Newspaper Page Text
Il the Rat!”
The U.S.Government's
Nation-wide Campaign
Against a Dangerous
Disease-
Carrying
War Enemy
That Takes a
Billion Dol
lars Worth of
Food a Year
Out of
Our Mouths
By Rene Bache.
HE common brown rat is
one of our most dangerous
. enemies in the present war.
While we are making every
effort to defeat the Germans and
using up our ineome and resources
in the struggle, we are allowing
the rat to do us as much material
damage every year as 200,000
German soldiers could do.
The United States Government ' -
has recognized the gravity of the rat plague.
For the first time it has used a pictorial
poster in disseminating a public warning. It
has sent out one broadcast entitled, ‘‘Kill the
rat!’”’ It states the immense amount of dam
age done to foodstuffs and property and an
nounces that -information concerning the
best methods of rat killing and rat-proof
building will be furnished on application to,
the United States Department of Agricul
ture, Bureau of Biolog&al Survey, Washing
ton, D. C,
The great deadly fact is that there are up
wards of 200,000,000 rats in the United
States and that eaeh rat destroys on the
average 6 worth of foodstuffs a year with
out counting other proa)orty.
That means $1,000,000,000 worth of food
stuffs a year wasted. We are trying to feed
the allies and paying ruinous prices for our
own food, and at the same time we are let
ting the rats destroy $1,000,000,000 worth of
the finest human foodstuffs.
Every year the rats eat up one third of the
first Liberty Loan—which was $3,000,000,000
—and we have nothing left to show for it.
The Government shows that to produce the
food destroyed by rats annually requires the
labor’ of 150,000 farmers and f‘;rm workers,
No single farmer devotes his entire time to
the rats, but the labor wasted is equal to the
entire time of 150,000 of them. In addition
it requires the services of at least 50,000
other laborers to replace the damage done
by rats to buildings; Thus the total output
.of at least 200,000 men is continuausly re
quired solely to feed and otherwise provide
for the filthy, disease-spreading rats,
The fertility of the rat is amazing and ter
rifying. A female begins to breed at three
months and has on the average twelve litters
a year and ten rats to a litter.
At this rate one rat in a year would have
210,620 descendants. The rat lives about six
years, barring accidents,
David E. Lantz, of the United Btates Bio
logical Survey, has estimated tnat two brown
rats in three years could have 20,155,392 de
scendants, If the same rate of progression
were kept up for six years the total would
run into eighteen figures and there would. be
more rats than gould be accommodated on
the surface of the entire globe. That sueh
a thing does not happen is because the rat
death rate is high, and must rise, as men
" realize their danger. Nevertheless, the rats
are increasing at an alarming rate.
At present the number of rats in towns is
about equal to the human population, which
gives us 50,000,000 city rats in the United
States. In the country the rats exceed the
human papulation three or four times on ac
ecount of the abundance of foodstuffs. And
it is there that they are increasing most rap
idiy. Thus the total rat population of the
country ecannot be less than 200,000,000,
Some experts have placed it at 500,000,000,
In addition to hindering our war work at
home rats are figuring at the front. Im
mense hordes of abnormally large and fierce
rats add greatly to the miseries of the
trenches, attacking th:o(?oldion while they
sleep and destroying food and equipment.
Government literature now being dis
tributed shows that rats not only eat up food
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of all kinds, but spread hotrible diseases and
cause fires and interruption of communica
tion by gnawing the insulation of electric
wires In this latter way they may -bring -
about a great military disaster.
It is only the brown rat that is here con
sidered In the days of our grandfathers
this animal was known as the ‘‘wharf rat,”
or “‘ship rat,”’ for at that period the common
rat of the United States was the black rat
But the brown rat, being higger and fiercer,
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Dissecting a Rat for Germs of the Bubonic
Plusue, the World's Most Deadly Disease
Carried Mainly by This Animal
ate up the black rats and drove them out, so
that to-day a black rat is rarely seen. For
a century and a half the brown rat has been
rapidly conquering the world.
We have in this country about twenty
species of ‘native rats, but none of them lives
in houses or seeks the neighborhood of man.
The black rat was an immigrant from the
old world, and so likewise was the brown
rat at a later period.* e
The brown rat originated in A¥ia. It was
not known in Euro})e until 1727, when vast
hordes of rodents of this species swain across
the Volga. It appeared in this ecountry about
the time of the Revolution.
