The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1893-10-18
RATS, MICE AND REACHES.
THEY SWARM AT THE DEPART
MENTS IN WASHINGTON.
VermIn Are Destroying Many Valua-
bic Rodents Cleaned Out
of the White House.


White House has been infested
by myriads of rats. They we're cleaned
out at the beginning of the Harrison
administration by an expert with fer
rets. The wooden floors in the base
ment of the Executive Mansion were
taken up and concrete was laid down
instead. This was done mainly for the
purpose of keeping out such four
footed foes in the future. The mice
in the building are few, by reason of
the efficiency of a black and white cat
that strayed in and settled down in the
kitchen four years ago. When Grant
became President for the first time the
rats were so aggressive that Mrs. Grant
demanded the removal of the stable,
which then adjoined the building on
the east. But the destruction of the
stable did not remove the rodent pests.
In fact, they were so bold that one of
them tripped up the fat colored cook
as she walked across the kitchen, and
she killed it by sitting down upon it.
The animals made network of tunnels
under the brick pavements and in the
walls. They were not content with
ordinary food, but preferred the rem
nants of state dinners. Crump, steward
ofthe White House under Hayes, swore
that banquet committee of the older
rats used to examine his books each
night for the purpose of finding out
what would be served for dinner the
next day.
The Pension Office is the chosen
haunt of rats. Swarms of them adopted
the building as their home while it
was as yet in process of construction.
At present the walls are alive with
them, and the floors are full of their
holes. They feed on the remnants of
2000 daily lunches eaten in the build
ing. Such scraps commonly find their
way to the waste paper room, which
serves the rodents as breeding place.
In the same building sparrows are al
most as great a nuisance as the preda-
tory quadrupeds described. They
make their nests by hundreds among
the timbers beneath the lofty roof. In
summer pigeons fly in through the
open windows and raise families on the
premises. Some of these are "homers"
lost on journeys with messages.
Rats used to do a great deal of dam
age at the Postoffice Department They
ate quantities of money orders and
postal notes, as well as blank books.
Much damage was done by them to
"dead" packages in the storeroom for
such goods. So, two years ago, a rat
catcher was employed. He brought
ferrets and cleared out the building.
! Incidentally he astonished the officials
by crawling all around the structure,
a distance of four blocks, making his
way beneath the flooring of the sub
basement, where there was no space
to wriggle through save such as had
been left In putting down the
sewer and gas pipes. This ferret
like proceeding is very destruc'
tive to health, on account of the bad
mir AMI mephitic gases encountered.
Three hundred and odd cats are regu-
larly kept on the rolls of the Postofice
Department to prevent rats from eating
the contents of mail bags. Formerly
rats were very bad at the Patent
! Office, but they were driven out with
ferrets. They used to chew up u great
many valuable papers, making their
nests among the stacks of patent rec
ords, covering half million inven'
tions, which occupy many thousand
cubic feet in the basement. The few
rodents which still remain are kept
down in numbers by nearly a score OF
cats. e
m, - haaY, o1,ln 20
| get rid of the rats which infest its
| building. Ferrets were tried year
ago with only partial success. Some
| of the floors were torn up and what
appeared 10 be the principal breeding
| place was discovered in the waste
paper room. A good many nests were
destroyed. Fortunately, the pests
cannot get at the paper money to
gnaw it, because ii is shut up III safes.
At the Senate end of the Capitol there
| are very few rats. This seems odd, in
asmuch as there are great many in
the endorsement of tine House wing.
Only year ago they caused II fire in
the folding-room by nibbling matches.
They are fond of eating the paste on
the wrappers of public documents also.
The Government Printing Office,
which was badly troubled with rats
few years ago, has been wholly de-
serted by them for some time past.
Another nuisance that aillicts the
Government departments is reaches
The Pension Office swarms with them.
AT night the watchmen catch big fat
ones and keep them until morning III
pasteboard boxes. Then they feed
them to the goldfishes in the fountain
in the middle of the great court. The
latter gobble them greedily, which fact
suggests that possible such vermin
might be made use of by anglers for
bait. Tho scientific library of the
Patent Office is visited once in two
years by an expert who destroys all
the reaches by contract The War,
State and Navy Building used TO be
! oyerrun with reaches, but they have
been nearly cleaned out. The docu-
ment room of the House of Represents
tives is bothered IA good deal with
reaches. There are not "A few of them
also in the White House, so that the
clerks there are obliged to put their
/ postage stamps in tin boxes to keel
the creatures from eating the mucllage
of the backs Most of the reaches re-
ferred 10 are of the kind known as
water bugs or Crotun bugs They