Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

The rat is admirably armed and equipped for the peculiar mode of life which he is ordained to lead. He has formidable weapons in the shape of four small, long, and very sharp teeth, two of which are fixed in the upper and two in the under jaw. These are formed in the shape of a wedge, and by the following wonderful provision of Nature, have always a fine, sharp, cutting edge. On examining them carefully, we find that the inner part is of a soft, ivory-like composition, which may be easily worn away, whereas the outside is composed of a glass-like enamel, which is excessively hard. The upper teeth work exactly into the under, so that the centres of the opposed teeth meet exactly in the act of gnawing; the soft part is thus being perpetually worn away, while the hard part keeps a sharp, chisel-like edge; at the same time the teeth grow up from the bottom, so that as they wear away a fresh supply is ready. The consequence of this arrangement is, that, if one of the teeth be removed, either by accident or on purpose, the opposed tooth will continue to grow upward; and, as there is nothing to grind it away, will project from the mouth and be turned upon itself; or, if it be an under-tooth, it will even run into the skull above.

There is a curious, but little known fact, which well illustrates the ravages which the rats can inflict on a hard substance with these little sharp teeth. Many of the elephant's tusks imported into London for the use of the ivory ornament makers, are observed to have their surfaces grooved into small furrows of unequal depths, as though cut out by a very sharp-edged instrument. Surely no man would have taken the trouble to do this, for what would be the profit of his labor? The rats, however, are at the bottom of the secret, or else, clever fellows as they are, they would not have used their chisel-like teeth with such effect. They have found out the tusks which contain the most gelatine or animal glue, a sweet and delicious morsel for the rat's dainty palate; and having gnawed away as much as suited their purpose, have left the rest for the ivory-cutter – he, for his part, is neither unable nor unwilling to profit by the fact marked out by the rat's teeth. The ivory that contains a large amount of gelatine is softer and more elastic than that which does not; and as elasticity is the thing most needful for billiard balls, he chooses this rat-marked ivory, and turns it into the beautiful elastic billiard balls we see on the slate tables in St. James's-street. The elasticity of some of these is so great, that if struck down forcibly on a hard pavement, they will rebound into the hand to the height of three or four feet.

Rats have a remarkable instinct for finding out where there is any thing good for food; and it has been often a subject of wonder, how they manage to get on board ships laden with sugar and other attractive cargoes. This mystery has, however, been cleared up, for they have been seen to come off shore to the ship by means of the rope by which she is moored to the quay, although at some distance from the shore. By the same means they will leave the ship when she comes into port, if they find their quarters filling, or filled with water; hence the saying, that "rats always leave a sinking ship" is perfectly true. If, however, the ship be water-tight, they will continue breeding to an enormous extent. M. de St. Pierre informs us, that on the return of the "Valiant" man-of-war from the Havana, in the year 1766, its rats had increased to such a degree, that they destroyed a hundred weight of biscuit daily. The ship was at length smoked between decks in order to suffocate them; and six hampers were for some time filled every day with the rats that had thus been killed.

There is a curious instance of rats losing their lives in quest of food, which has been kindly communicated to me by a friend. When the atmospheric pump was in use at the terminus of the Croydon railway, hundreds of rats lost their lives daily. The unscientific creatures used in the night to get into the large iron tube, by exhausting the air from which the railway carriages were put in motion, their object being to lick off the grease from the leather valve, which the engineers of the line were so anxious to keep airtight. As soon as the air-pump was put to work for the first morning-train, there was no resisting, and out they were sucked all dead corpses!

The rat, though naturally a savage creature, is, by dint of kindness, capable of being tamed and being made obedient to the will of man. Some of the Japanese tame rats, and teach them to perform many entertaining tricks, and thus instructed they are exhibited as a show for the diversion of the populace.

A gentleman traveling through Mecklenburg, about forty years ago, was witness to a very singular circumstance in the post-house at New Hargard. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave a loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing each other, fed together, after which the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, while the raven hopped about the room. The landlord, after accounting for the familiarity which existed among these animals, informed his guest that the rat was the most useful of the four, for the noise he made had completely freed the house from the other rats and mice with which it had previously been infested.

