicinal properties For instance, some silly women believe that the flesh of rats restores the hair; so meat and cat meat renews the blood, and quacks often prescribe it What the Chinese really do eat does not vary much from that found on Arammes that are considered delicacies by everybody--such as edible bird's-nests and sharks' fins” To this we can add conscientiously, and upon weighty private authority--fried split rat, stewed dog, and curried cat with rice In this place it would be appropriate of us to say so of the peculiarities of Chinese food--of the way the dogs and cats are carefully bred for the palates of the Chinese epicures; how these forly exposed for sale in the ly describe theand cooking the rats--but want of space forbids We will merely state that there are many cases in which rats were eatenthe experi to death, and would have quickly eaten each other rather than accept the jolly alternative of dying by hunger, these instances are not of a remarkable nature, and are consequently unworthy of note in the present annals
XII--RAT NESTS
Rats are i sites--they have contentedly built their nests in the wretched and filthy peasant's hovel and in the s, and a human habitation must indeed be in the extreme of squalor, dirt and decay where they are not found sprawling Shakespeare pithily expresses this in the ”Tempest:”
”In few they hurried us aboard a bark, Bore us soues to sea, where they prepar'd A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail nor mast--_the very rats_ Instinctively had quit it”
The rat living in a house prefers warets within coes, heaters, steaerous habit, because his nest is always constructed of inflas matches into it, and then if the steam-pipes should become overheated, the matches blaze up and spread the flareat many fires afterwards found to have been caused in this way The rat's nest is made of black and colored silk, of linen, woolen and cotton s, and antique lace ofand crumpled paper In one instance we knew of a rat tomaterial more out of the ordinary run than these, as it consisted sireenbacks that had been put under the carpet of a roo, and which was afterwards found inthis queer old mercenary rat's abode The rat uses his nest too as a storehouse, and here he lays by quantities of edibles for a rainy day
The writer ca arments, both masculine and feminine, fashi+oned so slenderly, but which we dare not h in the house where it was built beans had not been stored nor used, the writer found out, for at least three months Out of doors or in fields the rats' nests are built of hay, leaves, shavings, and wool The rat is, besides his other praiseworthy qualities, an inveterate old thief, and in decorating his dwelling picturesquely he becos, diaold and silver watches, that had been enerally discovered set off withIn one rat's nest I found a set of false teeth in perfect condition The rat could not have wanted to use the for him He probably wanted them for a tool-box or jewel-case or so in soood-natured person who had discovered a fa rats in a piano that stood in a room for some time unfrequented They had made themselves so much at home in the interior of the instru upon it The fe to sonawing up through the leg of the piano She had brought with her, in which to build a nest, a dirty striped stocking big enough to have belonged to souished Dime Museum fat lady
XIII--THE RAT'S MUSICAL TALENTS AND EYESIGHT
Rats love sweet, soft, reatrats thereby, but only with indifferent success upon the sharp-witted rodents, in spite of all the pretty stories to the contrary in the reading-books So high is the rat'sthe people that rats i lady begins taking lessons on the piano A mouth-harmonica seeentle strains exert the most power over him, far more than the tones of any other instrument If the music be soft, mild, and pathetic, the rat will listen and come very near, for he is a very susceptible sort of beast, and, if closely observed, tears of sorrow, or of sad and tender re slowly down his cheeks But if, on the contrary, the music be harsh, shrill, and discordant, such as would inners, or if it proceed from a brass instruun report, or explosion, it may drive the impressionable animals from places where they had been used to frequent
If, however, one is unsuccessful in trying to scare off the rats by noise at the first inning, a repetition will be of no avail
The rat will take up his nest in all and any out-of-the way places, as he shuns the light and lives wholly in the dark and glooht; he can hardly see at all in the daytiht a little better If you shouldsquare in your face, depend upon it he isn't able to see you at all, in spite of the pretty gleam in his black eyes His ood service instead of eyes, so that he has very little occasion to enerally very tihtest disturbance repelling hi hireat peculiarity that he can adapt himself to any extre hiardens, and other haunts of loud and constant noise, bustle, and confusion
XIV--RATS AS MORALISTS
The Lord inthe rats is iers for his wandering, wasteful tribes of children But in our own day, as the majority of us do not wander, nor have wandered continually for the last two or three thousand years or so, and have slapped up es like London, New York, or Paris, the restless, ambitious rat took into his head not to limit himself to such dirty kind of work exclusively He then formed the resolution, and further carried out the purposes of his creator by taking upon hi e proportion of the gilt off ings at every possible opportunity, with right hearty good-will and much perseverance ”Therefore,” says a writer, ”whatever s Whether it be building a shi+p, erecting a church, digging a grave, plowing a field, storing a pantry, taking a journey, or planting a distant colony, rat is sure to have soet transplanted frohost in the wagon that 'flitted too'”
XV--RATS IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, AND THE MODERN RAT SUPERStitIONS
In the ns of witchcraft, and even scholars acknowledged this--at least they were coots, or siood old ti the people was, that an ani to them so small should be the cause of such intense and continual annoyance to theh which the rat could not effect its way to get at a certain object, thanks to its wonderful powers of gnawing It was so omnivorous, ferocious, and destructive, that the people endowed the rat with superhuarded it as a true child of the Devil, put upon this earth to be always pestering theard to the rat's superhuman qualities, it appears to have certainly displayedin the daily battle of life, than any one of these thick-skulled hureat and , born of superstition and fear, and which we find vehemently expressed in all the ancient books on the subject This feeling, we cannot help believing, is not dead yet, according to the astounding anecdotes brought forth and widely copied in a great iven in these learned articles about the rat's size, weight, and habits, in general, would make his hair stand on end with horror if he were to read them As a matter of fact, the ordinary brown rat, which we find everywhere near man, is a pretty black-eyed, softly robed, and delicately constructed little anih his fur st birds, yet it is of the finest texture, and, when possible, is always kept scrupulously clean In solitary captivity he is continually sitting on his haunches, cleaning his fur like a cat; and the writer has found, by actual experiroell-fed New York city rats to amount to exactly twelve and a half pounds