Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-09-24
RATS IN PLAGUE CITIES.
Experiences in Bombay and Other
Stricken Places in India.
From rho Times of India

Stricken Places in India.
From the Times Of India.
Domestic rats do not burrow and live IN
foreground, or make their domiciles in
drains or sewers, into which they can Sc
cure ready entrance. As their name in
dicates. they live in houses, and bring up
their young in the least disturbed and most
Inaccessible corners. Their powers of To-
comotion give them the entire freedom of
the house. That Bombay should always
be filled with rats is explained by the cir
cun:stance that the city is the center of a
very large grain trade, and that this grain
is stored mostly on the ground floors of
houses for convenience of handling. The
grain godowns' of Bombay are not only
numerous. but are scattered all over the
city. The largo 'godowns," which are
Used chiefly by the large dealers, are
n ostly in Mandvie, to be near the docks
The numerous smaller godowns are scat.
tered about in the most populous districts
of the native town. AS the grain in all
these godowns, large and small, is stored
In tiers on the ground floor of the godowns
in piles or tiers of tens and twenties, with
or without plankS, beams or other wooden
dunnage beneath, the arrangement encour-
ages colonies of rats to use the grain 60
downs as domiciles for their tribe. There
they feed and live and thrive; there they
breed and rear their young, and there they
are secure from attack alike from men, as
from dogs and cats and all their other enc
mics. The grain godowns of Bombay have
been forever increasing, and the rats have
Increased with the number of the go6owns
The godowns, 1t should be mentioned have
been the domiciles, the feeding ground and
the strongholds of the rats, and it is not
easy to conceive any more effective plan Of
successful rat-bree0ing than that which
has been established in our godowns by the
grain dealers of Bombay.
hn }ron Nf
plague In Bombay, in August or SeD.em-
Der. 1856. the city must have been filled
with an unusual superabundance of rats,
seeing that every ingenuity which the hui
man mind might devise for the most COM
plete and extensive breeding of domestic
rats had been in actual operation in Bonn
bay for half century To this complete
system of rat-breeding has to be added the
facts that grain dealers and Hindocs gem
orally keep neither cats nor dogs in The
houses, and that the destruction of rats is
regarded by these classes as a religious
PROCLAMATION and dire sin. This peculiar
ity of the masses of the people gives the
finishing touch to the apparent mystery of
rat-breeding and rat preservation. There
is 40 mystery in the matter at all. The
facts connected with rat-breeding and rat
preservation are evident to the meanest
comprehension. When our plague first
came Bombay must have been "Urbs pri-
mus" in rats, if in nothing else. and in
those early days of the plague numerous
houses in the Mandvie district exhibited
every morning large numbers of dead rats
thrown out of the rooms and from the
staircases of houses awaiting renewal by
the seavengers of all that the crows had
not previously Toasted on.
From the beginning of the plague until
now dead rats have been found in houses
and in the streets as regular anteceaents
of plague among the people in the near VT
cinity. Dead rats have been discovered
first and plague cases such a close second
as to give rise to the popular belief that
the rats caused the plague. This belief
was Strengthened by the very numerous dis
sections ard observations which have been
made by competent Observers from time to
time. all Of which went to prove that the
great rat mortality was caused by plague