Henry Mayhew

London Labour and the London Poor

1861-1862. Dover Publications Inc., 1968. 4 vols.

"The first rats I caught was when I was about nine years of age. I ketched them at Mr. Strickland's, a large cow-keeper, in Little Albany-street, Regent's Park. At that time it was all fields and meaders in them parts...With my ferruts I at first used to go out hunting rats round by the ponds in Regent's-park, and the ditches, and in the cow- sheds round about. People never paid me for ketching...I used to make my money by selling the rats to gents as was fond of sport, and wanted them for their little dogs. I kept to this till I was thirteen or fourteen years of age, always using the ferruts; and I bred from them, too"

Jack Black, the self-styled 'Queen's ratcatcher,' was the man to go to when the author 'wished to obtain the best information about rat and vermin destroying...There was an expression of kindliness in his countenance, a quality which does not exactly agree with one's preconceived notions of ratcatchers...Mr. Black stuffs animals and birds...The enormous pot-bellied carp, with the miniature rushes painted at the back of its case, was caught in the Regent's Park waters'.

"It's fifteen years ago since I first worked for Goverment. I found that the parks was much infested with rats, which had underminded the bridges and gnawed the drains...I've taken thirty-two rats out of one hole in the islands in Regentsey-park, and found in it fish, birds, and loads of eggs – duck eggs and every kind"