“I should think I’ve been at ratting a’most for five-and-thirty year;
indeed, I may say from my childhood, for I’ve kept at it a’most all my
life. I’ve been dead near three times from bites--as near as a toucher.
I once had the teeth of a rat break in my finger, which was dreadful
bad, and swole, and putrified, so that I had to have the broken bits
pulled out with tweezers. When the bite is a bad one, it festers and
forms a hard core in the ulcer, which is very painful, and throbs very
much indeed; and after that core comes away, unless you cleans ’em out
well, the sores, even after they seemed to be healed, break out over
and over again, and never cure perfectly. This core is as big as a
boiled fish’s eye, and as hard as a stone. I generally cuts the bite
out clean with a lancet, and squeege the humour well from it, and
that’s the only way to cure it thorough--as you see my hands is all
covered with scars from bites.
“The worst bite I ever had was at the Manor House, Hornsey, kept by
Mr. Burnell. One day when I was there, he had some rats get loose, and
he asked me to ketch ’em for him, as they was wanted for a match that
was coming on that afternoon. I had picked up a lot--indeed, I had
one in each hand, and another again my knee, when I happened to come
to a sheaf of straw, which I turned over, and there was a rat there.
I couldn’t lay hold on him ’cause my hands was full, and as I stooped
down he ran up the sleeve of my coat, and bit me on the muscle of the
arm. I shall never forget it. It turned me all of a sudden, and made me
feel numb. In less than half-an-hour I was took so bad I was obleeged
to be sent home, and I had to get some one to drive my cart for me. It
was terrible to see the blood that came from me--I bled awful. Burnell
seeing me go so queer, says, ‘Here, Jack, take some brandy, you look
so awful bad.’ The arm swole, and went as heavy as a ton weight pretty
well, so that I couldn’t even lift it, and so painful I couldn’t bear
my wife to ferment it. I was kept in bed for two months through that
bite at Burnell’s. I was so weak I couldn’t stand, and I was dreadful
feverish--all warmth like. I knew I was going to die, ’cause I remember
the doctor coming and opening my eyes, to see if I was still alive.
“I’ve been bitten nearly everywhere, even where I can’t name to you,
sir, and right through my thumb nail too, which, as you see, always
has a split in it, though it’s years since I was wounded. I suffered
as much from that bite on my thumb as anything. It went right up to my
ear. I felt the pain in both places at once--a regular twinge, like
touching the nerve of a tooth. The thumb went black, and I was told I
ought to have it off; but I knew a young chap at the Middlesex Hospital
who wasn’t out of his time, and he said, ‘No, I wouldn’t, Jack;’ and
no more I did; and he used to strap it up for me. But the worst of it
was, I had a job at Camden Town one afternoon after he had dressed the
wound, and I got another bite lower down on the same thumb, and that
flung me down on my bed, and there I stopped, I should think, six weeks.
“I was bit bad, too, in Edwards-street, Hampstead-road; and that time
I was sick near three months, and close upon dying. Whether it was the
poison of the bite, or the medicine the doctor give me, I can’t say;
but the flesh seemed to swell up like a bladder--regular blowed like.
After all, I think I cured myself by cheating the doctor, as they calls
it; for instead of taking the medicine, I used to go to Mr. ----’s
house in Albany-street (the publican), and he’d say, ‘What’ll yer have,
Jack?’ and I used to take a glass of stout, and that seemed to give me
strength to overcome the pison of the bite, for I began to pick up as
soon as I left off doctor’s stuff.
“When a rat’s bite touches the bone, it makes you faint in a minute,
and it bleeds dreadful--ah, most terrible--just as if you had been
stuck with a penknife. You couldn’t believe the quantity of blood that
come away, sir.
“The first rats I caught was when I was about nine years of age.
I ketched them at Mr. Strickland’s, a large cow-keeper, in Little
Albany-street, Regent’s-park. At that time it was all fields and
meaders in them parts, and I recollect there was a big orchard on one
side of the sheds. I was only doing it for a game, and there was lots
of ladies and gents looking on, and wondering at seeing me taking the
rats out from under a heap of old bricks and wood, where they had
collected theirselves. I had a little dog--a little red ’un it was, who
was well known through the fancy--and I wanted the rats for to test my
dog with, I being a lad what was fond of the sport.
