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

ing of masculines will deny her. There
is really a good deal TO be said for the
notion that the modern rat is the re-
suit of a series of consistent efforts on
the part of generations of women to
imagine a mouse commensurate with
and worthy of their fears.
AS matter of fact. if there is such
thing as rat, it must be the most
ti1nid of brutes. We know Church.
undra, the muskrat of the Jungle Book
always trying to make up his mind to
run into the middle of the room. but
never getting there. If a rat would
only come out into the open and at
tack horse, or devour a caretaker, or
make some other striking manifesto
ton of its existence, the case would
be on a different footing. But instead
it turks, and peeps, and skulks. Just
like the mouse. II is practically invis-
ible. 1t is true that there is a profess
sion of ratcatchers, but not so MANY
centuries ago there was also a pro-
fession of witchcatchers. Is it in hui
man nature that one should expose
the inner hypocrisies of ones own call
ing? If a man or a mans dog catches
mice, and he is paid extra for calling
them rats. why should he complain?
1t is easy to imagine a confederacy of
tradesmen bound by oath to maintain
a superstition in the interests of bet
ter wages and a higher professional
status.
No doubt history tells of rat plaques.
But history tells also of dragons and
seaserpents and men whose heads do
grow beneath their shoulders. Does
any one believe the story of the Pied
Piper of Hamelin? OF course not.
The piper was a myth; the children
were a myth, the aldermen We're a
myth. Why should we believe the rats
1nr,1 = l. AsaJ So Il s,1A,s L.
rates leave a sinking ship. The pro-
verb carries its own refutation. II
rats leave a sinking ship. where do
they go to? In nine cases out of ten,
the only possible alternative is
watery grave. We are seriously ask
ed, in the case of what is represented
to us as one of the lowest forms of
vertebrate animals. to believe that it
is devoid of the elementary instinct on
which the whole course of evolution
depends-the instinct of self-preserva-
ton. Mice, apparently, are self-pre-
serving: rats are not Is not the thing
a contradiction in terms? Again, if
rats do leave a sinking ship, it can
only be by virtue of some unfathom-
able, some supernatural faculty Of
provision. That is such an attribute
as would very fifty be looked for in a
mythical creature, but hardly in an
unclean denizen of twentieth century
cellars. Both in its exaggerated claims
and it's obvious fallacies. the theory
of the rat betrays its imaginative
origin.
1t is a little odd to find confrma-
ton of this subversive hypothesis in
the English language itself Tell a
small boy or a low-class apprentice
something palpably untrue or incredi-
Bile. His reply will be the one word,
Rats" Why Rats" rather than mice
or monkeys? Plainly because the rat
itself is a symbol of RIGHTEOUSNESS.
"You'--so runs the meaning of the
elipses-'may be foolish enough to be-
lieve this or that: for mel would as
soon believe in rats" No other salts
factory explanation of the strange in
terjection seems to offer itself. 1t is
an unconscious confession. enshrined
in the body of the language, that the
existence of the rat is a fact so made
quately established that even the man
in the street laughs at the notion.
Explained-"Tourem says it only