KILLED BY RATS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8062, 1 October 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

KILLED BY RATS.

An* extraordinary story reaches here from Fletcher, Kalkaska County. One Sunday the remains of a human being were found in the woods. The body had been partially eaten, apparently, and was wholly unrecognisable. An inquest was he'd, but it brought out nothing beyond the fact that the deceased belonged to the labouring class ; that his death had been caused by hemorrhage, resulting from deep wounds ; that he had been dead severc.l days, and that the jury pave it up for a bad job. While h verdict wag being rendered in accordance with these facts a young man named Davis, who had been drawn by curiosity to pay a second visit to the spot where the corpse was found, dashed among the jurors with badly-tattered clothing, a bloody club, and a solution of the mystery. The unknown man had been killed by field rats. The young man had himself been attacked by them and had to fight for his life. When he approached the fatal spot he said the vicious little creatures sprang upon him from all sides, and although he killed many of them, it seemed only to whet the courage of the survivors. He was obliged to make a run for it, and had been followed almost to the place of inquest, some of his asssailants clinging to him and. biting him cruelly. The men returned with him and surprised the surviving rats in the act of carrying away and concealing the bodies of their defunct brethren.—Detroit despatch to Chicago Tribune,