“I wasn’t afraid to handle rats even then; it seemed to come nat’ral to
me. I very soon had some in my pocket, and some in my hands, carrying
them away as fast as I could, and putting them into my wire cage. You
see, the rats began to run as soon as we shifted them bricks, and I had
to scramble for them. Many of them bit me, and, to tell you the truth,
I didn’t know the bites were so many, or I dare say I shouldn’t have
been so venturesome as I was.
“After that I bought some ferruts--four of them--of a man of the name
of Butler, what was in the rat-ketching line, and afterwards went out
to Jamaicer, to kill rats there. I was getting on to ten years of age
then, and I was, I think, the first that regularly began hunting rats
to sterminate them; for all those before me used to do it with drugs,
and perhaps never handled rats in their lives.
“With my ferruts I at first used to go out hunting rats round by
the ponds in Regent’s-park, and the ditches, and in the cow-sheds
roundabout. People never paid me for ketching, though, maybe, if they
was very much infested, they might give me a trifle; but I used to make
my money by selling the rats to gents as was fond of sport, and wanted
them for their little dogs.
“I kept to this till I was thirteen or fourteen year of age, always
using the ferruts; and I bred from them, too,--indeed, I’ve still got
the ‘strain’ (breed) of them same ferruts by me now. I’ve sold them
ferruts about everywhere; to Jim Burn I’ve sold some of the strain;
and to Mr. Anderson, the provision-merchant; and to a man that went to
Ireland. Indeed, that strain of ferruts has gone nearly all over the
world.
“I never lost a ferrut 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 ferruts 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 ferruts is very tame, and so well trained,
that I’d put them into a house and guarantee that they’d come back
to me. In Grosvenor-street I was clearing once, and the ferruts went
next door, and nearly cleared the house--which is the Honourable Mrs.
F----’s--before they came back to me.
“Ferruts are very dangerous to handle if not well trained. 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 ferrut that got loose what killed a child, and was
found sucking it. The bite of ’em is very dangerous--not so pisonous 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 ferrut
in their bite. I had a stoat once, which I caught when out ratting
at Hampstead for Mr. Cunningham, the butcher, and it bit one of my
dogs--Black Bess by name, the truest bitch in the world, sir--in the
mouth, and she died three days arterwards at the Ball at Kilburn. I was
along with Captain K----, who’d come out to see the sport, and whilst
we were at dinner, and the poor bitch lying under my chair, my boy
says, says he, ‘Father, Black Bess is dying;’ and had scarce spoke the
speech when she was dead. It was all through the bite of that stoat,
for I opened the wound in the lip, and it was all swole, and dreadful
ulcerated, and all down the throat it was inflamed most shocking, and
so was the lungs quite red and fiery. She was hot with work when she
got the bite, and perhaps that made her take the pison quicker.
“To give you a proof, sir, of the savage nature of the ferruts, I was
one night at Jimmy Shaw’s, where there was a match to come off with
rats, which the ferrut was to kill; and young Bob Shaw (Jim’s son) was
holding the ferrut up to his mouth and giving it spittle, when the
animal seized him by the lip, and bit it right through, and hung on as
tight as a vice, which shows the spitefulness of the ferrut, and how it
will attack the human frame. Young Shaw still held the ferrut in his
hand whilst it was fastened to his lip, and he was saying, ‘Oh, oh!’ in
pain. You see, I think Jim kept it very hard to make it kill the rats
better. There was some noblemen there, and also Mr. George, of Kensal
New-town, was there, which is one of the largest dog-fanciers we have.
To make the ferrut leave go of young Shaw, they bit its feet and tail,
and it wouldn’t, ’cos--as I could have told ’em--it only made it bite
all the more. At last Mr. George, says he to me, ‘For God’s sake, Jack,
take the ferrut off.’ I didn’t like to intrude myself upon the company
before, not being in my own place, and I didn’t know how Jimmy would
take it. Everybody in the room was at a standstill, quite horrerfied,
and Jimmy himself was in a dreadful way for his boy. I went up, and
quietly forced my thumb into his mouth and loosed him, and he killed a
dozen rats after that. They all said, ‘Bravo, Jack, you are a plucked
one;’ and the little chap said, ‘Well, Jack, I didn’t like to holla,
but it was dreadful painful.’ His lip swole up directly as big as a
nigger’s, and the company made a collection for the lad of some dozen
shillings. This shows that, although a ferrut will kill a rat, yet,
like the rat, it is always wicious, and will attack the human frame.
