PLAGUE OF RATS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1559, 16 May 1887, Page 3

PLAGUE OF RATS.

An American contemporary ' describes a Norwegian rat whioh is now playing such havoc m New York, as so big and bo savage that an ordinary oit ia no match for him. Most of the up town hotels maintain m their cellars a permanent staff of from a dozen to a hundred cats, but even the maximum of four footed ratcatchera is insufficient to prevent the Norwegian monsters from penetrating to the rooms, and gnawing to pieces everything that they can put their incisors on. Bat worse remains to be told. L sixstorey building m the upper part of New York was a fow months ago condemned as unaafo, because one side of the structure had dangerously settled. When the workmen who pulled down the hors> reached the basement they found it literally paved with rats, and an entire day was ocoupled m drowning the noisesome pests by means of a hoee and hydraut. It was then ascertained that the rats had so pertinaciously burrowed under the supports, m order to get at a provision warehouse on the other side of tho wall, thot the lowermost courses (f bricks had disintegrated, so that the wall above had begun to sink. The proprietor of a provision warehouse m South street. New York, testified that fn the courae of 48 hours the rats had eaten into a dczen boxes of cheese. and lard, and bored innumerable holes m two or three barrels full of cider, so that the cellar was Inundated with tho fermented juice of the apple. The next day shocking to relate, moro thin 100 rats, dead drank fcom tippling aider, were found on the floor of the collar.