Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-07-08
RATS.
Mrs. Benedfct,s Remarkable andVaIua Bile
Discovery.

Mrs. Benedfct,s Remarkable andVaIuabIe lie
Discovery.
1t has always been easy for house
wives, who are 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 symp-
toms of arsenic poisoning, and the low
state of sanitary scien ce prevailing in
their communities is such that poisoned
rats are never properly buried or incin-
Grated by their associates. The problem
has been how TO xii, the rats without
bringing unpleasant odors into the
house.
M s. Benedict has solved the difficulty
and is entitled to the honor we give to
an inventor and beuefactor. She was
engaged, it appears, in the domestic
manufacture of plaster casts of various
kinds. Complaint having been made of
the fragility of those wares, Mrs. Beue-
dict began a course of experiments with
the hope of giving greater durability to
her casts. One of her devices was to
mix wheaton -four with her pulverized
plaster of Paris, so that the g.uten of the
flour might make the paste less brittle.
One evening she had Wis tors, who rsng
her doorbell just as she was sitting the
mixed plaster and -four for the third
time by way of mixing them intimately
as the chemists say. She had already
set dish of water at hand, intending to
make cast at once, and when the door
bell rang she hastily removed her apron
and went to welcome er guests, leaving
her materials upon the kitchen table.
The guests stayed unit. late bedtime,
and when they bade her adieu Mrs. Ben
edict went to bed without returning to
the kitchen.
What happened in the night was this.
A rat, sni iffing the odor of -four, made
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 q dry sup
per, and water being at hand, each rat
turned from the savory dish of flour and
plaster to slake his thirst with water.
Everybody who has had to do with plas-
ter of Paris will guess at once what hap
pened The water drank first wetted
the plaster in the rats stomachs, and
then, in technical phrase, set it; that
is to say, the plaster thus made into a
paste instantly grew hard in each rat
stomach, making a cast of ali its eonvo-
lutions. The event proved that with
such cast in existence it is impossible
for a rat to retreat even across the kitch-
en-.
The next morning thirteen OF them lay
dead in a circle ar ,und the water dish.
Mrs. Benedict. like wise woman, kept
her secret and made profit of it. She
undertook, for a consideration. to clear
the premises OF her neighbors 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. Ben
edict advertised for agents to work up
the business throughout the country,
ling each the secret for q fair price
1S-s0 York Eveuing Post.