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Western Star, Issue 9, 10 January 1874, Page 3

A new manner of catching rats is exciting great interest among the householders in Madisonavenue. A barrel is filled half-full of water. A layer of powdered cork is laid on its surface, and over this a layer of corn meal is sifted. A chair and a box or two are placed unobtrusively in the neighbourhood, whereby the rat gains the edge of the barrel. He sees nothing but the meal. He has no innate ideas which teach him to be aware of the treacherous foundation on which that tempting surface rests. He sniffs, he leaps, and goes gently down through meal and cork to his watery grave. If any of his friends see him disappear from the edge of the barrel they hasten after 5 him to get their share of the probable plunder, and are in turn taken in by hospitable death. The plan seems effective against the rats, but is calculated to destroy their confidence in human nature. —“ New York Tribune.” The military conventions between Prussia and the Thuringian duchies and pi’incipalities, by virtue of which Prussia holds military supremacy in those States, expired on the Ist of October. Negotiations have been opened by Prussia for the renewal of those treaties, but several of the duchies have raised objections, based mainly upon the. refusal of the German War-office to suffer officers stationed in those countries to bo subjected to local taxes, as the law of the land provides thev shall.