But capacity for becoming tame and accustomed to the presence of man is not confined to the "foreigneer" rats, for, from the following story, it appears that the rats of England are equally susceptible of kindness. A worthy whip-maker, who worked hard at his trade to support a large family, had prepared a number of strips of leather, by well oiling and greasing them. He carefully laid them by in a box, but, strange to say, they disappeared one by one; nobody knew any thing about them, nobody had touched them.

However, one day, as he was sitting at work in his shop, a large black rat, of the original British species, slyly poked his head up out of a hole in the corner of the room, and deliberately took a survey of the whole place. Seeing all quiet, out he came, and ran straight to the box wherein were kept the favorite leather strips. In he dived, and quickly reappeared, carrying in his mouth the most dainty morsel he could find. Off he ran to his hole, and quickly vanished. Having thus found out the thief, the saddler determined to catch him; he accordingly propped up a sieve by a stick, and put a bait underneath; in a few minutes out came the rat again, smelling the inviting toasted cheese, and forthwith attacked it. The moment he began nibbling at the bait, down came the sieve, and he became a prisoner. Now, thought he, "my life depends upon my behavior when this horrid sieve is lifted up by that two-legged wretch with the apron on, who so kindly cuts the greasy thongs for me every day: he has a good-natured looking face, and I don't think he wants to kill me. I know what I will do."

The saddler' at length lifted up the sieve, being armed with a stick ready to kill Mr. Rat when he rushed out. What was his astonishment to see that the rat remained perfectly quiet, and, after a few moments, to walk quietly up on his arm, and look up in his face, as much as to say, "I am a poor innocent rat, and if your wife will lock up all the good things in the cupboard, why I must eat your nicely prepared thongs; rats must live as well as saddlers." The man then said, "Tom, I was going to kill you, but now I won't; let us be friends. I'll put you some bread and butter every day if you won't take my thongs and wax, and leave the shopman's breakfast alone; but I am afraid you will come out once too often; there are lots of dogs and cats about who won't be so kind to you as I am; you may go now."

He then put him down, and Mr. Rat leisurely retreated to his hole. For a long time afterward he found his breakfast regularly placed for him at the mouth of his hole, in return for which he, as in duty bound, became quite tame, running about the shop, and inquisitively turning over every thing on the bench at which his protector was at work. He would even accompany him into the stables when he went to feed the pony, and pick up the corn as it fell from the manger, keeping, however, a respectful distance from the pony's legs. His chief delight was to bask in the warm window sill, stretching his full length to the mid-day sun. This unfortunate, though agreeable habit, proved his destruction, for one very hot day, as he lay at his ease taking his siesta, the dog belonging to the bird-shop opposite espied him afar off, and instantly dashed at him through the window. The poor rat, who was asleep at the time, awoke, alas! too late to save his life. The cruel dog caught him, and took him into the road, where a few sharp squeezes and shakings soon finished him. The fatal deed being done, the murderous dog left his bleeding victim in the dusty road, and with ears and tail erect, walked away as though proud of his performance. The dog's master, knowing the history of the rat, had him stuffed, and his impaled skin, with a silver chain round the neck, forms to this day a handsome addition to the shop-front of the bird-shop in Brompton.

There is a curious fact connected with the habits of the rat, which warrants a closer observation on the part of those who have the opportunity, it is the emigration of rats. It appears that rats, like many birds, fish, &c., are influenced to change their abode by want of food; by necessity of change of temperature; by want of a place for incubation, where they may obtain food for their young; and, lastly, by their fear of man.

A Spanish merchant had forestalled the market of Barcelona filberts on speculation some years ago. He filled his warehouse with sacks of them, and refused to sell them to the retail-dealers, but at such a price as they could not afford to give. Thinking, however, that they would be obliged to submit to his demand, rather than not procure them for sale, he persisted in exacting his original price, and thus lost nearly all his treasure; for he was informed by an early rising friend, that he had seen, just before sunrise, an army of rats quitting the warehouse. He immediately went to examine his sacks, and found them gnawed in various places, and emptied of above half their contents, and empty shells of filberts strewed over the floor.

