“Oh, my poor sarsepans! I remember ’em. There was scarce one left to
cook our wittels with.”
“Thousands of moulders,” continued Jack Black, “used to come to see me
do the casting of the rats, and they kept saying, ‘You’ll never do it,
Jack.’ The great difficulty, you see, was casting the heye--which is a
black bead--into the metal.
“When the belt was done, I had a great success; for, bless you, I
couldn’t go a yard without a crowd after me.
“When I was out with the cart selling my composition, my usual method
was this. I used to put a board across the top, and form a kind of
counter. I always took with me a iron-wire cage--so big a one, that Mr.
Barnet, a Jew, laid a wager that he could get into it, and he did. I
used to form this cage at one end of the cart, and sell my composition
at the other. There were rats painted round the cart--that was the only
show I had about the wehicle. 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 buzzum, 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. I all this
time kept on selling my composition, which my man Joe used to offer
about; and whenever a packet was sold, I always tested its wirtues by
killing a rat with it afore the people’s own eyes.
“I once went to Tottenham to sell my composition, and to exhibit with
my rats afore the country people. Some countrymen, which said they were
rat-ketchers, came up to me whilst I was playing with some rats, and
said--‘Ugh, you’re not a rat-ketcher; that’s not the way to do it.’
They were startled at seeing me selling the pison at such a rate, for
the shilling packets was going uncommon well, sir. I said, ‘No, I ain’t
a rat-ketcher, and don’t know nothink about it. You come up and show me
how to do it.’ One of them come up on the cart, and put his hand in the
cage, and curous enough he got three bites directly, and afore he could
take his hands out they was nearly bit to ribands. My man Joe, says
he, ‘I tell you, if we ain’t rat-ketchers, who is? 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. The countrymen bust out laughing; and
they said, ‘Well, you’re the best we ever see.’ I sold near 4_l._ worth
of composition that day.
“Another day, when I’d been out flying pigeons as well--carriers,
which I fancies to--I drove the cart, after selling the composition,
to the King’s Arms, Hanwell, and there was a feller there--a tailor
by trade--what had turned rat-ketcher. He had got with him some fifty
or sixty rats--the miserablest mangey brutes you ever seed in a
tub--taking ’em up to London to sell. I, hearing of it, was determined
to have a lark, so I goes up and takes out ten of them rats, and puts
them inside my shirt, next my buzzum, and then I walks into the parlour
and sits down, and begins drinking my ale as right as if nothink had
happened. I scarce had seated myself, when the landlord--who was in the
lay--says, ‘I know a man who’ll ketch rats quicker than anybody in the
world.’ This put the tailor chap up, so he offers to bet half-a-gallon
of ale he would, and I takes him. He goes to the tub and brings out a
very large rat, and walks with it into the room to show to the company.
‘Well,’ says I to the man, ‘why I, who ain’t a rat-ketcher, I’ve got
a bigger one here,’ and I pulls one out from my buzzum. ‘And here’s
another, and another, and another,’ says I, till I had placed the whole
ten on the table. ‘That’s the way I ketch ’em,’ says I,--‘they comes
of their own accord to me.’ He tried to handle the warmints, but the
poor fellow was bit, and his hands was soon bleeding fur’ously, and
I without a mark. A gentleman as knowed me said, ‘This must be the
Queen’s rat-ketcher,’ and that spilt the fun. The poor fellow seemed
regular done up, and said, ‘I shall give up rat-ketching, you’ve beat
me! Here I’ve been travelling with rats all my life, and I never see
such a thing afore.’
“When I’ve been in a mind for travelling I’ve never sold less than ten
shillings’ worth of my composition, and I’ve many a time sold five
pounds’ worth. Ten shillings’ worth was the least I ever sold. During
my younger career, if I’d had a backer, I might, one week with another,
have made my clear three pounds a-week, after paying all my expenses
and feeding my horse and all.
“I challenge my composition, and sell the art of rat-destroying,
against any chemical rat-destroyer in the world, for any sum--I don’t
care what it is. 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 warmint and lays down his
composition for nothink into the bargain likewise.
“I also destroy black beedles with a composition which I always keep
with me again it’s wanted. I often have to destroy the beedles 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 beedles
too for bakers. I’ve also sterminated some thousands of beedles for
linen-drapers and pork-sassage shops. There’s two kinds of beedles, the
hard-shell and the soft-shell beedle. The hard-shell one is the worst,
and that will gnaw cork, paper, and anythink woollen. The soft-shell’d
one will gnaw bread or food, and it also lays its eggs in the food,
which is dreadful nasty.
