There is a curious instance of rats losing their lives in quest of food, which has been kindly communicated to me by a friend. When the atmospheric pump was in use at the terminus of the Croydon railway, hundreds of rats lost their lives daily. The unscientific creatures used in the night to get into the large iron tube, by exhausting the air from which the railway carriages were put in motion, their object being to lick off the grease from the leather valve, which the engineers of the line were so anxious to keep airtight. As soon as the air-pump was put to work for the first morning-train, there was no resisting, and out they were sucked all dead corpses!
The rat, though naturally a savage creature, is, by dint of kindness, capable of being tamed and being made obedient to the will of man. Some of the Japanese tame rats, and teach them to perform many entertaining tricks, and thus instructed they are exhibited as a show for the diversion of the populace.
A gentleman traveling through Mecklenburg, about forty years ago, was witness to a very singular circumstance in the post-house at New Hargard. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave a loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing each other, fed together, after which the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, while the raven hopped about the room. The landlord, after accounting for the familiarity which existed among these animals, informed his guest that the rat was the most useful of the four, for the noise he made had completely freed the house from the other rats and mice with which it had previously been infested.
But capacity for becoming tame and accustomed to the presence of man is not confined to the "foreigneer" rats, for, from the following story, it appears that the rats of England are equally susceptible of kindness. A worthy whip-maker, who worked hard at his trade to support a large family, had prepared a number of strips of leather, by well oiling and greasing them. He carefully laid them by in a box, but, strange to say, they disappeared one by one; nobody knew any thing about them, nobody had touched them.