The Rat-Catcher's Prank: Interspecies Cunningness and Scavenging in Henry Mayhew's London

Abstract

The funniest thing that ever happened in a West London pub, at least, according to Jack Black, self-appointed rat-catcher to the Queen and initiator of the incident, involved two rat-catchers and eleven rats. 1 Black related the episode when interviewed by the social investigator, Henry Mayhew, for London Labour and the London Poor (1850-51), an exhaustive catalogue of the activities, habits and private lives of London's street folk. The author visited Black, his wife and daughter at their home in Battersea, on the exterior of which a plaque with the royal initials, 'V.R.', and a painting of a white rat, proudly proclaimed him 'Rat Destroyer to Her Majesty'. Inside, Mayhew discovered a menagerie: the taxidermy remains of Black's favourite rat-hunting animals, including dogs, ferrets and polecats, were staged in 'appropriate' stances. 2 The city's foremost rat-catcher, Jack Black possessed the gift of the gab, as Mayhew had noted when first stumbling upon him on the streets of London, peddling his famous rat poison while entertaining the crowd with his bravado and skill at handling live rats. After a day hawking rat poison, Black drove his cart to the King's Arms in Hanwell, West London, where a rival rat-catcher's cart stood, bearing a cage of sixty rats: 'the miserablest mangy brutes you ever seed in a tub'. Determined 'to have a lark', Black took ten rats out of the cage and placed them inside his shirt, then walked into the parlour of the King's Arms, sat down and began drinking his ale. Already familiar with Black and his stunts, the landlord announced that, 'I know a man who'll ketch rats quicker than anybody in the world'.