American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-05-02
Rat Stories.

A WORK, recently published in En-
gland, on Waste Products" and their
utilization, contains some curious and
amusing matters. The statements con-
cially remarkable. The bones of defunct
for buttons, knife-handlcs, and various
other purposes. But, to make these bones
marketable, they must be cleaned. To
boil them, or apply decomposing sub
stances to take off the adhering flesh, in
jures the bone To clean them by hand
would add too much to the cost. There
is a pound" in Paris, about ten acres in
extent, surrounded by a stone wall; to
this receptacle all the carcasses of dead
here the problem OF bone cleaning is
solved. The city authorities colonized
the place with rats from the catacombs.
They do the work of bone cleaning artist
cally, polishing the bones gratuitously as
no human cleaner could do, without great
trouble and expense. With the rodents
it is work of love, impaired by voracity ;
and a carcass dumped in the Enclosure
one day is found on the morrow a neat
and polished skeleton" The bones are
all ready to be sawed up into frames of
ladies' fans, and to touch beautiful noses,
all unconscious of the odors which the
elegantly carved toy exhaled but few
weeks or days before.
But. the four-legged operators grow
by what they feed on" sleek individual
ly. but collectively "too numerous to
mention" There is such an increase of
labOrers over the demand that the rats
employed to keep down waste become
waste" themselves. They, in their turn,
are utilized" and human ingenuity is
too much for animal sagacity. All around
the inside base of the wall of the inclo-
sure are perforated cylindrical holes, in
diameter the size of the rats body, and in
depth equal to its length. At break of
day, once a month, a calathumplan
band" armed with drums, tin kettles,
and whatever else will make a horrid
noise, rushes in among the rats. Thus
charivaried" into mortal terror, the
holes they find. Rat catchers, each
equipped with a bag over the left Shout
der, rush round and seize the rats by their
protruding tails, and whip them into the
bags with wonderful and dexterous celer-
ity. The privilege of catching the rats il
paid for, and the catchers make a good
thing out of the sale of the fur. the ski n
and the flesh. The fur is used, among
other purposes, for hats. The skins fur
nish thumbs for kid gloves. Fur and
skin are sometimes used together. But
the flesh? After such a revelation the
customers at cheap Paris restaurant
might say: In that savory dish what rats
may come must give US pause!"
Rats, it will be seen, have thus reached
the dignity of articles of commerce in
Europe. In China, where rat soup is a
delicacy, this small game has, perhaps
for centuries, been quoted at 81 dozen.
In the East ILdia province of Scinde the
Commissioners, to abate the rat nuisance,
issued proclamation giving threepence
a dozen for rat tails. The catchers were
permitted to keep the carcass, no small
addition to their profits. The emigration
of rats and their multiplication are among
the curiosities of natural history. In
France they are computed to amount in
number, with other rodents, to over two
thousand millions, and their depredations,
if estimated at only one-fifth of an Amer.
lean cent year to each rat, would amount
to nearly four millions of dollars annual.
ly. The proprietor of slaughter-h house
near Paris has trapped and killed over
5000 rats in one month. In one night he
destroyed nearly 5000. These rat figures
are something appalling. They certainly
far exceed any American experience, and
it is to be earnestly hoped that they al
ways may.