Extermination of Rodents.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXIX, Issue 9496, 25 November 1899, Page 3

Extermination of Rodents.

In Denmark a campaign against rats is being prosecuted with vigor. It was originally started in Copenhagen about six weeks ago, whore the alarming multiplication cf rats induced the municipal authorities to resort to a mediaeval method (perhaps we. should even say a prehistoric method )of freeing the community from beasts of prey. As a price was onco offered for every head of a wolf, so the conscsript fathers of the Danish capital engaged to pay a certain sum (we do not know the exact amount of their "ducat" for each dead rat). An official report of the statistics of rat slaughter has been issued every week since the opening of the campaign. In the first week the rat-catchers, professionals and amateurs, gave in the heads of 6009 rats; in the second week, 6616; in the third week, 6780. We are told that the average weekly bill of mortality amongst the rat population of-Copenhagen has now risen to about 10,000. Other towns and communes followed the example of the capital, and the Danes are making a patriptio attempt to exterminate "the petty wolf," as Hendrik not inaptly mimed the rat. This action is in conformity with the advice of eminent scientists who have studied the spread of the bubonic plague.