From that time on it spread rapidly over
the world, to all parts of which it was car
ried by=ships. To-day there is no country
that it does not afflict. Even the remotest
islands of the seas suffer from its depreda
tions, In Hawaii the brown rats have taken
to nesting in the trees, adopting habits like
those of squirrels. ¢
This rat is one of the most ferocious of
animals, and, if eornered; will not hesitate to
attack man. It has been known to assail
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How All the Rats in the Country—
200,000,000—Rolled Into ‘One Big Rat
Would Com Tare With the 150,000
Farmers Employed in Feeding the Rats,
Rolled Inte One Farmer.
helpless infants, kill them, and eat
shads. 7.8 o o
Sturdy, fierce and wonderfully
cunning, it is a foot and a half long
from snout to tip of tail when full
grown siid weighs a pound and a
half, Occasional gjant specimens
wojgh as much as four pounds. :
The brown rat is a strong swim
mer. As proved by experiment, if dropped
overboard half a mile from land it will soon
make its way to the shore. Itis also a clever
acrobat and has been seen to make its way
from house to house over telephone wires.
Its tail h# a more complex system of mus
cles than the human hamr. “Mr. Rat, in fact,
employs it like a hand, being thus enabled to
crawl along narrow ledges while using it to
balance with and to gain a hold. The tail is
prehensile, like a monkey's, and on occasions
serves the purpose of a spring, by the aid of
which the animal ean jump to heights other
wise inaccessible.
Only ‘two mammals are able to maintain
themselves anywhere in the world and
against all rivals—man and -the rat, The
genus Homo and the genus Mus go gvery
where and eat everything. 'They are t{e two
creatures that dwell in houses and travel in
ships. Ever companions, they wage per
petual war upon each other, Man has fought
the rat for thousands of years, and the battle
is still drawn.
The newly circulated Government posters
speak of the rat as a ‘‘spreader of fatal dis
eases.”’ It is the.sole carrier of the most de
structive of all human maladies—the ‘‘bu
bonie plague.”’ :
This disease, which on two recent occa
sions has invaded the United States, was for
centuries the terror of the old world, epi
demies of it earrying off whole populations.
One such epidemic, in the fourteenth ecen.
tury, killed half the people in England. In
1907 more than 2,008,000 men, women and
children in_ India suecumbed to the com
plaint.
It is now known that bubonic plague—
Copyright, 1918, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved
s
”W i Biitil Lo il S R A > ST T
ot s g it ; e
> S
the ‘‘black death’' of the middle ages—is
originally a disease of rats, Fleas,deriving
the infection from the rats; communicate it
to human beings by their bites. Diseased
rats make their way from house to house and
travel in ships from seapovt to seaport, thus
spreading the malady.
Another dreadful disease attributable to
rats is trichiniasis It originates in rats,
‘among which it is very common. Pigs
(whose quarters are commonly invaded by
rats looking for food) eat the diseased rod-
£ AN
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Two Effective Rat Traps Recommended
by the Government. .
BLlleann of Trap No. 1 3,000 Rats Were Oaught in a
Warehouse in a Single Nlfl'lln. The Plan Invelved Decoying
the Rats to the Place and niln& Them for Several Nights
on the 'l'o;- of Barrels Covered With Coarse Brown Pager,
Afterward a Cross Was Cut in the Paper, So That the Rats
Feil Into the Barrel, F}Ar:. Catches Have Heenm Made b‘{
Trap No. 2 a Barrel Fitted with a Light Cover of Wood,
Hinged on a Rod So as te Turn With the Weight of a Rat.
ents now and then, and thus become infeeted. -
People eat the infeeted pork, and, unless it
is thoroughly cooked (so as to kill the minute
worms called ‘‘trichinae), are liable to die
in frightful agony, their flesh being Mmvaded
by worms multiplying in countless numbers.
Evidently trichiniasis is a very ancient
malady, for it was on this account that Moses
declared pork to be unclean, forbidding the
Israelites to eat it. As & matter of faet to
day at least one pig in twenty is thus in
fected, and only our habit of cooking pork
ver{ thoroughly saves us from being eaten
up by the disease.
