San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-12-28
THE ARMY OF RATS.
MYRIADS ENCAMPED BENEATH TIL;
CITIES OF THE SEAeOARD.
What the Average Citizen Knows About
Rats-Statistics of n Seaboard Town.
Merchant Besieged-The Aggressivenes'
of the Norway Rat.

of the Norway Rat.
Norwich, one of the most ancient towns on
the seaboard, has been overrun with rats 200
years, and there is perennial struggle be-
tween the inhabitants above ground and the
denizens of sewers and cellars. The city
swarms with rats, but not all the citizens are
more than vaguely conscious of their innu-
merable presence. Occasionally Norwich
dweller, when strolling about the under
ground recesses of his possessions, may
chance upon a rat, the inquisitive animal
cooked up in dusky corner of his attic or
cellar, his long shining tail curled about him.
While the tableau lasts-and its duration is
not more than ten seconds-rat watches man
with alert attention, his wicked bead eyes
CLEAN inquiringly and deiantly at the in
truder and at the first advance of man, rat
turns easily on his launches and simply dis
appears No one knows how he does it, how
the world opens to let him in, how he slips so
slipperily down the tube of invisibility; but
that is all there is of it, just presto! a wink,
a twist, a slip, a glistening loop of tail in the
air for an instant, and when you look where
the rat was there is no rat there There is
only a section of quiet dusk in the corner, a
hole, and an interesting interrogative silence
That is all that the average citizen knows
of rats personality but of the ravages of rats
his information is varied and accurate
NEST OF vERMIN.
There are four kind of tenants in every
seaboard town-men women and English
sparrows above ground, and rats under
ground. One lives in the up stairs and the
other in the down stairs of the world. 1t is
the people who do business along Che wharves
and in the lower streets of Norwich who can
tell us all about rats. They alone realize
what squirming nest of vermin life there
is directly under their feet, how vast an army
of long tailcd creatures is waiting impa-
tiently each day for them to lock their doors
at nightfall so that the field may be left free
for rats! Ask a Commerce, or a Water
street, or Franklin square merchant if he
knows anything about rats, and then listen
for what he will tell.
A curious Investigator, who has been COM
piling rat facts and rat statistics, did ap-
proach a veteran merchant of a down town
street day or two ago, and did ask him if
he knew anything about rats. The man
stared at him for a moment, and then made
this vague response in a curious tone;
Rats"
But the investigator pursued the subject,
and the result of his inquiries is seine inter-
esting rat data. The first important fact
brought to light is that the numerical esti-
mate of the rat population of the city, &C
cording to three expert Norwich statisticians,
varies from 1900, 900 to 10000. OOO One man
put the number as high as 400 900, 900, 900, but
he was laboring under mental excitement at
the time, because rats had just gnawed
through his pork barrel and let the brine out;
he appeared to be prejudiced against rats,
and his estimate, therefore, is not counted.
Probably this is the only town in the country
in which rats are hunted with rifles.
There is one merchant doing business under
the steep hill in Water street whose store has
been invested and besieged by rats for sew
eral years. The besiegers do not confine their
assaults to nocturnal hours, but all day il I
waste places and in musky hooks the gnaw
ing goes steadily on, now and then inter |
rupted by distant squeak or the hurried
patter of light feet. If the merchant goes tol
the rear of his store or to his dark little back
room or into the adjoining tenement, which
he uses for a storeroom, bright eyes suddenly
CLEAN at him through the obscurity like
shifting stars, the whisk of many tails isl
heard, and there is a clatter of boxes and
rubbish as the animals scamper away
This merchant evidently has done some
thing dreadful to the rat tribe, which bears
an inherited grudge toward him; he is as
awfully beset as was Bishop Hattie in his
Rhenish Mausethurm, for the rats are con-
tinually after him.
THE AGGRESSIVE NORWAY RAT
Some dreadful stories are told of the raven
BUSINESS and the bold aggressiveneSs of the
Norway rat by men who work at night in
ramshackle old buildings in the lower streets.
In one Water street shop few years ago the
rna:l-had o lob that kent them continually at
ITS b COMttau&Il