Henry Mayhew

“ Rats will eat each other like rabbits, which I‘ve watched them, and seen them turn the dead one‘s skins out like pusses, and eat the flesh off beautiful clean. I‘ve got cages of iron-wire, which I made myself, which will hold 1,000 rats at a time, and I‘ve had these cages piled up with rats, solid like. No one would ever believe it; to look at a quantity of rats, and see how they will fight and tear one another about,—it‘s astonishing, so it is! I never found any rats smothered, by putting them in a cage so full ”

“ Let anybody, either a medical or druggist manufacturer of composition, come and test with rats again me, and they‘ll pretty soon find it out. People pay for composition instead of employing the Queen‘s rat-ketcher, what kills the varmint and lays down his composition for nothing into the bargain likewise.
"I also destroy black beetles with a composition which I always keep with me again it‘s wanted. I often have to destroy the beetles in wine-cellars, which gnaw the paper off the bottles, such as is round the champagne and French wine bottles. I‘ve killed lots of beetles too for bakers. ”

“ In the sporting world, and among his regular customers, the Queen‘s rat catcher is better known by the name of Jack Black. He enjoys the reputation of being, the most fearless handler of rats of any man living, playing with them—as one man expressed it to me—“as if they were so many blind kittens.” ”

“ We are the regular rat-ketchers; my master kills ‘em, and then I eats ‘em’—and he takes up a live one and puts its head into his mouth, and I puts my hand in the cage and pulls out six or seven in a cluster, and holds ‘em up in the air, without even a bite. ”

“ Rats are everywhere about London, both in rich and poor places. I‘ve ketched rats in 44 Portland-place, at a clergyman‘s house there. There was 200 and odd. They had under minded the oven so, that they could neither bile nor bake; they had under-pinioned the stables, and let every stone down throughout the premises, pretty well. I had to crawl under a big leaden cistern which the rats had under-pinioned, and I expected it would come down upon me every minute. I had one little ferret kill thirty-two rats under one stone, and I lifted the dead ones up in the presence of the cook and the butler. ”

“ I never lost a ferret out ratting. I always let them loose, and put a bell on mine—arranged in a peculiar manner, which is a secret—and I then puts him into the main run of the rats, and lets him go to work. But they must be ferrets that‘s well trained for working dwellings, or you‘ll lose them as safe as death. I‘ve had ‘em go away two houses off, and come back to me. My ferrets is very tame, and so well trained, that I‘d put them into a house and guarantee that they‘d come back to me. ”

“ I used to take out the rats, and put them outside the cage; and used to begin the show by putting rats inside my shirt next my bousem, or in my coat and breeches pockets, or on my shoulder—in fact, all about me, anywhere. The people would stand to see me take up rats without being bit. I never said much, but I used to handle the rats in every possible manner, letting ‘em run up my arm, and stroking their backs and playing with ‘em. Most of the people used to fancy they had been tamed on purpose, until they‘d see me take fresh ones from the cage, and play with them in the same manner. ”

“ At a shop in Leicester-square, where Cantello‘s hatching-eggs machine was, I sold a sow and six young ones for ten shillings, which formerly I have had five pounds for, being so docile, like a sow sucking her pigs. ”

“ It‘s a curious thing, but a mole will kill a rat and eat it afterwards, and two moles will fight wonderful. They‘ve got a mouth exactly like a shark, and teeth like saws; ah, a wonderful saw mouth. They‘re a very sharp-biting little animal, and very painful. A rat is frightened of one, and don‘t like fighting them at all.
"I‘ve bred the finest collection of pied rats which has ever been knowed in the world. ”

“ You see rats have always got a main run, and from it go the branch runs on each side like on a herring-bone, and at the end of the branch runs is the bolt-holes, for coming in and out at. I instantly stopped up all the bolt-holes and worked the rats down to the end of the main run, then I broke up the branch runs and stopped the rats getting back, and then, when I‘d got ‘em all together at the end of the main run, I put my arm down and lifted them up. I have had at times to put half my body into a hole and thrust down my arm just like getting rabbits out of their burrers. ”

“ They are very savage, and will attack a man or a child as well as a rat. It was well known at Mr. Hamilton‘s at Hampstead—it‘s years ago this is—there was a ferret that got loose what killed a child, and was found sucking it. The bite of ‘em is very dangerous—not so poisonous as a rat‘s—but very painful; and when the little things is hungry they‘ll attack anythink. I‘ve seen two of them kill a cat, and then they‘ll suck the blood till they fills theirselves, after which they‘ll fall off like leeches.
"The weasel and the stoat are, I think, more dangerous than the ferret in their bite. ”

“ He had a cart then with rats painted on the panels, and at the tailboard, where he stood lecturing; he had a kind of stage rigged up, on which were cages filled with rats, and pills, and poison packages.
Here I saw him dip his hand into this cage of rats and take out as many as he could hold, a feat which generally caused an “oh!” of wonder to escape from the crowd, especially when they observed that his hands were unbitten. Women more particularly shuddered when they beheld him place some half-dozen of the dusty-looking brutes within his shirt next his skin ”

“ I‘ve ketched sometimes thirty in a day, for although people have got a notion that nightingales is scarce, still those who can distinguish their song in the daytime know that they are plentiful enough—almost like the lark. ”

“ I‘ve learnt a monkey to kill rats, but he wouldn‘t do much, and only give them a good shaking when they bit him. After I found the racoons no good, I trained a badger to kill rats, and he was superior to any dog, but very difficult in training to get him to kill, though they‘ll kill rabbits fast enough, or any other kind of game, for they‘re rare poachers are badgers. ”

“ People come from all parts of London to see them rats, and I supplied near all the ‘happy families’ with them. Burke, who had the ‘happy family’ showing about London, has had hundreds from me. They got very tame, and you could do anythink with them. I‘ve sold many to ladies for keeping in squirrel cages. Years ago I sold ‘em for five and ten shillings a-piece, but towards the end of my breeding them, I let ‘em go for two-and-six. ”

“ It‘s astonishing how so small an insect as them will scrape away such a quantity of mortar as they do—which thing infests grates, floorings, and such-like.
"The beetle is a most ‘strordinary thing, which will puzzle most people to sterminate, for they lays sitch a lot of eggs as I would never guarantee to do away with beedles—only to keep them clear ”

“ Black better, were well aware that the animals he took up in his hand were as wild as any of the rats in the sewers of London, and that the only mystery in the exhibition was that of a man having courage enough to undertake the work. ”

“ B. at the William the Fourth public-house, Hampstead; she couldn‘t lay her child‘s clothes down without getting ‘em full of ants. They‘ve got a sting something in feel like a horse-fly‘s, and is more annoying than dangerous. It‘s cockroaches that are found in houses. They‘re dreadful nasty things, and will bite, and they are equal to the Spanish flies for blistering. I‘ve tried all insects on my flesh to see how they bite me. Cockroaches will undermine similar to the ant, and loosen the bricks the same as the cricket. ”

“ You see persons fancy that them nightingales as sings at night is the only ones living, but it‘s wrong, for many on them only sings in the day.
"You see it was when I was about eighteen, I was beginning to get such a judge about birds, sir. I sold to a butcher, of the name of Jackson, the first young un that I made money out of—for two pounds it was—and I‘ve sold loads of ‘em since for thirty shillings or two pounds each, and I‘ve got the strain by me now. ”