Los Angeles herald., 1907-11-23
RATS DECLARED TO
BE DISEASE SPREADERS
so DANGEROUS is RODENT THAT
DENMARK ORGANIZES
Elimination Society Is Formed in
Scandinavian Realm, and City
of Brooklyn Threatens
to Follow Suit

BROOKLYN. Nov. 22.-When that
war against rats started recently in
| Copenhagen hits Brooklyn there will be
some tall doings and maybe the rats will
turn on the warriors and put them to
rout If the crusade is delayed here much
longer. For competent authority has 1t
that this little burg is the Gretna Green
where the rats east of the Alleghanies
hold their conventions now and then.
What could be more desirable to Mr.
Rat than the nice, old-fashloned houses,
the extensive waterfront, with many
ships and the miles and miles of ancient
sewers peculiar to Brooklyn? Could he
want anything better in the way of .
habitation?
But 1t should be said in all seriousness
that the presence of the vast army of
rats costs Brooklyn in damages each
year sum of money that, in cold figures,
would stagger even the Pied Piper of
this borough. There are very few peo-
pie indeed who realize how dangerous
an element the rats constitute because of
their disease-spreading proclivities. There
are far more rats in Brooklyn's water
front establishments, it's old-fashioned
houses and ancient sewers than most
people would care to believe. And when
no less an authority on the destructive
rodent than Zuschlag of Copenhagen
states that from one pair of rats we
get in twelve months a progeny of $780,"
the necessity for immediate warfare of
the most determined kind will readily be
realized
Over in Denmark the rat has become
so serious a problem that a national as
ISOLATION has been formed for the single
purpose of eliminating him from the
hn anf ho or
aside a certain annual allotment of
money to carry on the war. Other
countries have already followed the ex-
ample of Denmark and begun to save the
respective nations from destruction by
the rat. The scope of this society will
ultimately take in the entire world, or
at least those portions of 1t where civil
ized human beings are found. 1t is called
LAssociation Internationale pour la
Destruction Rationale des Rats, and
Zuschlag is it's president.
Zuschlag is a civil engineer His hobby
is the study of economic zoology. espe-
cially the life history of mans enemies
in the animal world, and he has learned
that the rat is ubiquitous and therefore
the most dangerous Agriculture and
shipping, industries and trades, the pal
aces of luxury and the novels of the
slums suffered alike from the depreda-
tions of the rat. The statistics which he
carefully compiled indicated that the rat
appeared to be everywhere and that he
ate nearly everything and destroyed all
that was not of stone or iron. His infor-
nation told of whole acres of corn laid
low. of raids on poultry farms and of
nightly depredations in grocers' and
bakers shops, private larders and ships
stores of provisions. And what he found
out about the remarkable rapidity with
which the rat could spread disease and
did, in fact, accelerate the distribution
of disease germs, caused the formation
of the society and prompt action by the
Danish government In India, the
plague committee appointed by the sec
retary of state to tackle the problem of
the bubonic plague which last year
killed off 100000 persons, only month
ago reported that "unless the destruc-
ton of rats is carried out with the ut
most energy it will be in vain to hope to
get the plague under CONTROL In its in
vestigation the plague committee saw
demonstrated most conclusively what
Zuschlag had said about rats. They wan
der about invade inhabited hoNses and
places where food is stored and spread
disease not only from house to house
but from village to village and from one
city to another,
Right here in Brooklyn this problem of
utmost Importance has not yet received
the attention 1t should have, although,
as Zuschlag says, rats increase each
year at the rate of 800 from every pairl
And there is considerable competent tes-
timonvi to bear out the assertion that
Brooklyn is menaced by the grim danger
of being eaten out Of house and home in