“There’s the house ant too, which there is some thousands of people
as never saw--I sterminate them as well. There’s a Mrs. 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. 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 beedle 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; for if you
kills the old ones the eggs will rewive, and young ones come out of the
wainskitting and sitch-like, and then your employers will say, ‘Why you
were paid for sterminating, and yet here they are.’
“One night in August--the night of a very heavy storm, which, maybe,
you may remember, sir--I was sent for by a medical gent as lived
opposite the Load of Hay, Hampstead, whose two children had been
attacked by rats while they was sleeping in their little cots. I traced
the blood, which had left lines from their tails, through the openings
in the lath and plaster, which I follered to where my ferruts come out
of, and they must have come up from the bottom of the house to the
attics. The rats gnawed the hands and feet of the little children.
The lady heard them crying, and got out of her bed and called to the
servant to know what the child was making such a noise for, when they
struck a light, and then they see the rats running away to the holes;
their little night-gownds was kivered with blood, as if their throats
had been cut. I asked the lady to give me one of the night-gownds to
keep as a cur’osity, for I considered it a _phee_nomenon, and she give
it to me, but I never was so vexed in all my life as when I was told
the next day that a maid had washed it. I went down the next morning
and sterminated them rats. I found they was of the specie of rat
which we term the blood-rat, which is a dreadful spiteful feller--a
snake-headed rat, and infests the dwellings. There may have been some
dozens of ’em altogether, but it’s so long ago I a’most forget how many
I took in that house. The gent behaved uncommon handsome, and said,
‘Mr. Black, I can never pay you for this;’ and ever arterwards, when
I used to pass by that there house, the little dears when they see me
used to call out to their mamma, ‘O, here’s Mr. Ratty, ma!’ They were
very pretty little fine children--uncommon handsome, to be sure.
“I once went to Mr. Hollins’s, in Edward-street Regent’s-park--a
cow-keeper he was--where he was so infested that the cows could not
lay down or eat their food, for the rats used to go into the manger,
and fight at ’em. Mr. Hollins said to me, ‘Black, what shall I give
you to get rid of them rats?’ and I said to him, says I, ‘Well, Mr.
Hollins, you’re a poor man, and I leave it to you.’ (He’s got awful
rich since then.) I went to work, and I actually took out 300 rats from
one hole in the wall, which I had to carry them in my mouth and hands,
and under my arms, and in my buzzum and pockets, to take them to the
cage. I was bit dreadful by them, and suffered greatly by the bites;
but nothink to lay up for, though very painful to the hands. To pervent
the rats from getting out of the hole, I had to stop it up by putting
my breast again it, and then they was jumping up again me and gnawing
at my waistkit. I should think I sterminated 500 from them premises.
Ah! I did wonders round there, and everybody was talking of my feats.
“I’ll tell you about another cow-keeper’s, which Mr. Hollins was so
gratified with my skill what I had done, that he pays me handsome
and generous, and gives me a recommendation to Mrs. Brown’s, of
Camden-town, and there I sterminated above 700 rats; and I was a-near
being killed, for I was stooping down under the manger, when a cow
heerd the rats squeak, and she butts at me and sends me up again the
bull. The bull was very savage, and I fainted; but I was picked up and
washed, and then I come to.
“Whilst doing that job at Mrs. Brown’s I had to lie down on the ground,
and push my naked arm into the hole till I could reach the rats as I’d
driven up in the corner, and then pull them out with my hand. I was
dreadful bit, for I was obleeged to handle them anyhow; my flesh was
cut to ribands and dreadful lacerated.
“There was a man Mrs. Brown had got of the name of John, and he
wouldn’t believe about the rats, and half thought I brought ’em with
me. So I showed him how to ketch rats.
“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.
“Sometimes I have to go myself into the holes, for the rats make
such big ones, there’s plenty of room. There was a Mrs. Perry in
Albany-street, that kept an oil and coke shop--she were infested with
rats dreadful. Three of her shop-boys had been sent away on suspicion
of stealing fat, instead of which it was the rats, for between the
walls and the vault I found a hundred and a half of fat stowed away.
The rats was very savage, and I should think there was 200 of them. I
made a good bit of money by that job, for Mrs. Perry give the fat to me.
“I have had some good finds at times, rat-hunting. I found under one
floor in a gent’s house a great quantity of table napkins and silver
spoons and forks, which the rats had carried away for the grease on
’em--shoes and boots gnawed to pieces, shifts, aprons, gownds, pieces
of silk, and I don’t know what not. Sarvants had been discharged
accused of stealing them there things. Of course I had to give them up;
but there they was.
