The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-02-19
PIED PIPER or HANTN.


they crouch helpless and bewildered
they are picked up alive. one by one.
with long forceps and dropped into
a sheet iron receptacle. A powerful
electric current turned ON the can
does the rest, and the former distri-
buffers are ready for cremation.
If YOU have ever experienced a
sense of wild fury at some willy old
rodent that for weeks has been gnaw-
Ing your house down and persistently
refusing to he caught in any kind of
trap that the ingenuity of man has yet
devised. YOU will appreciate what this
new method means
You may have resorted to poison
Ing the pests, and found within n few
days that the odor that results from
the death of numerous members of
the rat family is possibly even more
annoying to all members of the house
hold than the persistent gnawing and
depredations of these miserable in
truders.
The rat question is admittedly a
serious one to the resident of farm
as we'll as city.
Depredations OF Rat Family.
The quantity of grain, fodder and
roots destroyed in this country each
year by the depredations of the rat
family would be something tremend-
GUS in volume IL it could be even ap-
proximated and the figures told to
the public.
Farm barns, elevators, wharves and
ships are generally infested with this
nuisance Of the animal kingdom. Re-
pulsive in the extreme to the eye of
man, criminal and thieving in his work
by day and night, and, as medical and
health statistics will show, positively
dangerous to the health of human be-
ings by transmitting disease germs
from place to place, they are an
enemy that mankind may we'll abhor.
Residents of cities in densely popu-
lated regions suffer even more from
the irritating work of rats than the
more sparsely populated regions of
the country, and if the battle in one
household wages too fiercely against
them to be endurable the rodents have
habit OF trooping in body over to
new quarters. where the surroundings
are more healthful for them. Thus
it is of but little use for one family
in a thickly populated block to at
tempt to rid Its premises of rats I'M
less there is general cooperation by
about all families in the vicinity.
Many methods of battling against
rats have been told and retold, some
of them with more or less merit. Some
methods of poisoning, because of the
inclinations Of the rat to run to his
nest within walls or above ceilings
OF rooms as, soon as the cramps of
the poison seize him, and there to die,
to give further trouble from the odor
of his body. are becoming very unpop-
ular with all who have given this
plan a test.
Kidding Buildings of Pests.
Such an important matter has the
Kidding of large hotels and fiat build
ings and some of the larger city resi-
dences of rats become that in almost
every large municipality not one, but
several firms of professional rat-kill-
ers find lucrative business in con-
tracing to rid such places of rats,
mice and other vermin most annoying
to the tenants and owners
Some, in fact nearly all, of these
professional rat and vermin extermi-
majors employ some secret method or
process. Some scare them away with
an odoriferous powder or flaky sub
stance, which they sprinkle freely in
the holes and runaways about the
place. Some make use of traps and
others have stock of ferrets suf1ci-
emily large to drive away all rats
from a place in a few hours or two
or three days at most. But rats driven
away are not killed,
The most unique, interesting and
effective method Of rat catching that
has yet been evolved, however. seems
to be that of charming them. By
musical call they are lured to, a place
where feast of inviting, odoriferous
food has been spread, and captured
alive in great numbers in a single
night. This plan is now very sue
cessfully practiced by several Chicago
concerns that make rat catching a
specially.
The process may seem almost in
creditible to some, but to any man
who knows the habits and inclinations
of animals of the nature Of rats there
will be no doubling the possibility Of
making a great success of this plan
when we'll equipped to do the work.
Great fiat buildings containing
thirty to forty fats that were most
alarmingly overrun with rats have
been almost completely cleared of
them in two nights by this plan when
executed by skillful experts.
Charmed By Music at Night.
: This Is the way the work is done:
In the dead Of night, say from mid
night on until O'Clock. are the work.
ing hours of the catchers. Two or
three in number, they go to the base
ment or the attic of the building. They
are equipped with felt-soled shoes
that they may walk about noiselessly
and two Of them are provided with
long-handled tongs or forceps.
The other man is the charmer.
A quantity of food is brought, which
Is favored with strong odor Of
cheese or other substance that Is at
tractive to rats, and placed we'll out
on the floor in an open space. The
charmer. seated some distance from