The Ratcatcher of Paris.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 21, 25 May 1910, Page 58

The Ratcatcher of Paris.

Standing on a hand’s-breadth of footpath licked by the swiftly gliding stream of the great sewerage collector of the north, I talked with the ratcatcher of Paris.

We were deep down below the city. Half-an-hour before Victor, the ratcatcher’s son, had clanged down on us the iron manhole far above in the street, shutting out the brilliant sunshine and leaving us in inky darkness. The air was heavy with decay. From all sides reverberated noisily through the obscurity automatic flushings, sweeping the refuse out to the Seine. We were alone in this place of blackness, the century-old city of the rats. Ever since the rats came to Europe, with the Crusades, subterranean Paris has afforded them a home. The original black rat has been practically replaced t>y

The Huge, Fierce Brown Sewer Rat. although black rats are still found, and a colony of pure white rats has existed for the past, twenty-five years in a certain part of the sewers at the foot of Montmartre. A fancy-bred white rat was their founder, and they are fiercer and horded to cateh than any other. Only half-a-dozen or so are eaught each year, and they find a ready sale as fashionable pets. Forty years ago the rats boldly ventured on the boulevards, and there were no fewer than twentytwo professional ratcatchers under the Empire. But to-day, though the rats, move in legions from one quarter of the city to another, they seldom emerge farther than the cellars, and the only result of the recent floods has been, besides drowning thousands, to drive vast hordes to the sewers on the heights of Paris. Though there are a number of professional ratcatchers in the city to-day, the greatest of them all is Georges Menart, who a year ago wa.s appointed official ratcatcher to the City of Paris. Here is his card of appointment— CITY OF PARIS. ADMINISTRATION OF BRIDGES AND ROADS. M. Georges Menart, of 32, Rue de Crimoe, City Sewerman, is author- ■ ised to descend into all the sewers for the purpose of ratcatvhing. He holds the secret of attracting the rats. He never kills them in catching them. His only - weapons are his adroit, hands, scarred with rat bites, and his feet, quick as lightning, although encumbered with huge sewer boots, lie

has caught 117 rats in one hour; recen& ly he captured 282 in three days, and his bag for 1900 was over 20,000. • H« sells his rats at 60 centimes a head to the “rattodromes” in Paris and Norther® France and Belgium, where ratting with dogs is enormously popular. Wading through a foot of water, E followed this lissom, swift-footed man Through Miles of Sewers. I

On his back was strapped a cage with al funnel-mouth, ending in a cloth spout, which prevented the captured rats from getting out once they were in the eageb This, his own invention, took him seven years to elaborate. In his hand he carried an acetylene lamp, which he held shaded close to his body. The sewers run beneath every street, and every house has its pipe, giving into a side channel which leads in to the sewer. This is where the rats assemble to feed on the remnants of food. The ratcatcher, travelling at a tremendous pace, switched his lamp with a quick movement on t« each channel as he passed. Suddenly he stopped. A broad shaft of light cleft the darkness. The ratcatcher began a shrill chirping with his lips. At onee a huge rat, with beady black eyes and prying snout, hopped out. The chirping went) on, and the rat approached in cirefesj now up one, now up the other side ol the channel. Then there was a scuttle, a flash of the ratcatcher’s foot, and a curious, child-like whimper. The great rat lay writhing fast beneath that relentless sewer boot.

With a Whisk He Was in the Cage, and the chase proceeded. We descended endless, precipitous steps a foot broad, down and down, to a narrow sewer so low that we had to bend double to pass. At a crossway the ratcatcher seized a sluice lever, and a jet' of water poured forth down a sewer on the left. “Deg rats,” he whispered, and with a bound he dived down the sewer whence echoed shrill squeakings, mingled with the splash of the waters, leaving me in darkness, with scuttling, squeaking rats all round. I realised that rat-eatehing has it's disadvantages. When he returned 4lherej was a jostling mass of rats in the cage swaying on his back. “No one will ever know' how many rats there are down here,” he said; "there are millions of them. And they are very clever, but not quite clever, enough for me and my little secret. Ah! how they hate me! I always fee] as if they liked biting me when I take them with my hands. But I do not fear them.

IWhen my eage is full —it holds fifty-five rats—l put them in my shirt next my body. I have often

Come Home With Rats AU Over me.

and when I have had a good day I have a very heavy burden to carry. Night is my best time to work, for the rats sleep in the day when the sewers are being flooded and scraped out. 1 come down.

here in the evenings all alone with my lamp and my cage and my little secret, and 1 walk for miles. I have often travelled twenty-five miles in one night. I never get lost. I know the Paris sewers like the palm of my hand. Ah! yes, it is dangerous, especially in rainy weather. Only a few years ago a visitor, who was being shown this very collecteur where we are standing, slipped in; the sewerman tried to save him. and

fell in likewise, and in a second they were both swept away by the current. The danger signal is les cinq coups. When we hear the sewer watchmen, who look out for the rise of the waters, strike five blows on the iron manholes—and the sound travels for miles down here—we rush for the nearest opening. When 1 set out 1 send Victor, mon p’t'it, to wait for me at the manhole at which 1 am going to emerge. He lifts the cover.

and when I come out is waiting for me with my pony-cart, for fifty-five rats is a heavy load to carry. My little secret t It is. fear. The rats, when they see me come, know they caunot escape me, and the fear fascinates them, so they just obey my call.” “And what do you think of when yon walk the sewers at night?” I asked. “Bats,” replied the . t rtch:r. p i r 1