"Then I threw a net around him and brought him home to Camden."

Jack Gregory, an East Coast rat-catcher of some repute, relayed tales from his trade in an article in the August 10, 1884 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which was originally published in the Philadelphia Record. The article:

“‘I have caught and killed plenty of big rats in my time, but the biggest ones were captured along the wharves,’ said old Jack Gregory, or ‘English Jack,’ as he is called by his acquaintances. Gregory is a little old fellow, not more than five feet in height, and pressing close upon his 60th year. He lives in Camden, on William Street, below Roydon. When he starts out on his rat catching expeditions he is always accompanied by two little Scottish terriers, chained together. With a box of ferrets thrown over his shoulder, ‘English Jack,” presents an odd picture. ‘I have followed rat catching for a living for forty years,’ said Gregory, ‘but the most vicious chaps are generally found along the wharves, near where the sewers empty into the river. They grow up in the sewers, and eventually find their way to the water’s edge, and there they settle permanently or else take up quarters in the warehouses near the docks. I don’t mind a job of clearing a stable of rats. That’s fun for me. But when I am called upon to clear out a warehouse I always know that it means tough work, with the loss of about two or three ferrets. Nine times out of ten a rat will run away from a ferret, and when they emerge from their holes my dogs and I just lay for them and kill them as soon as they show themselves. But I have had many a valuable ferret killed by wharf rats. The rats being used to eating garbage greedily devour everything they come across, and grow to be tremendously large. I have seen lots that were as big as cats, and ferocious fellows they were, too.

"Gregory is a little old fellow, not more than five feet in height, and pressing close upon his 60th year."

I remember once a pitched battle that took place between three of my ferrets and five rats, down at the sugar boiling house on Delaware Avenue, below South Street. Each rat was fully from fifteen to eighteen inches in length, and must have weighed from four to five pounds. They had it hot and heavy for a quarter of an hour. The ferrets fairly chewed the rats to pieces and came out victorious, though they got severely bitten themselves. Subsequently one of the ferrets died.  That night I succeeded in killing ninety rats. But I have seen larger rats than those in my time. A few years ago my dogs caught a rat down at the Washington Avenue grain elevator, which was much bigger than a cat. It was two feet long and weighed twelve pounds. He must gave been quite old and unusually fat. I guess he was the king rat about the elevator. I was very anxious to capture him alive, and it was hard work to drive the dogs off, so eager were they to put an end to him. He had fought them hard, notwithstanding his age, and the dogs had their dander up. I managed to draw them away, and then I threw a net around him and brought him home to Camden. I doctored him for three weeks and his wounds healed pretty well. A saloon keeper near the old Navy Yard made me an offer of $20 and I sold the rat to him to place on exhibition. He did not make much by the venture, as the saloonkeeper’s wife was afraid of the big rat, and being anxious to get rid of the animal poisoned it. While the animal was on exhibition there was a sign displayed on the iron cage in which it was confined, saying: ‘Don’t fool with the rat.’ This injunction was rather unnecessary, for all the customers willingly refrained from poking their fingers between the bars to stir him up. His looks were enough to frighten folks.'”