It appears in that very masterly set of etchings by Simon Guillain, or Guilini, from drawings made by Annibal Caracci, of the Cries of Bologna, published in 1646, that the Rat-catcher had representations of rats and mice painted upon a square cloth fastened to a pole like a flag, which he carried across his shoulder.
The Chinese Rat and Mouse-killer carries a cat in a bag. In Ben Jonson’s time, the King’s most excellent Mole-catcher lived in Tothill Street.
MARKING STONES.
Plate X.
The rare wood-cut, from which the present etching was made, is one of the curious set of twelve figures engraved in wood of the time of James the First. Under the figure are the following lines:
“Buy Marking Stones, Marking Stones buy,
Much profit in their use doth lie:
I’ve marking stones of colour red,
Passing good,—or else black lead.”
The cry of Marking Stones is also noticed in the play of “Tarquin and Lucrece.” These Marking Stones, as the verses above state, are either of a red colour, or composed of black lead. They were used in marking of linen, so that washing could not take the mark out. Every one knows that water will not take effect upon black lead, particularly if the stick of that material, which is denominated “a Marking Stone,” be heated before it be stamped. The stone, of a red colour, was probably of a material impregnated with the red called “ruddle,” a colour never to be washed out. It is used by the graziers for the marking of their sheep, is of an oily nature, and made in immense quantities, for the use of graziers, at the Ruddle Manufactory, near the Nine Elms, on the Battersea Road. It was a red known in the reign of Edward the Third, and much used by the painters employed in the decorations of St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster.