, 1881-03-18
Women and Rats.

W Den We phuSt tO COiSluSI lAo
fact that women and rats have been more
or less intimately associated upon
this planet for period of which
the minimum estimate is six thousand
years; when we remember that through
all these years they have lived together
in the same houses and have eaten of the
same food-besides going to sea together
from Mrs. Noah's time downward; when
We stop for few moments and think
about these close relations between
women and rats which have endured from
the very foundation of the world, 1t does
seem odd that woman cannot to this
day clap eyes on rat without giving II
scream tit to take the roof off.
So far as man can see, there is nothing
about rat to justify the tempestuous
outburst on the part of the woman that
universally and invariably is caused by
his appearance. He is not a dangerous
animal. On the contrary, he is hmid and
retiring; and If but a single woman
could be induced to take temporary
reef Ill her Mysteries she would find that
the rat runs awa.y at the very first scream
all the rest of the screaming being de-
livered, so far as the rat is concerned,
IN desert solitude. Ordinary men
Will run when a woman begins to go
on like that; much more, then, an
ignorant heather of rat. Such a COM
motion is enough to scare him out of a
years growth, or give him palpitation of
the heart, or a fit; and, very likely, it
does result in his becoming disordered
in one or the other of these ways and dy-
ing miserably under the library floor
where at least until he does actually
''sieep in dust" he is far from being a
''sweet remembrance" But the trouble
Is that the woman has yet to be found
who will, as it were, save her fire until
she sees the white of the rats eyes. The
dear things go bouncing upon chair
and off into Mysteries at the first glimpse
of rat on the horizon, and so they new
er know that the rat clears out rather
quicker than the average flash at the
first clarion note of womGnly dismay. If
a man happens to be around and ven
lures to tell the woman, when she gets
down off the chair and fair weather be-
gins to set in again, that the cause of
her alarm did not wait to see what it was
that had broken loose but scampered
away with an answering squeak at the
Identical moment that the screaming be-
gan; if L man ventures humbly to make
this simple presentment of everlasting
truth he is snubbed with prompt sever
ity that leaves him nowhere The woman
just looks at him in whitening sort of a
way and then shakes her skirts gingerly,
as though she believed-as, indeed, she
rather more than half does, such is the
superstition of her sex-that the rat has
sought refuge upon her person; Just as
though rat in the possession of even q
fraction OF his sober senses would regard
her very tempestuous petticoat as safe
place to hide in! AS to accepting the
story that the man has to tell. the woman
would rather die first. If she does net
know about rats what does she know
about? This question, being delivered
naturally is clincher. Whetever the
man may think, in simple politeness he
can have nothing more to say.
But it is odd, is it not, that women and
rats should be so hard to harmonize?
And it is odd, too, that this superstition
about rats hiding in skirts should have
gained such general currency. For OBJ
vious reasons, it could not have started
in Eden; but it is more than probable,
all the same, that Eve used to make the
grand old gardeners life somewhat of q
burden to him by getting up on stump
and screaming whenever a rat came
along. And what condition of chronic
explosiveness must have obtained on
board the Ark! 1t is strange, very
strange, that through all the ages the
rats and the women should have lived
side by side in the world and yet should
be just as much enemies now as they
We're at the start. Yet the strangeness of
this hatred that stretches out across half
a dozen milleniums does not at all lessen
its truth. We may marvel at its exist
euce, but we must admit that it exists
recognizing, with dear old Secretary
Seward, that sit is an irrepressible CON
t1ict between opposing and enduring
forces" that began with the beginning
and will end with the ending of the
world.