Evening star., 1949-12-23
This and That
By Charles E. Tracs,OeH

By Charles E. TracsweH
There Is one mammal" writes w. L. M.
Of Mclean, Va, which, 80 far as know,
has no advocates at court.
Rats! What Is good about them7"
Well, now let US see.
Rats belong to the rodent family, one Of
the largest in the world.
Any class Of animals that manages to
survive must have its good points.
Sturdy little English sparrows prove it.
Rats are capable. strong, intelligent, three
qualities the world approves.
The fact that certain parasites have set
themselves up in rat bodies Is q thing ded-
nitely the rodents are not responsible for;
they have no hospitals, testing laboratories,
no serunS. etc.
They must take the germs as they come.
and suffer from them.
So far, no human philanthropist has Of
fered to help the rats.
Perhaps If we did help them, rather than
kill them. We might find more good points
in them.
As it Is, all mankind is united against
them. and there Is little that any one can
say against this warfare, for we have al
been indoctrinated.
II we stop to consider. however. We may
see that we have not been exactly fair to
them.
The young rat is not bad looking ami
NAL and has q capacity for play which he
shares with many other small mammals,
including small boys and girls.
Other rodents. notably the rabbits. know
the sense Of play.
popular song Of few years ago spoke
Of how "the rabbits rush around the brush"
You know what they were doing9
They were playing. Rabbits love to chase
>kh ~Ia
stacle.
This is one Of the primary games Of the
world, known to all races, and evidently
to many groups Of animals.
Probably even young snakes play tag"
The rats have given mankind one Of the
best laboratory animals"
Laboratory rats are not exactly common
rats. but they have . definite relationship
to them.
II laboratory Investigations have done as
much as their doers proclaim, then man
owes . real debt Of gratitude to the rat
family.
As we pointed out here some time ago.
there are rats and rats. Some Of them,
notably our native specimens, are fresh and
clean, even edible, II one gets pressed for
food.
Children Of the gay 'sos used to joke about
tIlc I2ttNu SOup VI SAAA4Au4ASa' AAAAo W0o
something they had heard from other chl-
dren, and was enough to shout at some un-
offending 1aundryman.
The truth is that some species Of rats
would make Is good soup as any. The
Chinese birds nest soup. also used by un-
thinking youngsters as ammunition against
the patient friends on the corner, really was
not made Of birds nests but Of an excre-
ton caused by certain species Of birds. When
cleaned and processed 1t becomes highly
edible food. Since the mental angle Of
eating plays q large part In diet, 1t Is plain
that persons who have not been brought
UP" on such soups might think them In
edible.
The greatest good ordinary rats do for
mankind which generally refuses to admit
its to point out TO point up, In other
wOrds) the existence Of unclean human
conditions and environment.
Some people think, for instance, that food
| put out for the birds draws" rats.
The truth Il that the rats are already
there because Of lack Of public and personal
sanitation.
Untidy yards, open garbage cans spilled
foods mclean conditions IN general. keep
the rats coming, not the comparatively few
pounds Of food put out by bird lovers.
Each rat seen points to human conditions
that should be rectined.
The community. In fact, owes debt Of
gratitude to persons who put out food for
birds, as this not only helps mankind's
| friends, the birds, but also makes visible
the rats, mostly regarded as mankind's foes:
Conditions we see. We can correct-but VIII
L 0A9