EXTERMINAT OF RODENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIII, Issue 15000, 22 November 1899, Page 2

EXTERMINAT OF RODENTS

. ♦ In Denmark a campaign against rats is being' prosecuted .with vigour. It was originally started -in- Copenhagen, about six weeks ago, where the aCunning multiplication of the rats induced the municipal au- J 4;horities to resort to a mediaeval method (perhaps we should say a pre-historic method)- df. freeing- the community from beasts of prey: As a price was once offered for eve,ry head of a wolf, so the conscript fathers of the Danish capital engaged to pay a certain, sum (we do not know the exaot amount', of their "ducat" for each dead rat). An official report of the statistics of rnt-slnughter has been issued every week 'since the opening of the campaign. In. the first week the rat-catchers, professional and amateur; gave in the heads of 6009 rats ; in the second week, 6616 ; in the. third we\?k, 6780. We are told that the -jiveragft weekly bill of mortality among the -rat population of Copenhagen 'has now risen" to about 10,000. Other towns and communes fallowed, the example of the capital, and the Danes are making a patriotic attempt to exterminate "the petty wolf," us'-Hendrik not inaptly termed the rat. This action is in conformity with the advicp of eminient Saenlists who have studied the spread of the bubonic plague.