PURSUIT OF RATS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 219, 10 June 1919, Page 4

PURSUIT OF RATS

"THREEPENCE A TIME" NO INDUCEMENT. Now, as at all times, good citizens should endeavour to keep tueir premises as free of rats as possible. As likely carriers of disease, they are vermin to be dreaded, and their ruthless destruction is urged by the Mayor and council. A few weeks ago tho council, in order to encouragc rat-killing, offered 3d. a head for all dead rats delivered at the destructor (for incineration). The return was so poor that the money-down campaign lias not "boomed," and the rat thrives as healthily in the land as ever 'he did. There is one sppt in ■Wellington, however, where the .rat is having a very wretched time. Tho spot is Jain Tin Gully, in John Street. There in thq heaped debris rats have flourished to 6uch an extent that residents recently complaiuqd bitterly to tho council about their depredations, and pleaded to be relieved of tho loathsome nuisance. The council summoned a rat-catcher, who, with traps and dogs and poison, is working silently, swiftly, and successfully throughout the cool night. One fact which came to light in connection with the council's reward for dead rate was that schoolboys with good ratting were wont to attend school taking n dead rat in their' school-bags, as often as not reposing alongside their luncheons.