Document text
gwe co/. 7"-e.S
Forms to be Filled out for Each interview
FORM A
Circumstances of interview
STATE NEW -YORK
NAME OF WORKER WILLIAM WOOD
ADDRESS 7012, 67th Place, Glendale, L. I.
.DATE December 19, 1938
SUBJECT SAILORS VERSUS RATS
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time or interview
12/12/38 11 A. M; 12/13/38 10 A. M;
12/14/38, 10 A. M.
2. Place of interview The Recreation Room of tie Seamen's Institute,
25 South Street, New York City
3. Name and address of informant
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in None. I met Captain Mathieson
Couch with informant, while doing some research work in the Joseph Conrad
Library
5. Name and address of person, if any, accowpanying you None.
6. Description of room, house, surroundingsletc.
The Recreation Room i s situated on the third floor of the Seamen s Institute.
ma
It is comfortably but not elaborately' furnished with tables d chairs. There is a
piano ror the diWrsion of such as may care to play on it. The tables are well
supplied with a large variety of current magazines. Conversation mad mmokinL are
permitted here, although not -of course -in the adjacent library.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the flusher to which the material refers.)
FORM 5
Personal History Of Informant
STATE NEW YORK
NAME OF WORKER Willikm Wood
ADDRESS 7012 -67th PLace Glendale, L. I.
DATE December 19, 1938
SUBJECT SAILORS VERSUS RATS
1. Ancestry
Norwegian His father was a sea captain
2. Place and date of birth London, England; December, 1871.
3. Family
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
4. Places lived in, with dates London, in his infancy; Arendal, Norway, in his
childhood, and early youth.
5. Education, with dates His formal education, received at the Middle Sehool at
Arendal, has been augmented by a lifetime of reading, study and research.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates Mariner for 50 years, of which time
many years were spent as first and second officer and 19 years as commander.
7. Special skills and interests History, Astronomy, 000anography, Navigation,
Seamanship, Literature, Philately
8. Community and religious activitie:., None mentioned
9. Description of informant See &ctra Comment (Form D) this date.
10. Other Points gained in interview
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAME OF WOnKER William Wood
ADDRESS 7012 -67th Place, Glendale, L. I.
DATE December 19, 1938
SUBJECT SAILORS VERSUS RATS
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"Ten thousand rats are coming this way
They are not to be told by the dozea or score;
By thousands they come, and by myriads and more."
God's Judgment ona Bishop.
There is no living creature not even the horrible shark that is more
detested by sailormen than the rat. To this very day this aimal is an object of
superstition as well as of hatred and disgust. A century ago, sowl less, sailors
refused to commence a passage on a Friday, fearing bad luck would cone to them.
A shark following a ship was regarded as an omen of death. A Finlander among the
crew was looked upon as a probable cause of impending misfortunes; foul weather,
unfavorable winds and other calamities. These are traditions of the past. They are
zone with the mermaids, the sea serpents and the phanton ships.
But even the modern seaman will not stay long in a rat -infested ship if
he can help it, and there still are maay sailors who would hesitate to put to sea in
a vessel if they should notice the rats leaving her. This seems a strange contradiction.
Every precaution is taken and every device employed to prevent these vermin from
boarding a ship at the docks, yet the auperstitiOrmind is filled with alarm when
they are seen running ashore in numbers.
-2
No one knows when it was that rats first took to the sea. It may have
been when man first crossed a river on a raft of logs. Anyhow, through man and
his ships rats have spread and multiplied on every continent with the exception of
the Antarctic, and practically on every island in the seven seas. On Lord Howe
Island the rats nest in the palms, devouring the seeds, the only product exported
and the islanders' main source of making a living. This palm, "Kentia Fosteriana,"
does not come to seed anyxthere else in the world. Formerly, it grew only on this
island, which consists of butsa few square miles a mare mountain top.- out in the
Tasman Sea,
In Western Samoa, whereI once had a-plaatation, rats are the greatest
pest the planters have to put up with. There, these clever animals climb the
trees and eat up the cacas beans before they are ripe for picking, and cause
immense damage to the struggling growers, who spend an enormous amount of time
and money in an almost futile effort to rid themselves of their worst enemy.
There are thousands of uninhabited coral islands in the tropical seas
rN
where rats are the only mammals. They destroy untold quantities of the eggs and
the young of birds and of turtles. In all instances the rodents have been carried
to these remote islands by ships; whalers, occasionally, making calls, and other
vessels that have been wrecked. So we see that rats can find a way to make a good
living where man cannot exist.
An age-old superstition amongst sailors came to my notice shortly after I
had commenced my schooling, now sixty years ago. At that time they were still building
wooden ships in Norway. Especially so in the vicinity of my home town, Arendal.
