Extracts from London Labour And The London Poor,
volume 3  by Henry Mayhew (first published 1861) 

On rat-killing by dogs as a sport in pits in public houses
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The proprietor (Jimmy Shaw) of one of the largest sporting public-houses in London, who is celebrated 
for the rat-matches which come off weekly at his establishment, was kind enough to favour me with a 
few details as to the quality of the animals which are destroyed in his pit. His statement was certainly 
one of the most curious that I have listened to, and it was given to me with a readiness and courtesy 
of manner such as I have not often met with during my researches...
 
	"The poor people who supply me with rats, what you may call barn-door labouring 
	poor, for they are the most ignorant people I ever come near. Really you would 
	not believe people could live in such ignorance. Talk about Latin and Greek, 
	sir, why English is Latin to them - in fact, I have a difficulty to understand 
	them myself. When the harvest is got in, they go hunting the hedges and ditches 
	for rats. Once the farmers paid two pence a-head for all rats caught on their 
	grounds, and they nailed them up against the wall. But now that the rat-ketchers 
	can get three pence each by bringing the vermin up to town, the farmers don’t 
	pay them anything for what they ketch, but merely give them permission to hunt 
	them in their stacks and barns, so that they no longer get their two pence in 
	the country, though they get their three pence in town.

	I should think I buy in the course of the year, on average, from 300 to 700 rats 
	a-week. [this gives a yearly purchase of 26,000 live rats] That’s what I kill 
	taking all year round, you see. Some first-class chaps will come here in the day-time, 
	and they’ll try their dogs. They’ll say “Jimmy, give the dog 100.” After he’s 
	polished them off they’ll say, perhaps “Hang it, give him another 100.” … I’ve had 
	noble ladies and titled ladies come here to see the sport - on the quiet, you know.

	I’ve had as many as 2000 rats in this very house at one time. They’ll consume a 
	sack of barley-meal a week, and the brutes, if you don’t give ‘em good stuff, 
	they’ll eat one another, hang ‘em!"