How to skin a rat

Monday, 16 November 2009 05:00

November 16, 1841. There is, indeed, more than one way to skin a rat, as shown in this item from the St. Catherines Journal, Upper Canada.

Mr. Russell, the eminent provision merchant, of Limerick [Ontario], has a "rat barrack," on his premises. It is about twelve feet long and six feet broad, and the wall about four feet high, with a coping stone on the top, that projects a couple of feet inside of the wall. The inside of the wall is full of holes that just admit a rat's body, leaving his tail outside. The whole is covered with old boards. There are two passages for them to come outside into the yard, where they are fed, and never disturbed. The consequence is that they never go into his store where the bacon is.

Once every three months he closes the holes that communicate with the yard. He uncovers the walls, and the rats all run into the holes in the walls. Their tails are "hanging out," when a man goes in, takes them one by one by the tails, and throws them into a barrel, where they are all destroyed, to leave room for a fresh supply.