Although this seaport had only five thousand inhabitants, it had more ships and a
larger tonnage than any other city on the continent of Europe, north of Hamburg.
Even servant girls were known to have shares in ships. There were, or had been,
one or more shipyards in every near -by fjord and sheltered inlet.
The latest ship that had been built at Natvik was ready for sea. One of
our neighbors who had been employed in her construction was to sail in the vessel as
-3
ship's carpenter. It was simper time, and early on the morning of the day of sailing
he trundled his clothes chest on a handcart from his little farm to the wharf,
arriving there before anyone was stirring on the ship's de*. Shouldering the
heavy chest, he had carried it half way up the gangplank when he saw a sight that
made him pause. A long procession of rats covered the forward mooring line. One
after another they were walking; carefully, slawly, deliberately, from the ship to
the dock. Turning his gaze to the mooring line aft, the carpenter beheld a similar
army of rats, taking their departure in single file. This was sufficient warning.
He quietlydescended the plank and replaced his clothes chest on the hand cart. .Then
he went on board mad got his chest of tools which had been sent to the ship the
previous day. Dragging it after him he reached the dock as quickly as possible,
and loading his property on the cart, retraced his way home as quickly as the heavy
burden permitted him to get there. He hid himself in the woods on a hillside, from
which place of concealment he watched until he saw a tug -boat come and take the vessel
dawn the river and out to sea. The he returned hone to his wife and children. Soon
lafterwards, the owners haled him into court for not having joined his ship, and there
A
he told his story about the rats leaving the vessel. He also told them what every
sailor knows and what every man in that courtroom knew: when the rats leave a ship,
it is time for you to leave her. This vess sailing with a cargo of lumber for
South Africa, was never seen nor heard of after leaving the English Channel.
During the fifty years I spent at sea I sailed in many vessels that were
more or less infested with rats. One ship was so overrun with them, and they were so
bold and ferocious, that they were a torment and +est to all on board. In no other
vessel have I seen so many rats. And in spite of all known methods of exterminating
them dogs, cats, traps, and fumigation there always seemed to be a sufficient
number of survivors to multiply rapidly and continue to annoy us.
In 1915 I was appointed master of the four masted barque, Susanne Vinnen,
which had been seized from the Germans by the British and interned at Newcastle,
N. S. Mr. when England had declared war on Germany. She had been lying at Newcastle
41%
-4-
for about a year, loaded with coal and with a full supply of stores and provisions
on board, at the time I took charge. The government of Western Australia, who
had acquired ownership, renamed her, Carrabin.
lhen I moved on board with a full crew of thirty men I found the officers'
and sailors' quarters, and indeed the whole ship, in such a disgustingly filthy state
that it took all hands several days of hard work to get the vessel cleaned up. We
also found that the Carrabin was swarming with rats; so many that none of us had
seen such a condition on any ship before. It seems that the Germans, before leaving
for the internment camp at a country town near Sydney, had removed the lids from
all the bread anf flour tanks in the ship's lazarette, thereby encouraging the rats
and making it easier for them to multiply, as well as to spoil the food. The naval
guard who had been keeping match on the vessel had not tdken the trouble to replace
the lids; so that the rats, after feasting and breeding for a whole year, now
overran the whole ship, jlst as the Germans must have planned that they should do.
The animals had grown fat and saucy. At night they wereiverywhere, all over the
ship. They ran races on deck, chasing each other away up into the rigging. They
smarmed in and out of the lifeboats; ran around the cabins scurrying into the
bunks, even, and crawling over our faces aad bodies, waking us out of our sleep.
They screeched and fought above our heads in the space between the cabin ceiling
and the poop deck. Mole battalions of rats were occupying the lazarette, where
There
the provisions lay. Tney were so numerous and of such immense growth thatkr dog
and. cats were terrified, and resisted all efforts to induce them to go down. I
couldn't think of forcibly throwing them in and locking them up there. The rats
would have killed and eaten them. I did try the experiment of putting one of the
cats a very fine ratter into the place for a few minutes, but she screamed in
mortal terror, making such blood -curdling noises, that I quickly released her.
She was glad to escape from the perils of that dark place and I didn't blame her.
