Rat Eater part 2

I thought I would do a quick follow-up post on the delicious Rat Eater owned by our friend and collector J. Miller.  This information and material is copied from the previously-mentioned discussion at the NAWCC forums...

Apparantly it was quite common, during time of war, for soldiers and citizens to be driven to eating rats - especially during sieges.  There are some accounts (during the Franco-Prussian war) of rat-sellers and one American journalist even writes about the best rat recepits and the comparisons between dog, cat, and rat meat.

Here is a painting by  of a "Rat Seller"(c.1870)

Here is an account from 1871 by an American journalist, shut in in Paris during the Franco-Prussian war

...and another account of eating rats in Metz c. 1814