Ike Matthews, who in 1898 wrote about his 25 years of rat-catching, worked extensively for the railways:
“I have also caught Rats and taken young ones out of the nest from under railway sleepers where trains have been running and shunting operations carried on every day…”
His favourite trick was to enter a Third Class carriage, wait until it was full, then produce his crate of caught live rats from under his seat:
"to the amusement of some and the disgust of others"
"on enquiring of the railway officials, I have found that any one travelling with live rats is expected to put them in the guard's van"
which must have been a treat for the guard!
His advice to would-be rat-catchers?
Get yourself a sturdy bag to keep your rats in.
Otherwise:
"if he had a number of Rats in an unserviceable bag which happened to break open at a railway station, I think he could be summoned for the damage the escaped Rats might do."
His biggest gripe?
Like all passengers - ticket price:
"The expenses of travelling come very heavy sometimes, for wherever the rat-catcher goes he always has to pay railway fare for himself and his dog."
Buying a dog ticket was a very common expense for c19th travellers.
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When my earlier tweet went viral, people asked a lot about how representative it was of imperial railways. 🔭
I'm always happy to share this absolute beauty of a map, which gives you the full extent of colonial railways in Southern Africa c1903
As you can see, that map is COMPLEX.
It makes thinking about how to display objects like this beauty - our Cape Government Railway 4-8-0 wood-burner currently @LocomotionSHD - really hard!
But we need to talk about it - not least because CGR 8E is a beauty who deserves love!
Thread: So I actually took the time to read that Happiness article people were tweeting about today and was profiled in The Times. Its...bizarre
Before I comment I want to be clear - I'm not a data historian. But I do work on the history of fear to some extent. I'm also fascinated by how people interact with the past, think about it, study it, and represent it outside of the discipline of academic History.
So - the article offers a macro view of wellbeing in four countries - UK, USA, Germany and Italy 1820-2009 [when their data set ends]. That data set is Google Books, which apparently represents a solid 6 percent of published material. Wellbeing defined as life satisfaction.