Pennant relates a story of a burglarious grand-larceny troop of rats, which nearly frightened a young lady out of her wits, by mistaking her chimney for one leading to a cheese-room. She was suddenly wakened by a tremendous clatter in her bed-chamber, and on looking up saw a terrific troop of rats running about in wild disorder. She had presence of mind enough to throw her candlestick at them (timor arma ministral) and to her great joy she found that they speedily departed by the way which they had entered her apartment, leaving only a cloud of soot over the room.

Forty years ago, the house of a surgeon in Swansea was greatly infested with rats, and he completely got rid of them by burning off all the hair from one of them which he had caught alive, and then allowing it to return to its hole. It was said that he never afterward saw a rat on his premises, except the burnt sufferer, which on the following day returned, and was caught in the same trap from which he had been but just set at liberty. I suppose that in their "Advertiser," the description of a ghost, and a notice of haunted premises was given, which caused the whole colony so unanimously to decamp.

A DARK CHAPTER FROM THE DIARY OF A LAW CLERK

One Ephraim Bridgman, who died in 1783, had for many years farmed a large quantity of land in the neighborhood of Lavenham or Lanham (the name is spelt both ways), a small market-town about twelve miles south of Bury St. Edmunds. He was also land agent as well as tenant to a noble lord possessing much property thereabouts, and appears to have been a very fast man for those times, as, although he kept up appearances to the last, his only child and heir, Mark Bridgman, found on looking closely into his deceased father's affairs, that were every body paid, he himself would be left little better than a pauper. Still, if the noble landlord could be induced to give a very long day for the heavy balance due to him – not only for arrears of rent, but moneys received on his lordship's account – Mark, who was a prudent energetic young man, nothing doubted of pulling through without much difficulty – the farm being low rented and the agency lucrative. This desirable object, however, proved exceedingly difficult of attainment, and after a protracted and fruitless negotiation, by letter, with Messrs. Winstanley, of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, London, his lordship's solicitors, the young farmer determined, as a last resource, on a journey to town, in the vague hope that on a personal interview he should find those gentlemen not quite such square, hard, rigid persons as their written communications indicated them to be. Delusive hope! They were precisely as stiff, formal, accurate, and unvarying as their letters. "The exact balance due to his lordship," said Winstanley, senior, "is, as previously stated, £2103 14s. 6d., which sum, secured by warrant of attorney, must be paid as follows: one half in eight, and the remaining moiety in sixteen months from the present time." Mark Bridgman was in despair: taking into account other liabilities that would be falling due, compliance with such terms was, he felt, merely deferring the evil day, and he was silently and moodily revolving in his mind whether it might not be better to give up the game at once rather than engage in a prolonged, and almost inevitably disastrous struggle, when another person entered the office and entered into conversation with the solicitor. At first the young man did not appear to heed – perhaps did not hear what was said – but after a while one of the clerks noticed that his attention was suddenly and keenly aroused, and that he eagerly devoured every word that passed between the new comer and Mr. Winstanley. At length the lawyer, as if to terminate the interview, said, as he replaced a newspaper —The Public Advertiser– an underlined notice in which had formed the subject of his colloquy with the stranger, upon a side table, by which sat Mark Bridgman. "You desire us then, Mr. Evans, to continue this advertisement for some time longer?" Mr. Evans replied, "Certainly, six months longer, if necessary." He then bade the lawyers "good-day," and left the office.

"Well, what do you say, Mr. Bridgman!" asked Mr. Winstanley, as soon as the door had closed. "Are you ready to accept his lordship's very lenient proposal?"

"Yes," was the quick reply. "Let the document be prepared at once, and I will execute it before I leave." This was done, and Mark Bridgman hurried off, evidently, it was afterward remembered, in a high state of flurry and excitement. He had also, they found, taken the newspaper with him – by inadvertence, the solicitor supposed, of course.

