I'm relatively confident that this Richard Toner, aka Dick the Rat, was not related to our Toners. He seems to be from Manhattan, not Brooklyn. (I'm just guessing, since his location isn't specified. Does the NY Times always default to Manhattan?) He's also described as "a slim, clean-shaven young man with sharp black eyes and a ruddy complexion." The article is from January 30, 1876, at which point our Richard would have been in his 50s, and unlikely to have been called a "young man." Since Richard, to our knowledge, had no sons or other younger relatives named after him, look at this as a curiosity, and an introduction to the fine art of rat-catching:
Dick, the Rat.
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