At times, in one region or another, rats,
owing to specially favorable conditions of -
food supply and weather, multiply at an ab
normal rate, and the damage done by them
is enormously inereased. On other occasions,
for lack of provender, they are impelled to
migrate, marching in armies that number
millions. ‘ : g
In rural sections, when warm wegther ar
rives, they seek the fields and attack the
growing crops. They dig ulp the new sown
grain, destroy it while growing and later at
tack it in the shoek, tg: erib, the granary,
the mill, the elevator, the warehouse, the
wharf and the ship’s hold,
Nothing that is grown for the use of man
is safe from their depredations. They eat
fruits and garden vegetables. They rob cat
tie, horses and poultry of their feed. They
are particularly fond of eggs and deatroy
immense numbers of young chicks, ducks and
turkeys. They will even attack little pigs.
Often they cause a total loss of crops over
wide areas, bringing actual famine.
A commission merchant in Washington
Startling Facts About the Rat Peril
There Are 200,000,000 Rats in the United States, -
Every Rat Eats on an Average $5 of Our Food Yearly.
Rats in the United States Eat Up $1,000,000,000 of
Foodstuffs Annually. S
BEGP. Gy
The Rats Keep 150,000 Farmers Oc
cupied Feeding Them.
Other Workers Needed to Repair Rat
Damage Number 50,000.
Damage to Property cher Than Food
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¥ e
el
by Rats Is Estimated at
$200,000,000 Annually.
A Government Scientist
Calculates That Two Rats
Can Have 20,155,392 De
scendants in Thr_ee Years.
. %
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£ 4 ¢
RS N
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NSNS,
stored 100 dozen eggs in a ctovered wooder
tub. Rats gnawed their way into it and at
the end of two weeks it was discovered that
seventy dozen had been cagried off without
leaving a shell.
A -steamer on a twenty-nine-day voyage
from India to Antwerp suffered a loss of
40,000 sacks of grain out of 46 000 on board.
A packing house in Chicago lost 3,360
hams, eaten by rats, in a twelvemonth.
A hotel lost $75 a month in linen destroyed
by rats, A department store suffered to the
?tent of S3O a night by damaged merchan
ise. :
~ Rats injure buildings, riddling them with
Noles and undermining the. foundations.
Many bad fires are caused by rats nibbling
matches,
The eleverness of the rat‘is illustrated by
the way in which it handles eggs. To eat an
egg it will bite through the shell and nibble
off small fragments of the latter; consuming
the cantents without spilling a drop.
To a rat, a hen’s.egg is as big a thing to
handle as a barrel would be for a man, Yet
rats will carry eggs long distances—two of
them to each egg. Onme holds the egg be
tween his paws, passes it to the other, and
then runs ahead to receive it in like manner.
They adopt the same method in carrying eggs
up and down stairs—a truly remarkable per
formance when one comes to think of it.
Rats are great travelers, and ships are
unuall§ infested with them. On board of a
vessel they find plenty of hiding places,-and
i!il the hold there are food supplies in quan
tity. ’
- The city of New Orleans was ratproofed
not long ago, when bubonic plague had
started an epidemic there. The Public
Health Service undertook the job, and it
was so thoroughly done that very few rats
have been seen in that locality since.
It would cost perhaps $20,000,000 to rat
proof Chicago, but the job would pay for it
self in three years by the reduction of losses
due to rat depredations. , -
The sanitary garbage can, with a tight
cover, is an important help in getting rid of
rats. And it goes without saying that the
housewife should protect the contents of her
pantry. s
The second thing of importance is to de
prive the .rats of shelter—to render them
homeless and thus rob them of the oppor
tunity to breed. ; ,
Ratproofing of dwellings and other build
ings accomplishes this purpose to a large ex
tent ; but it is also necessary to abolish such
harboring places as old sheds, piles of brush
or old lumber, wooden sidewalks and gar
bage dumps.
In New Orleans dogs (mostly fox-terriers)
lent highly efficient aid in the work of rat
killing, accompanying the gangs of men and
pouncing upon every rodent driven forth
from its hiding place by poison gas or the
destruction of a tumbledown shanty.
Nobody in these days, or in any time to
come, should think of putting up a building
of any kind without making it ratproof. It
costs- little and pays for the trifling invest
ment many times over in the course of years.
Any one can find out howto do it by writing
er information to the Public Health Service
at Washington.
An Indiana
Expert Says
Every Rat De
stroys $7.30
Property Annu
ally in That
State.
“Every year
the rats
eat up
one-third
of the
First
Liberty
Loan—
ss worth
of food
apiece for
200,000,000
rats
yearly.”