The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-07-20

tree. where rats should have gained
courage from numbers, they do not sit
TO have their photographs taken. All
that the spectator sees is a fash of
two black eyes and a tail-about as
much as the agitated angler sees of
the trout which he fails to land. The
circumstances are not conducive to ac-
curate observation. The four-ounce
trout easily becomes half-pounder;
the wee, covering, timerous beastie
lives in the memory as a savage mon
ster, a slaughterer of babes, and a ma
rauder of bacon by the half-pound.
1t is, at the least, suspicious that
the twin foes of domestic peace-the
mouse and the rat-should be so SIM
liar in form, appearance, and habit.
Even by those dogmatic biologists who
think they have established the diff
ferentiation of the. species, it will be
admitted that, to the unscientific eye,
the rat is but the mouse magnilied
by three or four diameters. The or
Urinary rat is brown; the ordinary
mouse is brown. The rat has whis-
kers; so has the mouse. Abnormal
length of tail is characteristic of both
animals. The eyes of both mouse
and rat, to a careful observer, ap-
pear equally bright. small, and pierre
ing. The movements in either case
are hurried and precipitate, and there
is a common faculty., rare in quad
rupeds, of running up a perpendicular
surface. The squeak of the rat is not
very different from the squeal of the
mouse. There are occasionally white
mice, just as there are albino rats.
What, indeed, is there that a mouse
can do which a rat cannot? What
idiosyncrasy of appearance or be-
havior appertains to the one that does
not also appertain to the other? Sure
ly it is difficult for the unprejudiced
mind to study the records of Brain
tree or Hamelin without arriving at
the conclusion that the rat is as it
were, but the mouse writ large. The
conjecture is that the eye of the dis
tracted female has a certain magnify
ing faculty.
1t will be said that the feminine fan
cy, no matter how excited, does not
evolve a tiger from cat That is
true, but there has to be taken into
account the predisposition on the part
of the woman to put the worst con-
struction on the actions of a mouse.
The enmity which was predicated in
Eden between the woman and the ser
pent is undeniably true between the
woman and the mouse. Into the cause
of this antipathy it is not to the pres
ent purpose to inquire; the fact re-
llldllo Lllctl lIS dStldllOil pIOuuCtu III
the feminine bosom by the most "ridic
illus mus" is out of all proportion to
its physical proportions. 1t may even
be suggested that the great rat theory
is one knowingly put forward by wom
ankind by way of affording a plausible
excuse for her palpitations. why"
says the mere man, "be afraid of a
mouse? 1t cannot eat you: it will not
even bite you" And, in sheer self-de-
Tense, the cornered sex Celebrates this
fiction of greater and fiercer mouse.
a mouse that glares at you from COR
ners; a mouse with a tail as long as
your arm; mouse that attacks babies
in their cradles, and would. no doubt,
attack you if you did not get on chair
and scream. A mouse, too, which, for
greater FEASIBILITY, keeps behind VAIN
scots and runs in and out of holes just
like ordinary mice, and plumbers the
same larders with a larger appetite.
Such a portent is not to be laughed at
in the sneering masculine way. A
monster which bolts half a pound of
bacon has passed the limits of insig-
nificance, and if a womans cheek
blanches at the horrid sight-well, she
has cause. which not the most unfeel-