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He has also to be the referee at these coursings, and if it is a "near thing" with two dogs running at one rat, and you decide to award the victory to a given one, then the owner of the other dog will probably accuse you of wrong-doing and favouritism. Then is the time the Rat-catcher has to be prepared to pull off his coat and start fighting before, perhaps, 500 spectators.
The owners of these shops will not go to the expense of having Rats caught, nor will they let us go into their shops at midnight; therefore the result is the Rat-catcher in his trapping and ferreting is limited to these two places, and all he can do is to catch some and drive the rest into the hardware shop.
Now, this all means heavy loss, and that is why I say that any business man so suffering ought to engage the services of a professional Rat-catcher once a year in order to keep the Rats down, and catch as many as possible before they begin breeding. Another Rat habit may be noticed where the Rodents are accustomed to have their holes and runs among flags and stones.
She would so much have liked to tell her young lady that she was not quite so bad as she thought. She would so much have liked to have her little lumps of sugar again. For times were shocking, since the rat-catcher had been. She hardly dared eat a thing, for fear lest there should be a hidden poison in it. And she could hardly go anywhere, because of the new cat.
This is all right as far as it goes, but when one comes to consider the yearly expenses of the Rat-catcher it will be found that they are very heavy. Then, again, the Rat-catcher always has to pay a man to help him. I don't call Rat-catching a trade only: I maintain that it is a profession, and one that requires much learning and courage.
Herne, and the evil sprite Leonora, Thurtell, the fighting men, the Irish outlaw Jerry Grant, who was suspected of raising a storm by "something Irish and supernatural" to win a fight, Murtagh, that wicked innocent, the old apple-woman, Blazing Bosville, Isopel Berners, the jockey who drove one hundred and ten miles in eleven hours to see "the only friend he ever had in the world," John Thurtell, and say, "God Almighty bless you, Jack!" before the drop fell, the old gentleman who had learned "Sergeant Broughton's guard" and knocked out the bullying coachman, the Welsh preacher and his wife, the Arcadian old bee-keeper, the rat-catcher all these and their companions are woven into one piece by the genius of their creator, Borrow.
The profession is a peculiar and exciting one, but all right if pursued in the right way. Although the calling takes one into dirty and obnoxious places, there is no reason why the Rat-catcher should not always appear respectable. The Rat-catcher has many temptations to dishonest conducts, for instance, when Rat-catching on a farm or private estate where there are numerous rabbits and game.
When ferreting these places they think that if a Rat-catcher has once put his ferrets under the floor they will never see another Rat in the place; but depend upon it they are very bad to catch in these places.
He could not have dropped from the sky, or come all that way alone: it must be either his master, the rat-catcher, or somebody else that had brought him; so, repressing my extravagant caresses, and endeavouring to repress his likewise, I looked round, and beheld Mr. Weston!
I think it was one of the worst things they ever did for this country when the authorities stopped the Rat pits, for when Rat killing was allowed in pits, it was a common thing for a Rat-catcher to receive an order for 100 Rats, all to be killed at one time; then the Rat-catcher would get the Rats and wherever he got them from he was ridding that district of a nuisance.
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