Though Never Popular As Horse Racing Or Boxing, Cincinnati Sports Enjoyed Rat Baiting
On a hot August day in 1899, a reporter for the old Cincinnati Commercial newspaper climbed the wobbly stairs to the second floor of a dowdy commercial building on Main Street. He squeezed his portly frame through a door blocked from fully opening by dozens of close-packed display cases housing the stuffed remains of monkeys, owls, bats and other taxidermied wonders to locate the proprietor, a proper English gentleman named William “Billy” Gale.
The reporter was on a quest to examine Mr. Gale’s prize possession, the mounted carcass of a miniature terrier named – according to a silver plaque attached to its wooden plinth – “Tiny.” This little dog, weighing just five pounds when alive, was the world champion of the long-forgotten sport of rat baiting.
At the Blue Anchor pub on Bunhill Row in London, England, on 28 March 1848, Tiny killed 200 rats in 54 minutes and 50 seconds. This mass execution was accomplished in one of many rat pits scattered around London at the time. Tiny’s feat earned a handsome payday for his owner, Jim Shaw, who also owned the pub and the pit. On Tiny’s demise, Shaw presented the dog’s earthly remains to Gale, who preserved the little canine in the act of crunching a fat rodent’s spine. Gale told the Commercial reporter:
“There are three or four people in Cincinnati who saw the dog in matches in England, and they wonder at it being in America. I have had good offers for him from English fanciers, but have grown too much attached to Tiny even to part with him. Rat killing is now so much a thing of the past that the younger generation is ignorant that it ever existed. The present generation simply sees in it simply a form of cruelty, but those who enjoyed its excitement also recognized its practical side.”
In other words, apparently, since we are overrun with rats anyway, we might as well make some money while exterminating the little vermin. For a good part of the 1800s, matches pitting dogs against rats were fairly common in Cincinnati. The general rule of thumb was to pit a dog against a number of rats based on the dog’s weight, so a five-pound dog versus five rats and ten rats against a ten-pound dog. Small dogs like Tiny were preferred because they were quicker and more agile than larger dogs. The Enquirer [10 July 1892] reported a typical bout in one of the city’s many saloons:
“Mike Montague, of Fifth and Sycamore streets, obtained thirty-nine live rats, and last night placed them in a ‘piano-box’ pit in his cellar, with ‘Daisy,’ a little black-and-tan, and ‘Skye,’ a terrier. A number of Mr. Montague’s customers enjoyed the sport. ‘Daisy’ at first killed two rodents, either of which was as large as herself. She then tackled fourteen at one time, and was fifteen and one half minutes getting away with them. ‘Skye’ dispatched the remaining twenty-three in a leisurely manner, thirty-three minutes elapsing before they were all dead.”
Despite Mr. Gale’s belief that rat-killing was extinct as a sport, the Enquirer carried the report of a most unusual match in its edition of 17 March 1901. The contestants were two local sportsmen, each of whom owned a champion ratter, one named Daisy Fox, the other Clifton Beauty. Rather than dumping their pups into a pit full of rodents at some saloon, the two gents organized a processional match of sorts, starting out at the stockyards in Cumminsville, forging on to a tannery in the East End and culminating in a slaughter at a distillery on Gest Street in the West End. The assault was intense:
“The dogs were simply wild with excitement, and battled on, heedless of the big red fellows that clung to their necks and shoulders. Daisy Fox would toss one into the air, reach around and kill another that clung to her flank, while her eyes seemed fairly to blaze with anger that she could not kill them all at one bite. Clifton Beauty, her white sides dripping with blood from the onslaughts of the now thoroughly aroused rodents, stood her ground without a whimper, and bit and tossed with the rapidity of lightning.”
At the conclusion of the bloody frenzy, everyone agreed that the two dogs had killed 286 rats between them, but no one could agree if one dog had killed more than the other. The match was declared a draw. The two combatants were given carbolic acid baths and were reported no worse for wear the next day.
Despite the popularity and prevalence of rat baiting, the sport was illegal in Cincinnati – more because of the gambling involved than because of the cruelty. As early as 1861, William Speers, who ran a “bowling saloon” on Fifth Street, was fined $20 in Police Court for allowing dog fights, cock fights and rat baiting at his establishment. Consequently, when a group of businessmen organized a rat pit in the Bottoms, they framed it as a secret society, with passwords and discreet announcements of upcoming matches. According to the Cincinnati Times-Star [25 August 1887], the underground cabal was known as the Independent Order of High Kickers Against Rats. Unlike most other Cincinnati basement rat pits, this one was constructed on the third floor of one of the many warehouses near the river. The Times-Star elected not to name any of the members, but their description suggests this was not the usual low-rent Levee crowd:
“About the pit was a circle of heads of big families and equally big business houses. There were white silk ties, fashionable Derbys and modish hats in straw with aesthetic bands. Nearly everybody had a pair of eye glasses, and polished shirt fronts were in the ascendancy. The facial expressions were of the utmost delight and almost feverish expectancy.”
The businessmen told the reporter that they had organized the pit as a way to reduce the rat population along the riverfront. Rat traps in those days captured the pests alive and the captives were usually let loose in the streets where they would be killed by dogs, but too many escaped. The pit provided entertainment as well as 100 percent lethality.
So entertaining was rat baiting that local sportsmen sometimes found themselves fleeced by unethical promoters pulling the old bait and switch. For example, Lewis Kohus, a saloonist in Addyston, announced through the papers that his prized rat dog, Tramp, would kill twenty rats in twenty minutes or forfeit a $50 purse. In addition, Kohus promised a cock fight and a boxing match between two local pugilists. And, to top it all, he arranged for a late train to carry attendees back to the Queen City.
Unknown to the gamblers from Cincinnati, Aurora and Lawrenceburg who flooded Addyston, Kohus decided – after issuing his challenge – to determine whether his dog really could achieve the promised task. Tramp did his best in a trial run, but he was obviously not quick enough to dispatch twenty rats in twenty minutes. Kohus let his pooch kill all the rats so, when the time for his exhibition arrived, there were no rats to be had. All bets were off. The cockfight was also cancelled, replaced by a lackadaisical wrestling bout that left the crowd yawning and the prizefight was equally boring. According to the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette [24 April 1895]:
“The spectators were utterly disgusted with the whole affair, and denounced the entire business as the rankest fake of the season. The sports from the city were compelled to stay all night, as there was no arrangement made for a special train, as promised.”
