THE RAT. 
examine it, and soon pronounced it to be a small gold ring, 
which could not have passed over its head but at a period 
when the creature was very young. Upon closer examination 
it was found to be the lady's wedding-ring, lost so long before, 
which must have been carried away by the parent-rat to the nest 
of her young ones, and being dropped into that quiet home, 
the struggling blind creature must have thrust its tiny head 
through the golden noose. Each day the rat enlarged in 
size, making it more and more impossible to remove the 
ring, It was now a permanent collar, but of such small 
dimensions that the wonder is, how nature continued to 
permit her living demands to be supplied. Here were the 
two great canals of life to the brain, and other two canals 
bringing back the blood from the brain, the gullet, and the 
windpipe, all compressed into the narrow space of a wedding- 
ring ; and yet the creature lived — was fat, and full of flesh. 
Nature must have been most accommodating in her efforts 
to sustain vitality in this little quadruped. She must have 
done a wonderful thing to permit life, health, and vigour to 
exist within the slender limits of a wedding-ring. 
CHAPTER X. 
THE DESTRUCTION AND EXTIRPATION OF RATS. 
A FEW years ago, the journals teemed with an account 
of a grand rat-batteau, or rat slaughter, in the sewers of 
Paris ; and that two merchants of Grenoble had contracted 
for the skins. In a few days, by dint of mutton-suet and 
leathern bags, they caught no less than 250,000 and at the 
expiration of a fortnight they had killed above 600,000. 
The merchants of Grenoble had agreed to give ten francs a 
hundred for the skins, which was at the rate of a penny each, 
and amounted to £2,500 English money. The merchants 
were obliged to renounce their contract, not having capital 
enough to complete it ; and it was afterwards clearly ascer- 
tained, that a leather-dresser, in the city of London, bought 
them at an advanced price. 
Now comes the grand subject for our consideration. In 