I purchased and caused to be set a lot of new traps, and got a couple of
extra cats, nearly full grown. My wife brought her Scotch terrier, Mung, on board,
-5
and we made preparations to do battle with the enemy in real earnest. There
was one huge tomcat, that the Germans had left behind, who proved himself not
only the best ratter of all our domestic animals, but also a very clever and
painstaking teacher. He took delight in giving the younger cats valuable instruction
in the art of catching and destroying their traditional foes. And this is the may
he taught them:
He would catch a rat, carry it out on deck, place it in front of the young
cats and let -them watch his technic of attoking and killing it. After a feve days
of these lessons, Tommy would give his eager pupils some actual practice. He
would catch a rat, as usual, but instead of killing it himself he would set it
down on the deck and supervise his scholars in their attempts to follow the
instruction they had received. He would watch closely the attempts of the younger
cats as they tried to catch and kill the latest victim. If mister Rat got away
from his tormentors, he didn't go far. Thomas Cat soon pounced upon him and returned
him to the young novitiates for additional treatment, watching the procedure very
carefully until the rodent finally was dispatched. Then our hero would promptly
catch another subject for the next lesson, aad stand by until his young comrades
.tra4 rmed it into a corpse. After a few days of this excellent training the
apprentices became almost as skillful as their master.
The Carrabin was towed from. Newcastle to Melbourne, where we discharged half
of our cargo of coal Bad then went into drydock to have the ship's bottom cleaned
and painted. Then I had the whole vessel fumigated with sulphur, s a result of
which we found two hundred rats dead from the fumes. After we put to sea again,
bound for Freemantle, in Western Austraila, we found that there still were plenty
of rats in the ship. Arriving at Freemnntle we discharged the balance of our coal
at a wharf on which there was piled a mountain of wheat in sacks; probably about
20,000 tons. It was without a covering of any kind; did not have even a tarpaulin
over it. Much of the wheat was in a state of decay, and untold hordes of rats were
feasting there; countless multitudes of them, scampering over and around the bags
-6
of grain. To estimate their number at a million surely would be no exaggeration.
How many of these moved on board the Carrabin I could not tell; at least a few
hundreds left their happy home in that huge grain pile, in a spirit of adventure,
perhaps to make the long passage to England, where we were bound for.
Once at sea, in the genial climate of the Indian Ocean, the rats bred
and multiplied to such an extent that at night time they practically took charge of
the ship. All of their old pranks, that had made life so miserable for us all
when lying at the dock in Newcastle, were renewed with added vigor. Once again the
deck and the living quarters fore and aft became literally alive with these uninvited
and unwelcome guests. The0abin ceiling reechoed again the sound of their sprinting
feet and their discordant squeak, as they fought and chased and bit and clawed at
one another, in the narrow space that separated the paneling over our heads, from
the timbers of the poop deck above. So infested was this place that the noise made
sleep impossible. When the carpenter removed some of the panels, following my orders,
we discovered rats' nests with litters of young in than. We found caches of food,
bread, biscuits and nuts, and nutshells. Later on we found out that the rats had
removed all but a few handfuls from a whole sack of nuts which I had purchased for
Christmas, before leaving Australia. With every roll of the ship, the sound of the
nut rolling over our heads had added to our annoyance.
The men in the forecastle were as badly plagued. No part of the ship
escaped. Rats found their way into the boats again; they sometimes found their way
into the water barrels, and drowned there. One sailor had the thick skin of his
heel gnawed away while he was asleep. What a sleeper/ The rat had left so little
of the skin that the heel was actually bleeding when the man awoke, and I had to
give him medical treatment.
Despite the heroic ilerk of our dog, Nung,\e" nd that of our several •eats
all battle scarred with vicious bites from rats the pests continued to multiply.
-7
Conversing with the mate, one day, I told him how a friend of mine, master of a
ship Owned by The Alaska Packers, had rid his vessel of an enormous army of rats
in less than a month, by the use of -two ferrets. At the same time I voiced a wish
that we had a dozen ferrets aboard the Carrabin.
The mate's face suddenly lit up. He said, "I'll mace you a trap that will
catch them by the hundredsi"
I said, *Good for you. Go ahead and make it," and the mate immediately
ordered the carpenter to fit a lid to an empty beef barrel slightly smaller in
circumference than its top. This lid he fastened on a pivot so that it balanced
evenly and could be tipped with the touch of a finger. He greased the inside of the
barrel and piled a few bricks at the bottom, one on top of another. A piece of
toasted cheese, about three inches square, was nailed on one side of theilid, near
the center, and a small piece of lead was nailed on the other side, just heavy
enough to balance the weight of the cheese. The barrel was taken into the lazarette
and the mate poured in a strong solution of caustic soda till it calm up to the
topmost brick. The purpose of this artificial island in the center of the fiery
liquid was to enable.a rat to climb up to a place where he could sit and squeal for
a minute or two, and thus attract more rats who might want to join in the feast, or
the fight, or whatever entertainment their rat -intellects might decide was going
on inside the barrel. The theory was, that as quickly as one rat sccumbed to his
burns, and slid off the brick into the hot solution, anothe+ne would be ready to
take his place and to continue the squealing. The idea worked out splendidly, for on
the following morning our barrel was half full of dead rats. We fished them out
with tongs and dumped them over the side in buckets. Night after night for the
remainelder of the passage we continued to catch rats in this manner; an average of
fifty a.night was the mate's estimate. I shudder to think howVshould have fared
but for his ingenious device. It certainly was the most efficient trap I have ever
seen or heard of. Yet, in spite of the thousands we caught, the rats continued to let0A4
-8-
so fast that we were tormented by them all the way to London.