“I was once induced to go to a mews in Tavistock-place, near
Russell-square, which was reg’lar infested by rats. They had sent to a
man before, and he couldn’t do nothink with ’em, but I soon sterminated
them. The rats there had worried a pair of beautiful chestnut horses,
by gnawing away their hoofs and nearly driving them mad, which I saw
myself, and there was all their teeth-marks, for I could scarcely
believe it myself till I see it. I found them near a cart-load of
common bricks, under the floor, and near the partition of the stable,
which, when the men pulled the wood-work down, the coachman, says he,
‘Well, rat-ketcher, if you’d been employed years ago a deal more corn
would have gone into the horses.’
“This coachman give me a recommendation to a muffin-maker in
Hanway-yard, and I went there and killed the rats. But a most sing’lar
thing took place there; my ferret got away and run through into a house
in Oxford-street kept by a linen-draper, for the young men come to say
that the rat-ketcher’s ferret was in their shop, and had bit one of
their lady customers. I worked the ferrut through three times to make
sure of this; and each time my little dog told me it was true. You see
a well-trained dog will watch and stand and point to the ferrut working
under ground just as a pinter does to game; and although he’s above
ground, yet he’ll track the ferrut through the runs underneath by the
smell. If the ferrut is lost--which I tell by the dog being uneasy--I
say to the dog, ‘Hi, lost;’ and then he instantly goes on scent, and
smells about in every direction, and I follers him, till he stands
exactly over the spot where it may be, and then I have either to rise a
stone or lift a board to get him out.
“I’ve ratted for years for Mr. Hodges, of Hodges and Lowman’s,
in Regent-street; and he once said to me, that he was infested
dreadful with rats at the house, which he took for the children, at
Hampstead; so I went there, and witnessed, certainly, the most cur’ous
circumstance, which puzzles me to this day. I had to lay on my belly
half in the hole and pull out the rats; and, on looking at them, as I
brings them up, I am astonished to find that nearly every one of them
is blind, and has a speck in the eye. I was never so much astonished
in my life, for they was as a wall-eyed dog might be. I supposed it to
be from lightning (I couldn’t account for it no other ways), for at
that time there was very heavy lightning and floods up there, which
maybe you might remember, sir. They was chiefly of the blood-rat
specie--small snake-headed rats, with a big, fine tail. They was very
savage with me, and I had them run all over me before I ketched them.
“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 underminded 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
ferrut kill thirty-two rats under one stone, and I lifted the dead ones
up in the presence of the cook and the butler. He didn’t behave well to
me--the gent didn’t--for I had to go to my lawyer’s afore I could get
paid, and after the use of my skill; and I had to tell the lawyer I’d
pawn my bed to stick to him and get my earnings; but, after all, I had
to take one-third less than my bill. This, thinks I, isn’t the right
thing for Portland-place.
“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 1000 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; but if you don’t feed them every
day, they’ll fight and eat one another--they will, like cannibals.
“I general contracts with my customers, by the year, or month, or job.
There’s some gents I’ve worked for these fifteen years--sitch as Mr.
Robson, the coach-builder, Mivart’s Hotel, Shoulbreds’, Mr. Lloyds, the
large tobacconist, the Commercial Life Assurance, Lord Duncannon’s, and
I can’t recollect how many more. My terms is from one guinea to five
pounds per annum, according to the premises. Besides this, I have all
the rats that I ketch, and they sell for threepence each. But I’ve done
my work too well, and wherever I went I’ve cleared the rats right out,
and so my customers have fell off. I have got the best testimonials of
any man in London, and I could get a hatful more to-morrer. Ask anybody
I’ve worked for, and they’ll tell you about Jack Black.
“One night I had two hundred rats in a cage, placed in my
sitting-room, and a gent’s dog happened to get at the cage, and undid
the door, snuffing about, and let ’em all loose. Directly I come in I
knew they was loose by the smell. I had to go on my knees and stomach
under the beds and sofas, and all over the house, and before twelve
o’clock that night I had got ’em all back again into the cage, and
sold them after for a match. I was so fearful they’d get gnawing the
children, having sterminated them in a house where children had been
gnawed.
“I’ve turned my attention to everything connected with animals. I’ve
got the best composition for curing the mange in a horse or a dog,
which has reg’lar astonished medical gents. I’ve also been bit by
a mad dog--a black retriever dog, that died raving mad in a cellar
afterwards. The only thing I did was, I washed the wound with salt and
water, and used a turpentine poultice.”