Richard Toner
Jack the Rat | |
|---|---|
 A dog fight at Kit Burns's Sportsmen's Hall in 1868; no authenticated portrait of Toner is known | |
| Born | Richard Toner |
| Other names | Dick the Rat; Jack |
| Occupations | Saloon worker and underworld performer |
Criminal status | Later fate unknown |
Richard Toner, known as Jack the Rat or Dick the Rat, was a 19th-century New York underworld figure and the son-in-law of saloon keeper Kit Burns. Accounts of Burns's Sportsmen's Hall say Toner performed for customers by biting the heads from mice and rats.[1][2]
Toner later helped operate the Water Street premises after Burns died in 1870.[3] No reliable source reviewed identifies him as a member of the Dead Rabbits; his connection is to Burns and the wider New York underworld.
References
- ↑ Michael Batterberry, On the Town in New York (Routledge, 1998), p. 104.
- ↑ Gerald R. Gems, Linda J. Borish and Gertrud Pfister, Sports in American History (Human Kinetics, 2008), pp. 156–157.
- ↑ “The ‘Band-Box’ of the Late Kit Burns”, The New York Times, January 2, 1871.