Rat-catcher
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The rat-catcher was a profession centered around catching rats as a form of pest control.
Keeping the rat population was important since rats can spread diseases to men, most notoriously the Black Plague. Rats were also blamed for damaging food supplies.
It is said that some rat-catchers would raise rats instead of catching them in order to get more money from the towns. This, and the practice of rat-fights, would have led to rat-breeding and the adoption of the rat as a pet : the fancy rat.
A famous rat-catcher from Victorian England was Jack Black. A famous legendary rat-catcher was The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
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