A RAT-KILLING SHEEP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1769, 23 August 1884, Page 2

A RAT-KILLING SHEEP.

In the centre of O'Connor's Kensington rat-pit last night stood a shortlegged sheep, with his neck encircled by a brass collar and his black nose sheathed in a kid muzzle, His name is Brum, and he was there to kill rats on a wager made by his owner and trainer, "Stone" M'Alister. Betweeu fifty and sixty spectators were present. Last fall M'Alister, who is a sporting butcher, found three dead rats in Brum's pen, A day or two later he saw the sheep kill a rat, That act saved Brum from being converted into chops. His owner resolved to train him. Under training, Brum improved so rapidly, that M'Alister mode five matches in which the sheep was to kill rats against time, The first match came off last night, 9th April, M'Alister wagering 100 dollars that tho sheep would take the lives of forty rats in sixty niiuutes. In the betting the odds were against tho sheep, and M'Alister and two or three friends made wafers right and left, George Tatnel was chosen referee and timekeeper, and at nine o'clock tho rats were emptied out of cages into the pit. The rats scampered about the pit, the referee called time, and M'Alister let go Brum and vaulted out of the pit, leaving him muzzled. The muzrle! the muzzle! take off tho muzzle, Stone!" shouted half-a-dozen men, '-He don't kill 'em with his mouth," replied M'Alister, seating himself complacently on the railing of the pit, and adding "That sheep'll fool you all." So it proved. The sheep without paying the slightest attention to the crowd made two leaps to the corner of the pit in which a dozen rats or more were huddled. Then raising himself upon his hind legs he brought the care-fully-sharpened hoofs of his forefeet down like a flash in a pile of rats, This act was repeated five times in almost as many seconds, and the dead bodies of eight rats lay. on the floor, Facing about Brum gave ut shrill blast, and darted across the pit to another nest of rata. There he repeated the stamping and strewed the pit with dead rodents. At the end of nine minutes there were but thirteen rats alive, These Brum chased with the pertinacity and determination of a bulldog and killed them one by one. The fortieth rat was slaughtered in exactly thirty-four minutes from the moment Brum was loosed. Several times during the match rats fastened their teeth in the leather muzzle, but the sheep easily shook them offPhiladelphia Times,