THE RAT CAT-KEEPING IN THE DOCKS. 175 



and at that period, a very distant one indeed, there 

 was an extensive breed of them in the vicinity. 



The RAT must certainly be looked upon to be the 

 heaviest and most expensive depredator, as subsist- 

 ing on corn, particularly on wheat. Should a farmer 

 catch two or three rats, and board them during a week 

 or two upon wheat, taking account of the quantity 

 consumed, with the probability that it would be much 

 more were the rats at large, he might gain intelligence 

 worth knowing, granting he made good use of it, 

 and would thence take the advice given in the New 

 Farmers' Calendar, to have a perpetual periodical 

 rat hunt, the periods never being too distant. The 

 following example of the Proprietors of the St. 

 Katherine's Docks, London, is indeed a shining and 

 a radical one. I learnt from a well informed per- 

 son, who is often in the vicinity, that some hun- 

 dreds of cats are kept in the Docks, to destroy the 

 rats, which previously to this mode of insurance, 

 made havoc amongst the sugars there deposited, to 

 a vast annual amount. The annual expense of this 

 plan is 104. The cats' meat is bought by contract, 

 and two men are allowed to attend and feed them. 

 They are fed in the morning at six, and in the 

 evening at nine o'clock. A Proprietor, it seems, 

 some time since, took a fancy to one of the cats, a 

 great beauty and famous vermin-killer, and would 

 have it, much against the inclination of the atten- 

 dants. It was accordingly trapped; and the gen- 

 tleman himself undertaking the perilous attempt 

 to lay hold and release it, the cat flew at him 

 i 4 



