WORKING MICE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1679, 4 May 1904, Page 43 (Supplement)

WORKING MICE

The “Scotsman” (has discovered in an old pamphlet an account, by David Hatton, of his practical employment of mouse power. The following is extracted from Hatton’s narrative:— “In the summer of the year 1812 I had ocoasion to be in Perth, and, when inspecting the toys and trinkets that were manufactured by the French prisoners in the depot there, my attention was. involuntarily attracted by a little toy house with a wheel in the gable of it which was running rapidly round, impelled by the insignificant gravity of a common house mouse. For a shilling I purchased house, mouse, and wheel. Indosing it in a lhanidercihief, on my journey homeward I was compellled to contemplate its favourite amusement.

But how to apply .half ounce power,, which is the weight of a mouse, to a useful purpose was a difficulty. At length, the manufacturing of sewing thread t!h.emost practicable.” Mr Hiatt on had one mouse that ran 18miles a day; he proved that an ordinary mouse could run ten and a half miles on an average. A halfpenny's worth of oatmeal was sufficient for its support for thirty-five days, during which it ran 736 miles. He had two mice constantly employed in the making of sewing thread for more than a year.. The mouse thread-mill was so constructed that the mouse was enabled to twist,, twine, and reel from 100 to 120 threads a day, Sundays not excepted. A halfpenny’s worth 'of oatmeal served one of these thread-mill mice for five weeks. In that time it made 3350 threads of 25in., and as a penny was paid tio women for every hank made in the ordinary way. the mouse, at tiha,t rate, earned 7s 6dla year. Take 6d off for board and allowing Is for machinery, there was a clear yearly profit from each mouse of 6s. Mr Hatton firmly in-