DANGER OF THE RAT

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVI, Issue LVI, 21 July 1909, Page 3

DANGER OF THE RAT

Th« damage done by rats in England is greater than the damage done by the cobra and tiger in India. This statement of Professor Anderson was quoted recently by Sir J. Crichton Browne, speaking at the first annual meeting of the Society for the Extermination vf Vermin at Hanover-square, London.

Sir James said that by boring communications from drains into dwellings, by gnawing through water-pipes and gas-pipes, by gnawing at food, by causing loss of sleep and nervous trepidation, rats had been responsible for sickness, debility and death to a large extent.

The rat was one of the cleverest and slimmest of animals. "Its brain was large in proportion to its body, and it 3 persistence- and ingenuity in overcoming obstacles, such as engineering eggs up and _ down stairs without breaking them, and living upon billiard balls when there was nothing else to eat, would almost provoke admiration and pity for its fate were it not that it was so despicable. '

That much might be done rapidly in the extermination of rats was shown by Denmark. Under a law which came into force in 1907, provision was made for the payment of a premium for every rat delivered to the local authority. In the first year 1,398,090 rats wore handed in, and the premiums paid for them.

It was officially estimated in France, he added, that the damage to crops by field mice was £1,000,000 per annum. The calculation that thoro was one rat to every acre in England and Wales, and that each rat did damage to the extent of one farthing every day, making the total loss per annum £15,000,000, was, if anything, short of the mark.

A poultry fancier in Dorsetshire told them his loss last year by rats was £80. The owner of a flour- mill lost £150 per annum by the gnawing of sacks alone. Some factoi'.s of house property in Glas gow stated that their bill for damage by rats amounted to £400 per annum.

The secretary of a soap company said that £500 per annum was the smallest computation of the company's loss through rats. A leather merchant lost £1 a week through the gnawinp of his goods; and a silk merchant in the city said that rats got in his warehouse and in one night did £86 worth of damage.

The rat had been the cause of huge and hideous pague mortality in India. The plague was at their own doors. It had invaded their colonies, and had even been brought to their shores by ships.

Sir Charles McLaren, M.P., said that at the request of the society he had introduced a bill for the extermination of rats. Whether it was dealt with seriously or not the publicity given to it would be of assistance to society.