88 
THE RAT. 
eighteenpenny jobs. Their time is of too much value ; but, 
in their professional calling, they mostly contract with large 
establishments, at so much per year, regulated according to 
the number of times they are expected to visit the premises 
during that period, and on conditions also that they have all 
the rats they catch for themselves, which are afterwards sold 
in their shops at sixpence each, for training dogs and rat- 
matches ; but in most cases sewer- rats are forbidden in rat- 
matches, as they are too large and foul-mouthed to risk 
valuable dogs with. 
Here let me warn the reader, that should he at any time 
be bitten by a rat, let the wound be thoroughly cleansed 
immediately with warm water and yellow soap ; but in all 
cases, when a valuable dog has been rat-killing, they bathe 
his wounds, to cleanse them from any venom that might be 
hanging about any of the rats' teeth. 
A well-known ratcatcher reported to me, that he kills 
rats, both by the year and by the job. The proprietor 
of the Tavistock Hotel, Covenb Garden, has employed 
him for years past, at six pounds per year. He visits the 
hotel weekly, and he informs me that he brings away from 
twenty to thirty rats each visit. Thus, if we divide the 
difference, and set them down at twenty-five per week, it 
amounts to 1,300 rats in the year, and these rats he sells at 
sixpence each, which produces £32. 10s. Then add his 
salary to this, and we find, according to his own statement, 
that he makes <£38. 10s. a year by the rats of the Tavistock 
Hotel. Here then is a guarantee that this man is an honest 
ratcatcher ; for, in the first place, he would not be trusted all 
over the hotel weekly, if time and experience had not proved 
bim such ; and, in the second place, were he otherwise dis- 
posed, his living is too valuable to risk for a paltry act of 
dishonesty ; and there is no doubt but there are many other 
ratcatchers in London who may stand upon a perfect equality 
with him ; therefore let it be distinctly understood, that 
I do not wish to say one word in depreciation of the 
true class of honest ratcatchers ; but to the utmost of my 
power I will warn the public against that class of vagabonds, 
who, by putting on the guise of ratcatchers, as a cloak, bring 
an honest profession into disrepute. 
The same man is also engaged at the Lambeth Workhouse 
