The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-07-03

wives who were troubled with rats TO
poison them, but the problem has been
to induce them to die upon the field of
honor, SO to speak-to wit, the kitchen
floor They have usually preferred to
retire to their inaccessible retreats in
the walls as soon as they have felt the
symptoms of arsenical poisoning. and
the low state of sanitary science pre-
vailing in their communities is sucb that
poisoned rats are never properly buried
or incinerated by their associates. The
problem has been how to kill the rats
without bringing unpleasant odors in
the house. An erratic genius in New
Hampshire once attempted to solve this
problem by preparing an explosive
compound which he believed would SO
completely and evenly distribute the
material of which rats are made in the
region round about as to obviate that
difficulty, but his invention failed be-
cause American house walls are not
commonly iron-clad, and the explosions
were destructive of plastering.
Mrs Benedict has solved the difficulty,
and is entitled to the honor we give to
an inventor and benefactor. She has
found out how to induce rats to die in a
neat and more or less regular circle on
the kitchen floor or table. Like all in
ventors she is somewhat indebted to
accident. She was engaged, it appears,
in the domestic manufacture of plaster
casts of various kinds. She nodded
Cupids and other more or less addressed
heather divinities, which the prevalent
art temper of our people enabled her to
sell among her neighbors. Complaint
having been made of the fragiiity of
these wares, Mrs. Benedict began q
course of experiments with the hope of
giving greater durability to her casts.
One of her devices was to mix
wheaton flour with her pulverized
plaster of Paris, so that the
gluten of the flour might make the paste
less brittle. One evening she had visi-
tors, who rang her door-bell just as she
was Sitting the mixed plaster and flour
for the third time by way OF mixing
them intimately, as chemists say. She
had already set dish Of water at hand,
intending to make an experimental cast
at once, and when the door-bell rung
she hastily removed her apron and went
to welcome her guests, leaving her ma
terials upon the kitchen table. The
guests staid until late bed time, and
when they babe her adieu Mrs. Bene-
dict went to bed, without returning to
the kitchen.
What happened in the night was this
A rat, shifting the odor of flour, made
his way up the legs of the table, to the
top, where he was speedily joined by
other foragers-his brethren. The
dish of flour and plaster was easily
reached, and the rats ate freely and
hastily of it, as it is their custom to do.
1t was rather a dry supper, and water
being at hand, as we have said, each rat
turned from the savory dish of flour and
plaster to Stake his thirst with the water.
Every body who has had to do with
plaster of Paris will guess at once what
The water drunk first wetted
the plaster in the rats stomachs, and
then, in technical phrase ''set'' it; that
is to say, the plaster thus made into
paste instantly grew hard in each rats
making cast of all its con-
volutions, a cast as rigid as any Of the
Psyches that Mrs. Benedict had intended
to make. 1t is not difficult to believe
that even lively rat finds it uncom-
Portable TO have plaster cast of his
securely deposited in that use
full receptacle for food, and the event
proved that with such q cast in exist
ence it is impossible for rat to retreat
even across a kitchen. The rats de-
cided Mr.. Mallock's question els Life
Worth Living?" in the negative without
quitting the table.
The next morning thirteen of them
lay dead in a circle around the water
dish. Mrs. Benedict, when she entered
the kitchen for the purpose of making
her fire, saw them and acted according
ly. That is to say, she screamed and
climbed upon a chair. From that
commanding position she studied the
scene, and very soon made out pretty
accurate account to her own mind of
what had happened. Like a wise wom-
an she kept her secret and made profit
of it. She undertook, for considera-
ton, to clear the premises of her neigh
bors of the pests, and succeeded. 1t
was not long before the town was as free
of this sort of vermin as if the pied piper
of Hamelin had travelled that way. Then
Mrs. Benedict advertised for agents to
work up the business throughout the
country, selling each the secret for
fair price. She no longer devotes her
self to the making of NEUROLOGICAL
deities, having done much better stroke
of business in making plaster casts of
rats stomachs. She deserves statue
in plaster with -four in due proportion.
IN. Y. EUen6ng Post.