MAN'S UNCEASING' WAR ON THE RAT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 18

MAN'S UNCEASING' WAR ON THE RAT

The never-ending war against the rat goes on along widely separated fronts. Paris is intensifying its campaign, using poison gas and other means which science has developed. In China the superstitious peasants of Anhui are employing more legendary methods —giving charades and gay theatrical performances —a reminder that magic similar to that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is still relied upon, says the "San Francisco Chronicle." The Pied Piper in Robert Browning's story, offered for 1000 guilders to rid the worried hamlet of its rodents. In answer to the strains of his musical whistle, Out of the houses the rats came tumbling,.. Grave old plodders, Bay young frlskers; Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives Followed the. Piper for their lives. But after the Piper had enticed the rats away' the city fathers refused to pay the 1000 guilders, and in the .end the Piper brought his whistle into play again and lured away all the children of the town. Browning's tale received a sympathetic hearing in a world in which rat plagues had been common since early days. The great bubonic plagues of Asia in' olden clays, we are told, followed the death of rats from the same disease. The rat became everywhere a ' scorned and hunted animal. Th poet Southey suggested two ways of ridding the world of rats: the increasing use of rat pie and the inoculation of rodents with a deadly disease

germ. He further advised the use of rat skins for fur. A rat-catcher to the Princess. Amelia laid down the following esthetically pungent formula warranted to subjugate the most wary rat: Take twenty drops of oil of rhodium, six or seven grains of musk, half an ounce of oil of aniseed. Dip. a paper funnel in the mixture and rub the trap." Once the rat is trapped, all is over. . ~ . Stories are numerous in rat anthologyof' whole cities turning out to kill the rat with whatever means camo first to hand. San Francisco, a quarter of a century a^o, ushered in such a slaughter following a bubonic plague scare. Medical autNoritics decided that rats were carrying the germs. Twenty-five cents offered fo* each male.rat killed, fifty cents for females, sent every, ablebodied person on the hunt. Twentyfive hundred rats a day were turned over to an army of clerks; who labelled the bodies- and sent them to bacteriologists. Only one rat in a thousand, says the record, was found to carry germs. But the waterfront of San Francisco was made reasonably clear of rats. Recently it was announced that a now breed of rat-catching cat was to- be introduced by the French Academy of Medicine. The breed is being developed and specially trained in Paris. Pending the training of a sufficient number of natural mousers to attack the formidable grown rat, the Prefecture of Paris recommends the use of sealed receptacles for garbage and the installation .of grilles' over all openings to cellars. •