VERMIN-KILLERS AND RAT-MATCHES. 
181 
rat-pitting has not rendered humanity a service by exter- 
minating so many of these destructive creatures. If so, 
then, is it not most desirable, or would it not be a most 
salutary step, if rat-pits were established in every town and 
village in the British dominions ? It is useless to talk of 
the police of nature ; for they, like the professed rat-catchers, 
have proved wholly unequal to the duties required of them ; 
or to assert, that the craving of rats for each other's lives 
has proved a remedy for the evil ; for if stoats, weasels, 
hawks, owls; rat-catchers, &c., have done their duty, or if rats 
are ever cruelly and wantonly destroying their own species, 
pray how comes it that they are found not only by the hun- 
dreds and thousands, but by the tens of thousands and 
hundreds of thousands, in a community (which the rats of 
Montfaucon and in the sewers of Paris prove to demonstra- 
tion)) while, at the same time, their numbers are spread 
over every temperate region of the known world? The 
subject admits of no argument, because the overwhelming 
numbers of living facts annihilate every species of specula- 
tive theory. But of the inefficiency of the various animals 
of prey to keep their numbers in check, I shall speak pre- 
*sently. 
And now I will close this part of my subject by drawing 
the attention of our worthy magistrates to three other points, 
and then leave the matter in their hands for more mature 
consideration. The first point is, as to how far, and how 
often, during the past twelve months, has the public peace of 
London been disturbed by ratting 1 second, how far and in 
what degree have the public morals been debased by seeing 
or participating in the same ? and, lastly, how many convic- 
tions have taken place in our courts of justice during the 
same period through dog-training and rat-pitting ? 
