These rat-catchers traverse the sewers by night, and carry lanterns and a long wire basket with lids and a handle of the same material. They use ointment which they rub on their hands and with this same composition they cover their arms, which is very distasteful to the rats, who will not bite at any human flesh that is anointed with this preparation. These men wear large slouch hats, and pursue their calling in all seasons, to make a living. Often they have terrible battles with the enraged colonies of rats, and not a few of the rat-catchers have been over-powered in the sewers when attacked, and their bones whiten many of the brick beds and slimy crevices of these dark and dismal underground passages.
"PADDY'S GOOSE," RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY.
The cab driver now desired to know if I would like to visit "Paddy's Goose," a den in "Ratcliffe Highway," one of the worst of the bad districts of London. This place is frequented by sailors of all nations, who visit the spot to dance with the abandoned women, that are hired by the proprietors of these resorts to entice the foolish seafaring men just discharged from their vessels, with more money than they are able to take care of.
"PADDY'S GOOSE."
"Paddy's Goose," or the "White Swan," as it is called by its owner, is perhaps the most frightful hell-hole in London. The very sublimity of vice and degradation is here attained, and the noisy scraping of wheezy fiddles, and the brawls of intoxicated sailors are the only sounds heard within its walls. It is an ordinary dance house, with a bar and glasses, and a dirty floor on which scores of women of all countries and shades of color may be found dancing with Danes, Americans, Swedes, Spaniards, Russians, Negroes, Chinese, Malays, Italians, and Portuguese, in one wild hell-medley of abomination.
The proprietor of this den is undoubtedly the most desperate villain I ever saw outside of a prison gate, a man whose face is scarred and corrugated by the foot-prints of the Devil, whose servant he has been for many years, and yet I was informed that this scoundrel was tolerated, nay, encouraged by the government, from the fact that he had great influence among English seamen. This man during the Crimean War hired steamers, with bands of music, and served the Admiralty as a "crimp" for enlisting sailors, or rather for trapping them by drugging them first and then "burking" them off to the men-of-war, which needed fresh complements of seamen.
I did not stay long in this Devil's-Tavern, and I am sure my readers will excuse me from going into particular mention of the beastliness and orgies I saw there.
