o top, but
the upper portions of the walls present a smooth band of metal up which
the rats cannot climb. The dog is introduced through a sliding door on
the floor, and his antagonists are emptied from a box over the top. They
are of three kinds, water-rats, sewer-rats, and granary-rats; the first
are of a placid disposition and are rarely used; the last, in black, are
the fiercest, and consequently the most desirable. The dogs are usually
bull-dogs, fox-terriers, or a species with a scanty hair, called
_griffons_; they are usually pitted against four rats at a time, and
their prowess is according to the brevity of the time in which they
dispose of them. There is a legend that one champion despatched a
hundred rats in seventeen minutes, thirty seconds. A good dog will
finish the four rats in ten or twelve seconds, notwithstanding their
doublings and turnings, the speed with which they climb the wire
trellis, and the fierceness with which they turn on him and fasten on
his jaw. There are various methods of conducting these contests; the
_chasse a excitations_, in which the proprietor of the dog is permitted
to run around the cage and excite his animal by voice and gesture; that
_a la muette_, in which he is strictly forbidden to make a sound or a
sign; that _a obstacles_, in which the rodents are concealed under every
second or third of a number of flower-pots reversed on the floor, or in
which they are furnished with bundles of straw in which to seek refuge,
or favored by an arrangement of partitions about a foot high, arranged
in the manner of a Saint Andrew's cross, and over which the dog has to
leap while they traverse them through small semicircular openings on a
level with the floor. The dogs are classified by weight; the price of
entry varies according to the variety of the _chasse_, and the sum of
the prizes distributed sometimes amounts to as much as fifteen hundred
francs.

[Illustration: A LOW-CLASS BRASSERIE ADVERTISEMENT DURING MI-CAREME.

From a drawing, in colors, by Pierre Vidal.]

As to the more aristocratic sport of horse-racing, we have already seen
that the annually-recurring _Grand Prix de Paris_ has been elevated to
the dignity of a capital municipal institution. But it was early
recognized that this diversion, which has attained such extraordinary
development in the capital within the last twenty years, owed a very
considerable proportion of its popularity to the facilities which it
offered for