In a paragraph concerning the high tide of Thursday, the Boston Telegraph records the following:
“At the wharves owing to the high water a large number of rats were killed by unemployed laborers. The vermin were obliged to leave their holes, or remain quiet and be drowned, and as they appeared, parties of Irishmen waiting for jobs chased them about the dock with clubs and stones. In one instance the men had driven two large rats into an empty building on Commercial street where there was no mode of egress except through the door. This the two men fastened, and forming a circle, drove the animals into a corner and prepared to dispatch them. The rats rendered desperate, sprang at the throat of the nearest Irishman and one succeeded in fastening its long sharp teeth in the man’s handkerchief, which he wore around his neck, and held his jaw firmly clasped until killed. Luckily the handkerchief was thick, so that the animals teeth did not touch the man’s throat. The rat’s companion sprang at his intended victim, missed him, and was knocked over by a club. They were enormous large fellows.
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