“When I was about fifteen, sir, I turned to bird-fancying. I was
very fond of the sombre linnet. I was very successful in raising
them, and sold them for a deal of money. I’ve got the strain of them
by me now. I’ve ris them from some I purchased from a person in the
Coal-yard, Drury-lane. I give him 2_l._ for one of the periwinkle
strain, but afterwards I heard of a person with, as I thought, a better
strain--Lawson of Holloway--and I went and give him 30_s._ for a bird.
I then ris them. I used to go and ketch the nestlings off the common,
and ris them under the old trained birds.
“Originally linnets was taught to sing by a bird-organ--principally
among the weavers, years ago,--but I used to make the old birds teach
the young ones. I used to molt them off in the dark, by kivering the
cages up, and then they’d learn from hearing the old ones singing, and
would take the song. If any did not sing perfectly I used to sell ’em
as cast-offs.
“The linnet’s is a beautiful song. There are four-and-twenty changes
in a linnet’s song. It’s one of the beautifullest song-birds we’ve
got. It sings ‘toys,’ as we call them; that is, it makes sounds which
we distinguish in the fancy as the ‘tollock eeke eeke quake le wheet;
single eke eke quake wheets, or eek eek quake chowls; eege pipe chowl;
laugh; eege poy chowls; rattle; pipe; fear; pugh and poy.’
“This seems like Greek to you, sir, but it’s the tunes we use in the
fancy. What we terms ‘fear’ is a sound like fear, as if they was
frightened; ‘laugh’ is a kind of shake, nearly the same as the ‘rattle.’
“I know the sounds of all the English birds, and what they say. I could
tell you about the nightingale, the black cap, hedge warbler, garden
warbler, petty chat, red start--a beautiful song-bird--the willow
wren--little warblers they are--linnets, or any of them, for I have
got their sounds in my ear and my mouth.”
As if to prove this, he drew from a side-pocket a couple of tin
bird-whistles, which were attached by a string to a button-hole. He
instantly began to imitate the different birds, commencing with their
call, and then explaining how, when answered to in such a way, they
gave another note, and how, if still responded to, they uttered a
different sound.
In fact, he gave me the whole of the conversation he usually carried
on with the different kinds of birds, each one being as it were in a
different language. He also showed me how he allured them to him, when
they were in the air singing in the distance, and he did this by giving
their entire song. His cheeks and throat seemed to be in constant
motion as he filled the room with his loud imitations of the lark, and
so closely did he resemble the notes of the bird, that it was no longer
any wonder how the little things could be deceived.
In the same manner he illustrated the songs of the nightingale, and
so many birds, that I did not recognise the names of some of them. He
knew all their habits as well as notes, and repeated to me the peculiar
chirp they make on rising from the ground, as well as the sound by
which he distinguishes that it is “uneasy with curiosity,” or that it
has settled on a tree. Indeed, he appeared to be acquainted with all
the chirps which distinguished any action in the bird up to the point
when, as he told me, it “circles about, and then falls like a stone to
the ground with its pitch.”
“The nightingale,” he continued, “is a beautiful song-bird. They’re
plucky birds, too, and they hear a call and answer to anybody; and
when taken in April they’re plucked enough to sing as soon as put in
a cage. I can ketch a nightingale in less than five minutes; as soon
as he calls, I calls to him with my mouth, and he’ll answer me (both
by night or day), either from a spinny (a little copse), a dell, or a
wood, wherever he may be. I make my scrapes, (that is, clear away the
dirt), set my traps, and catch ’em almost before I’ve tried my luck.
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. 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. I’ve also got by me now the bird
that won the match at Mr. Lockwood’s in Drury-lane, and won the return
match at my own place in High-street, Marabun. It was in the presence
of all the fancy. He’s moulted pied (pie-bald) since, and gone a little
white on the head and the back. We only sang for two pounds a side--it
wasn’t a great deal of money. In our matches we sing by both gas and
daylight. He was a master-baker I sang against, but I forget his name.
