rat-catcher

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

His challenge will be to interest a voting public whose instincts are likely to favour the rat-catcher approach.

Police and crime commissioners: the rat-catcher vote | Editorial 2012

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

When a rat-catcher is thus accompanied, there is generally a strong aromatic odour about him, far from agreeable; this is owing to his clothes being rubbed with oil of thyme and oil of aniseed, mixed together.

Sociology most Dickensian Michael Dirda 2011

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

If a snake comes slithering into your house, you do not perform a careful analysis to determine how much of a threat it represents, whether, on balance, its survival as a rat-catcher may be a benefit to you, and so on -- you either flee or grab an ax and start swinging.

Clay Farris Naff: Juan Williams, Human Nature, and Islam Clay Farris Naff 2010

Why else do you think one can play a body-snatcher or a political pamphleteer or a rat-catcher?

Appoggiatura Hal Duncan 2007

Williams was a Manchester rat-catcher who spent a great deal of time ruminating on his trade, and in this slim volume he's jotted down all his many thoughts about catching and killing rats, from tricks with various oils as bait to whether tenants or landlords should have to pay for his services, to preventing one's sack of angry rats from bursting on a train, and so on.

Boing Boing 2007