The Rat; Its History & Destructive Character. James Rodwell
they could scarcely have identified him. But on further examination some dead rats were found, and were supposed to have been killed by random cuts with his sword in the dark, since that instrument is said to have been found by his side besmeared and clotted with blood and fur. Now whether he died from fright or exhaustion, or from both, or whether the rats in a body followed him up and killed him, will remain to all time a mystery.
About forty years ago there was a pie-maker of Leith who met with his death through rats. It appears that he had gained great repute for his peculiar meat-pies, which were considered both good and cheap. He was an industrious man, and acquired a large connection. It was his invariable custom to make his meat-pies over-night, so as to be ready for the morning’s baking. But for some time past he had found the meat taken out of the pies in the night-time. Thus matters went on till pies and all went. This so puzzled him, that he resolved upon making his pies as usual, and stationing himself in the bakehouse in the dark to watch for the thieves. This he did. On the following morning the neighbours were stirring, but his shop remained shut; they concluded he had been awake all night, and was having a morning’s nap, and therefore would not disturb him. Midday came, and still his shop was shut. At last his customers began to muster for their pies; and sundry inquiries were made as to what had become of the pieman. At last they burst open the door; still no pieman made his appearance. They then searched the house all over, but to no purpose. At last they went into the bakehouse, and there they found him on the floor, a corpse, with his face, hands, and body most frightfully gnawed away. The bystanders were perfectly horror-stricken, and could form no idea as to what could have so cruelly maltreated him. At length one of them passed out into the yard, and there lay a large wooden pump which had belonged to an old ship. He saw a rat pop out at the further end, which, as soon as it saw him, popped back again. This threw some light upon the mystery, and quietly searching, they found that where one end of the pump came against the outside of the bakehouse the rats had made a hole, and so got access to the interior of the bakehouse. They then set quietly to work, and stopped both ends of the pump tight up, and so fastened all the rats tight in. Then all the pots and kettles in the neighbourhood were set to work for boiling water, and after boring sundry holes in the upper side of the pump, they poured in the boiling liquid, one kettle after another, till they scalded all the rats to death; and upon turning them out, it is said, there were hundreds. Now whether the pieman, like the young woman of Paris, died from fright, and was gnawed before he was cold, or whether the rats attacked him in a body and killed him, will remain to the end a mystery.
There lived lately in Clerkenwell a woman aged 63, of rather eccentric habits. Not having been seen for some days by her neighbours, suspicion was aroused, and upon her room being entered, her lifeless and putrefied corpse was discovered lying in the middle of the apartment; the face, neck, and other parts of the unfortunate woman’s person having been so awfully mutilated by rats as to be hardly recognizable.
From many striking instances, it appears very clear that rats are creatures of impulse, for frequently they will pass by a thing without caring for, or even noticing it, when at another time they will seize upon it with the most ferocious daring, and devour it with avidity; nor are they very particular, in the absence of anything tender, at trying their teeth with something tough. For instance, the author of “Gleanings of Natural History” gives an account of an old tortoise. But before I relate this circumstance I may as well give an account of the rats of the Cape of Good Hope.
A gentleman residing in London, wrote to the “Gentleman’s Magazine” to the following effect:—“In the course of his life, public service had carried him several times to the Cape of Good Hope, where it struck him as a strange fancy in every family, to see a small land-tortoise in the inclosed yard, behind the offices of the house. For some time he looked upon the animal as a universal pet; but at length he was undeceived, by being told that they were kept for the purpose of keeping away the rats, which would never approach any place where a land-tortoise was harboured.”
So much for the modesty of the Cape rats; and I might say also the rats of Calcutta, for Mr. Jesse says, that, while on the tortoise, he may as well mention that Captain Gooch informed him that when he was at Calcutta, he was told that a tortoise which had belonged to, and had been a great favourite of, Lord Clive, when he was Governor-General of India, was still living. He went to see it, and as no one seemed to take any interest in the creature, he procured it with little difficulty, and brought it to England. But before he left Calcutta he made every inquiry as to the probable age of this tortoise, and ascertained, from a variety of corroborative circumstances, that it could not be less than two hundred years old. On his arrival in England, Captain Gooch had the old tortoise put into the coach-house, at his seat near Clapham Common. There for a short time it did well; but one morning, nothing was found of it but its shell, the poor old tortoise having been killed in the night, and devoured by rats.
Mr. Jesse relates an extraordinary instance of the sagacity and foresight of rats, and, wonderful as it may appear, he says it may be relied upon, for he received it from a person of the strictest veracity, who was an eye-witness to the fact. A box containing some bottles of Florence oil was placed in a store-room which was seldom opened: the box had no lid to it. On going to the room one day for one of the bottles, the pieces of bladder and cotton which were at the mouth of each bottle had disappeared, and a considerable quantity of the contents of the bottles had been consumed. The circumstance having excited surprise, a few bottles were filled with oil, and the mouths of them secured as before. Next morning the coverings of the bottles had been removed, and some of the oil was gone. However, upon watching the room, which was done through a little window, some rats were seen to get into the box, and insert their tails into the necks of the bottles; and then withdrawing them, they licked off the oil which adhered to them.
A friend of the author’s lately received from a kind individual, resident in a foreign country, a package containing a few bottles of salad oil of the most delicious kind, a present which, to say nothing of the respect that was shown to him, afforded him unspeakable delight, being an ardent admirer of this sort of dainty. The bottles, which were carefully sealed, were placed in the apartment allotted for eatables, there to lie safely, as was supposed, till wanted. A few days after, our friend had a great desire to have another look at the present, and so betook himself to the pantry, when he found, to his surprise and indignation, that a nice little hole had been made in all the bungs, and some of the contents extracted from each of the bottles. There was something incomprehensible to him about the matter. He could understand how a cork or bung might be eaten through by rats or mice, but how they could manage to get at the contents was a mystery, the hole being too small to admit the head of either of these animals. Determined to ascertain who the delinquents were, and the means used by them to effect their purpose, he secreted himself one night in a corner of the room, and soon a fine glossy rat made its appearance; approached the box with a fortitude unknown to rational depredators on a similar errand, poked his tail into one of the bottles, then drew it gently forth and licked it clean, and so repeated the process over and over again till he had had his fill.
At a place in the neighbourhood of Manchester, where a station has been abandoned and the old wooden hut removed, a gentleman lately saw an ingenious and novel theft committed, and allowed it to be completed without molesting the robber. He happened to be standing quietly by, when he saw a fine sleek rat come from beneath the old station office, and walking deliberately up to a carriage that was standing off the line, clambered up a spoke in one of the wheels to the box wherein the grease was kept; and, as if regularly trained to the office, with one of his fore-paws he raised the spring-lid, and there held it while he looked round to see if any enemy was at hand; then, seeming satisfied that all was safe, he forthwith plunged his nose and whiskers into the grease, which we believe is composed of palm-oil and tallow, and which he seemed to eat with as much relish as an alderman would the green fat of a turtle. But from time to time he drew out his head to see that all was right, still holding up the spring-lid with his paw, and as he felt satisfied that all was secure, he again plunged into the grease, and so on till he had had his fill; after which he let fall the lid, and quietly and steadily returned to his abode. This rat, I think, showed as much cunning and sagacity as the rats that put their tails into the oil-flasks; but still it is a matter that will admit of discussion.
I have seen and nursed the wonderful little dog Tiny, which, for its size, was the greatest