Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher

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Full Revelations of a Professional
Rat-catcher

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Full Revelations of a Professional
Rat-catcher, by Ike Matthews
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Title: Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher After 25 Years'
Experience
Author: Ike Matthews

Release Date: December 6, 2005 [eBook #17243]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FULL
REVELATIONS OF A PROFESSIONAL RAT-CATCHER***

This eBook was prepared by Les Bowler.

Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher, after 25 Years'
Experience by Ike Matthews.
[Title page image: title.jpg]

Introduction.
In placing before my readers in the following pages the results of my
twenty-five years' experience of Rat-catching, Ferreting, etc., I may say
that I have always done my best to accomplish every task that I have
undertaken, and I have in consequence received excellent testimonials
from many corporations, railway companies, and merchants. I have not
only made it my study to discover the different and the best methods of
catching Rats, but I have also taken great interest in watching their
ways and habits, and I come to the conclusion that there is no sure way
of completely exterminating the Rodents, especially in large towns. If I
have in this work referred more particularly to Rat-catching in
Manchester that is only because my experience, although extending
over a much wider area, has been chiefly in that city, but the methods I
describe are equally applicable to all large towns.
Yours truly,
IKE MATTHEWS.
PROFESSIONAL RAT-CATCHER, PENDLETON, MANCHESTER.


PART I. HOW TO CLEAR RATS FROM

WAREHOUSES, OFFICES,
STOREROOMS, ETC.
In the first place my advice is--never poison Rats in any enclosed
buildings whatever. Why? Simply because the Rats that you poison are
Drain Rats, or what you call Black Rats, and you can depend upon it
that the Rats that you poison will not get back into the drains, but die
under the floor between the laths and plaster, and the consequence is
that in a few days the stench that will arise will be most obnoxious.
And there is nothing more injurious than the smell of a decomposed
Rat.
Having had a long experience in Manchester I am quite sure of this. As
an instance, I remember a private house where I was engaged catching
Rats under a floor with ferrets. I went as far as possible on my belly
under the floor with two candles in my hands, and I saw the ferret kill a
large bitch Rat, about six yards from me against a wall, where neither
the dog nor myself could get at it. I finished the job and made out my
bill for my services, but in about two or three weeks after they again
sent for me, declaring they could not stay in the sitting-room on
account of the smell that arose from beneath the flooring boards. They
had in consequence to send for a joiner; and as I knew the exact spot
where the Rat was killed I ordered him to take up the floor boards just
where the dead Rat lay, and the stench that arose from the decomposed
Rodent was bad in the extreme. I disinfected the place, and I was never
sent for again. This was under a cold floor, and it is much worse where
there is any heat.
Now to deal with the different methods of catching Rats. The best way,
in my opinion, is,

TRAPPING THEM WITH STEEL SPRING TRAPS.
Whenever you are trapping, never on any consideration put bait on the
traps; always put traps in their runs, but you will find Rats are so

cunning that in time, after a few have been caught, they will jump over
the traps, and then you must try another way. A good one is the
following, viz.:--Get a bag of fine, clean sawdust, and mix with it about
one-sixth its weight of oatmeal. Obtain the sawdust fresh from under
the saw, without bits of stick in, as these would be liable to get into the
teeth of the trap and stop them from closing. Where you see the runs
put a handful in say about 30 different places, every night, just
dropping the sawdust and meal out of your hands in little heaps. That
means 30 different heaps. Do this for four nights, and you will see each
morning that the sawdust is all spread about. Now for four more nights
you must bury a set trap under every heap of sawdust.