The Not-So-Delicate Art of Shin-Kicking

There's a great passage in Luc Sante's Low Life, in which he recounts the 19th-century New York City spectacle of man-versus-rat fights. A human competitor wearing heavy boots was placed in a ring with a swarm of hungry rats, and challenged to stomp as many to death as possible without suffering terrible injury. It's quite a barbaric pastime, albeit one in which the primate usually emerged unscathed.

We couldn't help but picture that bloody spectacle upon reading Jason Couch's detailed account of