They do call him ‘Holy Face,’ but that’s a nick-name, because he’s very
much pock-marked. I wouldn’t sell that bird at all for anythink; I’ve
been offered ten pounds for it. Captain K---- put ten sovereigns down
on the counter for him, and I wouldn’t pick ’em up, for I’ve sold lots
of his strain for a pound each.
“When I found I was a master of the birds, then I turned to my rat
business again. I had a little rat dog--a black tan terrier of the
name of Billy--which was the greatest stock dog in London of that day.
He is the father of the greatest portion of the small black tan dogs
in London now, which Mr. Isaac, the bird-fancier in Princes-street,
purchased one of the strain for six or seven pounds; which Jimmy Massey
afterwards purchased another of the strain, for a monkey, a bottle of
wine, and three pounds. That was the rummest bargain I ever made.
“I’ve ris and trained monkeys by shoals. Some of mine is about now in
shows exhibiting; one in particular--Jimmy.
“One of the strain of this little black tan dog would draw a badger
twelve or fourteen lbs. to his six lbs., which was done for a wager,
’cos it was thought the badger had his teeth drawn, but he hadn’t, as
was proved by his biting Mr. P---- from Birmingham, for he took a piece
clean out of his trousers, which was pretty good proof, and astonished
them all in the room.
“I’ve been offered a sovereign a-pound for some of my little terriers,
but it wouldn’t pay me at that price, for they weren’t heavier than two
or three pounds. I once sold one of the dogs, of this same strain, for
fourteen pounds, to the Austrian Ambassador. Mrs. H---- the banker’s
lady, wished to get my strain of terriers, and she give me five pounds
for the use of him; in fact, my terrier dog was known to all the London
fancy. As rat-killing dogs, there’s no equal to that strain of black
tan terriers.
“It’s fifteen year ago since I first worked for Goverment. I found
that the parks was much infested with rats, which had underminded the
bridges and gnawed the drains, and I made application to Mr. Westley,
who was superintendent of the park, and he spoke of it, and then it was
wrote to me that I was to fulfil the siterwation, and I was to have
six pounds a-year. But after that it was altered, and I was to have
so much a-head, which is threepence. After that, Newton, what was a
warmint destroyer to her Majesty, dying, I wrote in to the Board of
Hordnance, when they appointed me to each station in London--that was,
to Regentsey-park-barracks, to the Knightsbridge and Portland-barracks,
and to all the other barracks in the metropolis. I’ve got the letter
now by me, in which they says ‘they is proud to appint me.’
“I’ve taken thirty-two rats out of one hole in the islands
in Regentsey-park, and found in it fish, birds, and loads of
eggs--duck-eggs, and every kind.
“It must be fourteen year since I first went about the streets
exhibiting with rats. I began with a cart and a’most a donkey; for it
was a pony scarce bigger; but I’ve had three or four big horses since
that, and ask anybody, and they’ll tell you I’m noted for my cattle.
I thought that by having a kind of costume, and the rats painted on
the cart, and going round the country, I should get my name about, and
get myself knowed; and so I did, for folks ’ud come to me, so that
sometimes I’ve had four jobs of a-day, from people seeing my cart. I
found I was quite the master of the rat, and could do pretty well what
I liked with him; so I used to go round Finchley, Highgate, and all the
sububs, and show myself, and how I handled the warmint.
“I used to wear a costume of white leather breeches, and a green coat
and scarlet waistkit, and a goold band round my hat, and a belt across
my shoulder. I used to make a first-rate appearance, such as was
becoming the uniform of the Queen’s rat-ketcher.
“Lor’ bless you! I’ve travell’d all over London, and I’ll kill rats
again anybody. I’m open to all the world for any sum, from one pound
to fifty. I used to have my belts painted at first by Mr. Bailey, the
animal painter--with four white rats; but the idea come into my head
that I’d cast the rats in metal, just to make more appearance for
the belt, to come out in the world. I was nights and days at it, and
it give me a deal of bother. I could manage it no how; but by my own
ingenuity and persewerance I succeeded. A man axed me a pound a-piece
for casting the rats--that would ha’ been four pound. I was very
certain that my belt, being a handsome one, would help my business
tremenjous in the sale of my composition. So I took a mould from a dead
rat in plaster, and then I got some of my wife’s sarsepans, and, by
G--, I casted ’em with some of my own pewter-pots.”