POISON FOR 20,000,000

Dunstan Times, Issue 3378, 13 June 1927, Page 5

POISON FOR 20,000,000

ACROSS WORLD TO KILL PESTS %• BRAINY RATS A man of seventy-two avlio sits all day in*a shop at Blackfriars claims to have annihilated sixty million pests last vein. Ho is Mr Bertram Phillips, avlio lias been Avaging war against cockroaches, crickets, ants, rats, and other pests for more than half a century. Mr Phillips .sends his representatives to the most distant parts of the wond to Avago ruthless war on the things that c-awl, and ho is proud of the trail of death and destruction he and ins men leaA’e behind. URGENT MISSIONS. Only the other day lavo members of his staff left London for Hongkong Avith enough poison to kill Twenty million rats and insects. There ns another man in India slaying pests for a maharajah. Mexic > asked for Mr Phillips’s services recently. “They have a little trouble out there Avith mosquitoes--nasty, spiteful little fellows./’ he said in an mtcrvioAV. “Cockroaches are causing trouble with the Spaniards,” he Avent on. twinkling his mirthful eyes, “ so I had to rush some of my troops to Spam. They are doing well. A GOOD CAUSE. “It’s a good cause I’m lighting. 1 love it. I’d slay every rodent and mosquito and cockroach >n the world tonight if I had the chance.WWhatt t a trail of disease and destruction they leave behind! Look at tho damage they do in this country every year —10U million pounds is my estimate!” For years Mr Phillips fought alone lus battle against pests in every part of the world ~ Now he is content to sit among his test tubes and plan his daily campaign of slaughter in tne post iv or Id. RAT S JOURNEY. Bats arc great travellers. One that was set at liberty at King’s Cross Avith j a metal disc am ‘its leg avlis trapped at Luton, thirty-four miles,, from London. “ When you are dealing Avitli rats you are dealing Avith brains, ’ said Mr Phillips, with obvious respect for the mtelli4jence of his most hated prey. *■' Once i went out on a job in South London, where an army of them had invaded a cellar. There was a thick concrete wall. 4 hey didn’t take the trouble to gnaw through that. No, they excavated until they found a Aveak point iu tho masonry, and they nibbled their way through there!”