Within a week of this time, the good folk of Lavenham – especially its womankind – were thrown into a ferment of wonder, indignation, and bewilderment! Rachel Merton, the orphan dressmaking girl, who had been engaged to, and about to marry Richard Green, the farrier and blacksmith – and that a match far beyond what she had any right to expect, for all her pretty face and pert airs, was positively being courted by Bridgman, young, handsome, rich, Mark Bridgman of Red Lodge (the embarrassed state of the gentleman-farmer's affairs was entirely unsuspected in Lavenham); ay, and by way of marriage, too – openly – respectfully, deferentially – as if he, not Rachel Merton, were the favored and honored party! What on earth, every body asked, was the world coming to? – a question most difficult of solution; but all doubt with respect to the bonâ fide nature of Mark Bridgman's intentions toward the fortunate dressmaker was soon at an end; he and Rachel being duly pronounced man and wife at the parish church within little more than a fortnight of the commencement of his strange and hasty wooing! All Lavenham agreed that Rachel Merton had shamefully jilted poor Green, and yet it may be doubted if there were many of them that, similarly tempted, would not have done the same. A pretty orphan girl, hitherto barely earning a subsistence by her needle, and about to throw herself away upon a coarse, repulsive person, but one degree higher than herself in the social scale – entreated by the handsomest young man about Lavenham to be his wife, and the mistress of Red Lodge, with nobody knows how many servants, dependents, laborers! – the offer was irresistible! It was also quite natural that the jilted blacksmith should fiercely resent – as he did – his sweetheart's faithless conduct; and the assault which his angry excitement induced him to commit upon his successful rival a few days previous to the wedding, was far too severely punished, every body admitted, by the chastisement inflicted by Mark Bridgman upon his comparatively weak and powerless assailant.

The morning after the return of the newly-married couple to Red Lodge from a brief wedding trip, a newspaper which the bridegroom had recently ordered to be regularly supplied was placed upon the table. He himself was busy with breakfast, and his wife, after a while, opened it, and ran her eye carelessly over its columns. Suddenly an exclamation of extreme surprise escaped her, followed by – "Goodness gracious, my dear Mark, do look here!" Mark did look, and read an advertisement aloud, to the effect that "If Rachel Edwards, formerly of Bath, who, in 1762, married John Merton, bandmaster of the 29th Regiment of Infantry, and afterward kept a school in Manchester, or any lineal descendant of hers, would apply to Messrs. Winstanley, solicitors, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, they would hear of something greatly to their advantage." "Why, dear Mark," said the pretty bride, as her husband ceased reading, "my mother's maiden name was Rachel Edwards, and I am, as you know, her only surviving child!" "God bless me, to be sure! I remember now hearing your father speak of it. What can this great advantage be, I wonder? I tell you what we'll do, love," the husband added, "you would like to see London, I know. We'll start by coach to-night, and I'll call upon these lawyers, and find out what it all means." This proposition was, of course, gladly acceded to. They were gone about a fortnight, and on their return it became known that Mark Bridgman had come into possession of £12,000 in right of his wife, who was entitled to that sum by the will of her mother's maiden sister, Mary Edwards, of Bath. The bride appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that her husband had been influenced by any other motive than her personal charms in marrying her – a pleasant illusion which, to do him justice, his unvarying tenderness toward her through life, confirmed and strengthened; but others, unblinded by vanity, naturally surmised the truth. Richard Green, especially, as fully believed that he had been deliberately, and with malice prepense, tricked out of £12,000, as of the girl herself; and this conviction, there can be no doubt, greatly increased and inflamed his rage against Mark Bridgman – so much so that it became at last the sole thought and purpose of his life, as to how he might safely and effectually avenge himself of the man who was flaunting it so bravely in the world, while he – poor duped and despised castaway – was falling lower and lower in the world every day he lived. This was the natural consequence of his increasingly dissolute and idle habits. It was not long before an execution for rent swept away his scanty stock in trade, and he thenceforth became a ragged, vagabond hanger-on about the place – seldom at work, and as often as possible drunk; during which fits of intemperance his constant theme was the bitter hatred he nourished toward Bridgman, and his determination, even if he swung for it, of being one day signally avenged. Mark Bridgman was often warned to be on his guard against the venomous malignity of Green; but this counsel he seems to have spurned, or treated with contempt.

