In England the rat plague is endemic. Only the other day the populonsness of subterranean London was indicated by the disclosures connected with a case in a police court; for in the evidence taken against some men charged with damaging the bank of the Thames while digging for rats, it was alleged that these creatures swarmed “by tens of thousands” at the mouths of the sewers. Here they work to admirable purpose, in so far as they clear refuse from the river surface, but, in comparison with the mischief done in accomplishing it, their good offices are seriously depreciated. Few creatures have attained to such universal abuse as the rat, and few, perhaps, have deserved so much. It is true that its sagacity is prodigious, and every one knows that in the East it symbolizes Ganesha, the god of wisdom; but its sagacity is so often displayed under compromising circumstances that the rat gains little respect for the possession of this valuable quality. It is very sagacious, no doubt, in an animal to dip its tail in a bottle of oil, and then carry its tail home to suck at leisure, but such larcenous refreshment will not commend itself to any but the disreputable. Nor is there much that is admirable in the wisdom which prompts the rat to make a wheelbarrow or truck of itself, for the greater convenience of removing stolen goods. It appears that, when a gang have come upon a larger plunder than they can carry away from the premises inside them, one of the number lies down on his back while the others load him up with the booty; that he balances the pile with four legs, and, to make matters extra safe, folds his tail over the goods and holds the tip in his mouth, and that his pals then drag him off along the ground by the ears and fur! This is excellent as far as
