rat-pit

You will be stabbed, and they will throw you, shroud and all, into a rat-pit.

Jimgrim Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1931

He had a scar on his face, and two fingers missing; he was handsome in a picaresque way, but looked as tough as a rat-pit terrier.

Jimgrim Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1931

Before I shipped that young fellow, my forecastle was a rat-pit of quarrels.

Billy Budd 1924

In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

INTERNET WIRETAP: The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce (1993 Edition) 1911

We organized a club, which we called the Cock and Spur, and had a rat-pit and cock-fights in the cellar, on which occasions we invited out young actors from the Boston Museum and Howard Athenaeum stock companies.

The Confessions of Artemas Quibble Arthur Cheney Train 1910

The British flung in on top of the defenders like terriers into a rat-pit, and the fighters snarled and worried and scuffled and clutched and tore at each other more like savage brutes than men.

Between the Lines Boyd Cable 1910

The rat-pit, the drawing of the badger, the bloody battling of the bull terriers, the high betting, the Gargantuan eating and drinking and shouting, the smashing of glasses and plates, the imperturbable footmen in green and gold liveries calmly replacing in their chairs the guests overcome by strong potations -- it was a picture for Hogarth's pencil at its best, or Gillray's at its craziest.

Fifth Avenue Arthur Bartlett Maurice 1909

Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima and made no reply.

Under the Deodars Rudyard Kipling 1900

Jenks was watching her, watching the remaining Dyaks, from whom a spluttering volley came, picking out his quarry with the murderous ease of a terrier in a rat-pit.

The Wings of the Morning Louis Tracy 1895

'Kit' Burn's rat-pit will also be opened for religious services on Monday next; but the public need not be deceived in the matter of his reformation.

The Secrets of the Great City James Dabney McCabe 1862