Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-03-21

puzzled and the salesladies wept. Old
customers who came to waste hours try
ing on gloves looked askance when they
We're handed a pair of Partisan made
suedes that had a buttonhole big enough
to stick thumb in. Nobody could make
up a bargain sale out of gloves of that
sort, and the store lost about $50
day for several months. Finally an office
boy said Rats" 10 customer and the
superintendent fired him, but had an in
spiration bought trap and caught 1:ii
of the animals and saved the remaining
stock of gloves.
Rats have Latin names, like everything
else animate and inanimate in this en-
lfghtened age but the Latins themselves
knew nothing of them search OF the
classics fails to find anything bigger
than a mus, or mouse. The present
day scientist calls the rat a Mus Nor
vegicus, which is the brown rat: the
Mus Rattus. which is the little friend
Of the housewife, and the Mus Alex
likes the others, and if a brown rat and
a black rat get I'm the same wall one OF
them is surely going TO die. So. the
country being a large one. the three
branches of the family take different ter
ritories for their operations. They have
divided up the business very nicely. and
nowadays no rat butts in on another rats
parish. At one time ii was thought that
the brown and the black rats would ex-
terminate one another, but a treaty was
formed and the expected slaughter failed
to come on
The great rat catcher Of America 10
Prof. David LantZe of the biological sur
vey. Theoretically he catches 'em alive
by the million. but i'll actual practice
he cannot get rid of the horde of rodents
that have taken up their residence under
the floors of his office. It's fact that the
people Of the biological survey who are
.ty.1x
of the world at large how to get rid OF
rats are troubled worse than any other
set of people in Uncle Sans pay. Why
Because the rats know who their enemies
are Trust them. the cute little things
tc find out which side their bread is
buttered on and on which side there is
rough on rodents. A rat, in the upper
circles, IS as prone, to use the figure of
speech. Il smell biological survey" as
the human being is 10 twist metaphors
into bits by saying, II smell a rat, l
see him floating in the air, but will
soon nip him in the bud"
So. to get back to the trend OF thought.
the biological survey. which is quartered
in an old brick building west Of the
Smithsonian institution. is overrun with
rats. The experts there ought to know
a lot about rats, because they have plenty
of models to draw conclusions from.
They find that rats die in their homes
about three times year-that is, different
rats do: and then the windows are kept
sometimes a rat just thrives on rat
poison and that the rat food that is
guaranteed to kill the pests generally
goes wrong. Either the rats laugh at it
or eat it and fail to leave the premises
AZ
For rat, whether living or not. is a
nuisance. Then there is the trouble about
The basic poison of all the
pastes that are handed TO rats nowadays,
SO il is claimed. is phosphorus. 1t kills
but II is mighty liable to burst into a
blaze and burn the house down. Arsenic
Is 4 sure enough killer-but then. as has
been decided upon by the leading scien-
lists of the country, rat which dies
from arsenic has no more consideration
about going away off to die than any
other rat. So the great trouble Of the
rat determination plans with which the
world has been startled from time to
time is that rats have it i'm their power
10 deliver a Parthian shot that is alb
solutely the last word.
There a lot of societies for the sup
preston of rats. Honestly-no joke at
all. In Europe they are quite common.
and they are not confined to lot OF
rat-catchins fossils or pair of old
maids. each armed with tabby cat.
either. They go after the thing right
They see to it that every new building
is made ratproof by the proper use OF
cement. They do not allow any floors
TO be laid which can be gnaWed into
and become the shelter of innumerable
rats. They clean ships at every port by
smothering the big ship rats with gas
and then tossing their bodies into the
crematcry. They build sewers with no
lodges in them, SO that rat cannot
possibly pick out a landing place and
MAKE 1T his home.
The biological survey is not going to
act as Uncle Sans pied piper and play
sweet tunes on flute and lead all the
rats into the ocean, because il is not
organized that way. but it is giving adj
vice to every municipality that is biz
enough to have rat of its own to get
busy as a municipality and buy A few
rat traps. Good. scientific trapping is a
good way to keep the rats down 70 a
small number. The United States rat
catchers say that rat traps baited with
wienerwurst are the best.