Los Angeles herald., 1906-02-21
MICE ARE EMPLOYED TO
RUN BIG FAN AND DO IT
SUPPLY DEMAND FOR POWER IN
STORE WINDOW
Work Until Enthusiastically Non.
Union Little Creatures Hurry over
TreadnllI All Day-Llkely to Cree
ate Big Demand for Free Labor
Special to The Herald.

Special to The Herald.
LOGANSPORT, Ind, Feb. 20-Mlce
and cat quotations are likely to be fea-
lures of local market reports IL fluc-
tuationS continue as sharp as they
have been here for two or three days.
The mouse market took an unex-
pected upward start on Saturday, but
on account of the liberal receipts on
Monday bear movement followed.
Cats were brisk and kittens lively.
Rangy looking rats were n drug on
the market, and only prime mice are
wanted at any price. The price of cats
Is rising, however, and the supply,
while large is unequal to the demand.
Homer Closson & Co., a drug firm,
are holding up the mouse market. The
cats are being bought by tenants of the
building he occupies. The demand for
both grew out of an idea matured with
intent to cut down electric power bills.
Bait Is Cheese
Closson is the Armour Of the mouse
business. He used an electric fan in
his show window to keep 1t from FROST
ing over. The current cost money.
Closson figured out that mouse on q
treadmill would do the same work as
$500, 900 municipal electric plant. He
rugged up an endless belt baited with
cheese.
But the mice seemed to have heard
or his plan to put them to work. They
became as scarce as snakes in Ireland
Closson put q sign in his window:
WANTEDi
Healthy, Able-Bodied Mice to Work
For Their Living.
Will Pay One Cent Apiece.
Then he waited results. Nothing ma
terialized. The next day a voice over
the telephone asked What are you
paying for mice today?'
"Pll give you cents apiece" re-
piled Closson. In due time a smart
boy, with thirty-seven mice, appeared
and departed with $1.S5 The mice be-
gan their endless grind up grade to-
ward the never-attaina BILE cheese.
Closson geared the fan to the mouse
motor and disconnected the electricity.
Non-Union Workers
The mice were non-union. They
worked all day and half the night, try
ing to reach cents worth of cheese.
Then they fell exhausted. Blossoms
fan stopped, the window began to frost
over and the sign was changed to read
Five Cents Apiece"
All the small boys in Cass county
seemed to have been holding on for
an advance. They arrived with enough
mice to keep the fan working in quad
ripple shifts for years. day and night.
The price of mice fell in proportion.
Closson would buy only Selected
stock" The rest were turned loose
by the boys, who preferred this to TAX
ing them back to the fodder stacks
where they had been captured.
Cats in Demand
simultaneously there came protests
from adjoining bakeries and flats. One
man in a hall bedroom hung out a sign
offering to pay 30 cents each for cats
that would rid his premises of the
castoff mice and those that had begun
to gnaw their way out OF Blossoms
cage.
A procession Of small boys Juggling
reluctant Tables passed up the stairs
until the cat market developed bear
tendency. Then neighbors of the "cat
buyers of finance" picked up bargains
in mousers all the way from a quarter
to a dime.
The days trading closed with mar
ketS firm on both cats and mice and
with non-union workers still toiing to
reach the top Of the treadmill-and,
keeping the frost from
the store windows