The trenches or water-tanks for the cleansing of the sewers, are chiefly on the south side of the Thames, and as a proof of the great danger incurred by sewer-hunters from these floods of water suddenly let in on them, I am told that when a ladder was put down a sewer from the street some years ago, on which a hod-carrier was descending with a hod of brick, the rush of water from the sluice struck the ladder, and instantly, ladder, hod-carrier, and all, were swept away, and afterward the poor man was found at the mouth of the sewer, all battered, torn, bruised, and dead. Whenever a Sewer-Hunter passes through a sewer under a street grating, he is compelled to close his lantern, else the reflection of the light through the grating would call the attention of the police, and he would be taken before a magistrate. Dogs are never taken through the sewers, for the same reason, as their barking would be noticed, although they would be an excellent defense against the rats. Occasionally skeletons of unfortunate cats have been found in the sewers, their bones completely cleared of flesh, and nothing but a little fur remaining. I should pity the cat that strayed into a sewer, as they do occasionally from house-drains and cesspools. As the Sewer-Hunters go along in the sewers, they often pick money from between the crevices of the brick-work, and now and then a handful of sovereigns have been taken from these crevices. Sometimes a small pick is needed to recover metals or money from the crevices where they are wedged. One man told me that he found a small leather bag with two hundred sovereigns and some shillings in it, that had no doubt been washed out from a drain. He said that he had often found money, and that he was well satisfied with his luck in general. He had been for twenty years searching the sewers, and had amassed considerable property. He told me his story as follows: [Illustration: THE SEWER-HUNTER.] [Sidenote: A RAT STORY.] "The first night, ye know, that I went into a sewer, I had a pal with me, as is dead now. Steve Williams was his name--God rest his soul. I felt afeered when I went in and got lost two or three times, but Steve allers found me agin by hollering at me. I got the greatest fright that night I ever got in my life. We were somewhere in a sewer in old Smithfield, and there must have been a distillery somewhere there, for when I turned out of the main sewer into a branch one, I saw by the light of the lantern a thick steam beyond me. I was a little ahead of Steve, who had just got a haul of two silver table-knives and a watch chain of goold, and he was looking at the haul he made when I saw the steam a fillin of the sewer. I went along, when I got near it my head begun to get dizzy, and I fell back on my shoulders into the sewer. I got drunk in the steam from the distillery,--that's what ailed me--and it was so sudden like, that I would have lost my life if Steve hadn't been there.