We arrived there safely, without encountering any German submarines. And
in this respect we conside7ed ourselves very fortunate; for we spent six days tacking
against head winds in the 6nglish Channel, during which time we actually heard gunfire
and sailed through some wreckage. We were thankful indeed to reach the Thames.
After unloading our cargo of yarra-wood we lay empty for -a long time,
waiting for an opportunity to go into dry-dock. I though this would give me a good
chance to renew my war on the rats. London is noted for professional ratcatchers
who, for enerations yes, for centuries have kept within their own. families the
jealously guarded secrets of their peculiar calling. It is generally believed that
their success in ridding ships of vermin rests in their methods of baiting their traps.
No doubt each family has its own especial formula.
The man I engaged for the job came on board with his two sons and. set
numerous traps; in the hold, on the decks and in the lazarette. On the first morning
every trap was full of rats, on the second morning there were not quite as many aid
on the third morning there were only a few. 1.1y benfactor told me that my ship was
now rid of rats, and I gladly paid him his fee of twenty pounds sterling. These
persons mice a very comfortable living, and the services they render are usually
well worth their cost. However, I had already had so many miserable disappointments
that I still felt half afraid the rats were not entirely exterminated even now; and I
knew well that if any remained in the vessel it mould not be long until I should be
tormented again.
Before leaving London, I had the good ibrtune to make the acquaintance of
a doctor, whose son vans to sail with me as an apprentice. This physician gave me
twenty small glass tubes containing a virus, which he called the Liverpool virus,
for use in case the rats should become tnoublesome again. We sailed from London
for Port Arthur, Texas, carrying only ballast.
The Carrabints passage through the English Channel was uneventful except
for a narrow escape we had from being blown up in a minefield. Out in the Atlantic
-9
the rats commence Uieir antics once more. Perhaps these were new ones; Thames
natives, possibly. Anyhow, we lost no time in doing battle with them. We smeared
the good doctor's virus on toasted bread and toasted cheese, and placed the tempting
morsels in the rats' former retreats.. Day after day for some time after, we found
dead rats on deck, at first only a few but an increasingly large number as 4dle days
passed. The virus did its work well. After eating the bait the rats became very
sick and developed a terrific thirst and cam*ut of their hiding places and up on
deck to look fbr water. So powerful was the poison that it appeared to consume
the pests, actually to shrivel them up. There seemed to be nothing left in the
carcasses but skin and bone.
What a reliefs Seven tubes of the virus cleared the ship entirely of rats.
After we reached Port Arthur we loaded a cargo of kerosene for South Africa and
Western Australia. We never were pestered with rats again during my stay in the
Carrabin. It is quite possible that the vessel itself never again harbored them.
Those mho believe in sailors' superstitions would be prepared to swear that no
rats went on board the vessel in Western Australia -that trip. HHere is what occurred:
After our cargo was discharged at Freemantle it so happened that I left
the Carrabin, and the first mate was made master of the vessel. He lost her near
Queenstown, when he encountered a German submarine on the passage home.
.4/0
STATE
New York
FOILM D
Ixtre Comment
NAME OF WORKER William Wood
ADDRESS 7012 -67th Place, Glendale, L. I.
DATE December 19, 1938
SUBJECT SAILORS VERSUS RATS
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Captain John Mathieson, the narrator of this story has spent fifty
of his sixty-seven years at sea; thirty years in sailing vessels. He has been
master of some very fine ships, including the barque, "Antiope," which he commanded
for ten years. He holds a Master's License (unlimited) for sail and steam vessels
of the United States, and Master's Certificates (unlimited) for British and Norwegian
vessels.
'Despite his achievements, the captain is a very modest man when discussing
them. His personality is such as to command respect and confidence. It is that of
a man in whose care the passengers and crew of a ship would entrust their lives
without the slightest hesitation. In the half century spent at sea he never
has been shipwrecked.
Captain Nathieson recently has completed writing a book -length narrative
of some of his awn experiences. It soon is to be offered for publication. He
contemplates translating from Norwegian into English a concise history of Scandinavian
countries.