While the vengeful blacksmith was thus falling into utter vagabondism, all was sunshine at Red Lodge. Mark Bridgman really loved his pretty and gentle, if vain-minded wife – a love deepened by gratitude, that through her means he had been saved from insolvency and ruin; and barely a twelvemonth of wedded life had passed, when the birth of a son completed their happiness. This child (for nearly three years it did not appear likely there would be any other) soon came to be the idol of its parents – of its father, even more than of its mother. It was very singularly marked, with two strawberries, exceedingly distinct, on its left arm, and one, less vivid, on its right. There are two fairs held annually at Lavenham, and one of these – when little Mark was between three and four years old – Mr. Bridgman came in from Red Lodge to attend, accompanied by his wife, son, and a woman-servant of the name of Sarah Hollins. Toward evening, Mrs. Bridgman went out shopping, escorted by her husband, leave having been previously given Hollins to take the child through the pleasure – that is the booth and show part of the fair; but with strict orders not to be absent more than an hour from the inn where her master and mistress were putting up. In little more than the specified time the woman returned, but without the child; she had suddenly missed him, about half an hour before, while looking on at some street-tumbling, and had vainly sought him through the town since. The woman's tidings excited great alarm; Mr. Bridgman himself instantly hurried off, and hired messengers were, one after another, dispatched by the mother in quest of the missing child. As hour after hour flew by without result, extravagant rewards, which set hundreds of persons in motion, were offered by the distracted parents; but all to no purpose. Day dawned, and as yet not a gleam of intelligence had been obtained of the lost one. At length some one suggested that inquiry should be made after Richard Green. This was promptly carried into effect, and it was ascertained that he had not been home during the night. Further investigation left no room for doubt that he had suddenly quitted Lavenham; and thus a new and fearful light was thrown upon the boy's disappearance. It was conjectured that the blacksmith must have gone to London; and Mr. Bridgman immediately set off thither, and placed himself in communication with the authorities of Bow Street. Every possible exertion was used during several weeks to discover the child, or Green, without success, and the bereaved father returned to his home a harassed, spirit-broken man. During his absence his wife had been prematurely confined of another son, and this new gift of God seemed, after a while, to partially fill the aching void in the mother's heart; but the sadness and gloom which had settled upon the mind of her husband was not perceptibly lightened thereby. "If I knew Mark was dead," he once remarked to the rector of Lavenham, by whom he was often visited, "I should resign myself to his loss, and soon shake off this heavy grief. But that, my dear sir, which weighs me down – is in fact slowly but surely killing me – is a terrible conviction and presentiment that Green, in order fully to work out his devilish vengeance, will studiously pervert the nature of the child – lead him into evil, abandoned courses – and that I shall one day see him – but I will not tell you my dreams," he added, after stopping abruptly, and painfully shuddering, as if some frightful spectre passed before his eyes. "They are, I trust, mere fancies; and yet – but let us change the subject."

This morbidly-dejected state of mind was aggravated by the morose, grasping disposition – so entirely different from what Mr. Bridgman had fondly prophesied of Mark – manifested in greater strength with every succeeding year by his son Andrew, a strangely unlovable and gloomy-tempered boy, as if the anxiety and trouble of the time during which he had been hurried into the world had been impressed upon his temperament and character. It may be, too, that he felt irritated at, and jealous of his father's ceaseless repinings for the loss of his eldest son, who, if recovered, would certainly monopolize the lion's share of the now large family property – but not one whit too large in his – Andrew Bridgman's – opinion for himself alone.