The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-03-29
OUT OF BIS LINE.

| From the Detroit Free Press.
A woman sat by the window Of .
house on Clifford street one Of those
warm days last week when a man
came along with seven rat-traps and
eight mouse-traps slung over his shout
der on cord. He leaned on the fence,
wiped his perspiring brow with Grip
pied handkerchief, and said:
Madam, no lengthy explanation is
demanded. 1 am selling mouse and
rat-traps. My stock is right here.
Sell you trap warranted to catch the
cutest old rat in Detroit for a quarter.
These mouse-traps, warranted to entice
the most bashful mouse in the state to
his destruction, are only fifteen cents.
Might make the two thirty-five cents
to YOU"
The woman was darning a hole in
the heel of a long handled black stock
ing. She darned and looked up, and
darned and looked down, but she made
no reply.
''Of course said the man, as he de-
tached one of the traps from the cord
and held it out, IF you have no rat.
you have rats. We all have 'em. That's
where the rich can get no advantage
over the poor. l don't say that it isn't
cheaper to lay for rat with sled
stake, but as a matter of convenience
the trap is ahead. savoy, a'am?'
She looked up again, turned the
stocking wrong side out and back, and
said nothing.
"A person that is not in the rat OF
mouse business gives little or nc
thought to statistics" continued the
man, as he rested enc foot on the
fence. ''Have you any idea of the
appalling increase of the rodent
population? Probably not. have
met poets, editors, ,financiers and states
men who had given it no thought. As
a matter of fact. ma am, one pair OF
rats will multiply themselves one thou
sand times in two years. One thousand
rats will consume an average of five
thousand dollars worth of provisions
per year. One of my traps will catch
one thousand rats every three hundred
and sixty-five days. 1t is, therefore,
question of whether you Will invest
twenty-five cents or lose five thousand
dollars. Could anything be palmer,
ma amp"
By this time she had got through
with the hole in the heel and found one
in the toe of the stocking. She looked
up at him as she threaded the darning
needle again, but was silent.
Mind YOU" said the man, after look
ing up and down the street, II don't
say that the rat shouldn't have
show. He was created for a pur-
pose, the same as man, and simply
because we happen to have the
most intelligence we have no right to
wipe him out OF existence. What do
contend, however, is that he must be
kept within certain limits. Whenever,
owing to numbers and rapaciorsness,
he becomes menace to mans welfare,
he must go to the wall. II was with
that end in view that rat-traps were
invented, and that have come down
Port Huron TO offer these traps at the
low price of twenty-five cents each.
trust that L have defined my position |
clearly, a'am?'
one DlI OH the warn close 10 tne i
stocking, turned il right side out and |
passed her finger over the spot, bri 4
her eyes were not even raised to his
Il think I see how IT is, he said. a.
he refastened the trap 10 the cord sne 1
prepared to move on II think ] do. /
You have not made finance and domestic |
economy study You look at twenty. |
five cents paid out for rat-trsp as sc
much capital invested in a non-divi.
dend paying investment. You do not
fgger-
At this juncture she rose up. laid the
stocking aside. and putting her head
out of the window until il was within
four feet Of his. she called out:
Don't want any! We never buy
potatoes of peddlers. anyhow -
He sSood and looked at her for a min
ute with mouth wide open. and then,
as the sash went down and the curtain
was drawn, he turned away with:
"I'll never make Twin at it in the
world, Ny line is windmills or sew
ing machines. or something that runs
with a drivewbsel and does its OVID
talking