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Star (Christchurch), Issue 12776, 21 October 1919, Page 7

For want of a Pied Piper of Hamclin. the British Board of Agriculture is, 1 using the next best tiling to get rid" of the rats and mice—a Bill. The"House tittered when the Bill was introduced (says “A Londoner” in the “Evening Standard”). The titterers did mn know that tho rat has been described as tho most expensive animal maintained by man. He costs in damage anything up to £'40,000,000 a year as much as the whole of the Government subsidy to the farming industry. He spreads bubonic plague and other diseases among men and animals alike. He is of no earthly use except as a scavenger, and there the remedy is worse than the disease. The fiat has now gone forth; ho must bo exterminated wherever he shows his head in stacks, in granaries, in warehouses m the holds of vessels. The mouse, too if less harmful, is just as useless as his big relative—-and the only living creature which will regret his disap” •pearanco is the ca*-