The Rat That Didn't Die: A Seattle Street Performer’s Electric Shock Gambit
In a desperate bid to steal customers from a rival vendor on Commercial Street, an electricity salesman rigged a dead rat to a copper plate—only for the rodent to remain stubbornly lifeless.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
For several weeks past two vendors of electricity, in lots to suit, have graced opposite corners on Commercial street, their closeness lending vigor and rancor to the natural business rivalry which is bound to exist in all cases where the demand is small and the supply is great. Yesterday afternoon the man who with his wonderful life-giving machine occupies the southwest corner of Commercial and Ashington streets imagined that his trade was waning, as a large crowd surrounded the other man's stand.
He racked his brain for a scheme to attract that crowd. Suddenly, after his supply of brain power had well nigh exhausted itself, hit upon a bright idea. Dispatching a lounger who happened to be near for a rat, with directions to secure one by fair means or foul, he himself secured some wire and a copper plate. Attaching one end of wire to the copper plate he placed the plate on the ground and connected the other end with the battery.
Presently the lounger returned with a huge rat. Thus the disciple of Edison placed on the copper plate. Taking another piece of wire he connected one end of it to the battery and the other to the rat's leg. Mounting a box he made the startling announcement in stentorian tones that he 'proposed to bring to life a dead rat,' with particular accent on the last word. Instantly the stand of the other dispenser of life essence was deserted and a grand rush was made for the other stand.
When the ingenious advertiser had gathered a large crowd around his machine he turned on the lever, and a current of electricity rushed through the inanimate form of the dead rodent but ye rat never stirred. The ingenious seller of electricity, however, had the crowd which he had been fishing for with a dead rat.
This 1899 account of street-level entrepreneurship captures the gritty, unregulated nature of early Seattle's commercial district before modern zoning and advertising laws. It mirrors today's 'attention economy,' where vendors and influencers alike resort to shocking (literally or figuratively) stunts to capture consumer attention in a saturated market.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.