THE RABBIT PLAGUE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XVII, Issue 843, 9 June 1885, Page 3

THE RABBIT PLAGUE.

Timers have escaped in Victoria without much harm resulting to the population. One, supposed to be now at large m the Northeastern district, is accused of destroying sheep, and the other certainly worried a Chinaman m Little Bourke-street, for which offence nowadays he would, however, he rewarded rather than condemned. In the old times, a captain, irritated by the natives, is reported to have turned loose a male and female lion onthe South Australian coast, but the blacks remained for a while, and the carnivora disappeared. Man is by no means put out hy the appearance of these formidable animals. Nothing is easier nowadays than to clear a country of big game of all sorts, but when we come to insignificant pests such as the rabbit, the sparrow, or the phylloxera, then man is apt to confess himself almost beaten. If the human race is fated to disappear from the globe, the probability, it has been remarked, is that we shall go down with all our civilisation and all our resources' before some food-devouring locust or beetle. Moved by such considerations as these, Mr W. B. Dalley has grappled with the rabbit plague. He does so in his customary heroic fashion, his proposal being that the Australian colonies should jointly offer the sum of £60,000 as a bonus "for a method of extermination which should be at once radical and innocuous." Mr Service gasps at first as one subjected unexpectedly to a shower bath, the enormous sum staggering him; but if conditions can be arranged he will give his share. There is something in the idea. Each man must conduct his experiments at his own expense. Say 1000 competitors come forward, and each clears a district, a whole colony may be rid of the pest, even though nothing very new may.be communicated. So when a local council desires the surface of a reserve broken up, it will offer a £lO cup as a prize in a ploughing match, and will get £SO of work performed. In a great rat competition in Great Britain the prize was adjudged to the sender of the homely receipe " catcli 'em and kill 'em." But if science or ingenuity can provide a remedy to get rid of the rabbit plague, why the colonies, as Mr Service says, will be cheaply rid of the pest each. And when the Agents-General issue the notice of the reward, there will be another big calling of attention to Australia. "In that country," it will be averred, " everything is done on the grahd scale."—Melbourne. Argus.