The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1881-08-06
How Some Provinces of India were De-
vastated by Rats Two Years Ago.

The recently issued " Bombay Admins
trative Report, few copies of which
have reached this country, gives some
curious details respecting the extraordina-
~ plague of rats which devasted eight
Collectorates of the Bombay Presidency
in the latter half of 1879. The partieu-
lar kind Of rats which proved most OBJ
noxious were the Indian jerboa, the Indian
mole rat, or k0k, and the mettade. The
first named is fawn colored above and
white below, and, including the tail, is
often fifteen inches long. 1t burrows un-
der ground, is very prolific, but does not
eustomarily hoard food; while the kok, on
the other hand, aecumulates large quanti-
ties of grain.
The mettade is really species Of mouse,
but it is a very large mouse, sometimes
nine or ten inches long. 1t is said to live
exclusively in cultivated fields, within the
deep assures found in the black soil during
the hot months This rat climbs the stalks
of the crops and gnaws off the heads gen.
orally few days before they ripen. Great
numbers of the rats inhabiting the black
soil are said to be killed every year by the
first heavy rain of the monsoon. The
black soil swells when the drenching rain
falls on it, and the broad deep cracks found
in the hot season, closing, sufoeate the
rats caught within them. 1t was in No
vember, 1878, in the district Of Sholapore,
that tho rats first began to attract notice;
but it was not until June and July of the
following year that they became an actual
plague.
Grain was scratched up and eaten as
soon as sown, eotton-plants were destroyed,
and the cultivating classes, depressed by
the droughts aud scarcity Of previous
years, were driven to a state little short of
desperation. In July, 1879, the govern
ment adopted energetic measures for the
destruction OF the yermin. a reward of
one rupee was offered for every hundred
killed, and district officers were reused to
do their utmost toward exterminating the
animals. 1t was required that the rats
killed should be produced at the govern
ment treasures, where the tails were cut
off and the bodies returned to the claim
ants, who usually carried them home for
food. As long as the plague was at its
height this system of reward remained in
force In all over 10000 900 rats were
killed, and by March, 1880, they were re-
duced to tolerable numbers.
AS regards the origin of the plague, no
altogether satisfactory explanation has
been afforded. From the fact of their
appearing in greatest numbers in the fam
ine-stricken districts, it has been conjec-
tured that the large amount of land lying
untitled owing to the death or absence of
the occupants, served as favorable and un-
molested breeding grounds for the vermin;
that, by the absence of heavy rain, the
suffocation of numbers by the monsoon
rains did not take place; and that the ex-
haustion of the usual underground stores
of grain, which, no doubt, ordinarily feed
much vermin, drove unusual numbers to
the surface.
The plague, however it arose, was fos-
tered by the religious prejudices and
apathy Of the peasants The cultivators,
as a body, did little; but some tribes did
take to rat-catching, and rendered good
service. Various means were resorted to.
Phosphorus-paste balls, fumigation, as
phyxiators, sulphur squibs were all tried
with only partial success. Digging up the
burrows, though tedious, was found after
all to be the better method. A clumsy,
characteristic attempt was made in one
Collectorate to obtain rewards a second
time for the same rats by fastening the
tails on with babul thorns; and in the same
district it was discovered that rats were
being imported at twelve annas the hun
dred from the territory of the Nizam, with
the view of making four annas, or sixpence,
on every hundred by the transaction. En-
ergetic as the Government measures were,
it is not supposed that the cessation of the
plague was due to the number of rats
killed for the sake of the reward The
heavy rain that fell later in the season,
and the frosts and cold which set in before
the close of the year, are believed to have
done much more in the way Of extermina-
tion.-St. James Gazette.
Newly painted rooms are very unpleas-
e. I.k q