RATS IN POSSESSION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 31, 1 November 1920, Page 5

RATS IN POSSESSION

TOWN TO BE DBSTEOTED,

A tow York correspondent relates that a traveller from Peru, William Moss l>y name, has Just arrived and been widely reported in the newspapers as declaring that the Peruvian Government lias boon obliged to order the town of Piata (o be destroyed because of the rats. Yellow lover is raging in some districts of Peru, •i'l rXZ, ,e l><>r|ed. .The town of Pdinra witn 5000 population, had been particularly hard hit, scarcely a faniilv escaping the ravages of this disease. 'The advent of swarms of rats caused fear that bubonic-plague would also develop, and the Government ordered the' town to bn evacuated the people going to the outskirts am living in tents. All the buildings will bo burned, the rats cxtormiitat/n,nnd uo,v solitary homes constructed. The board bill of New York's rats amounts to 35.CW.000 dollars a -year, according) to Dr. Victor C. Hcisler, of the Kockefelle.r Foundation. Dr. Hcisler, in an address, said one rat would eat at least ten dollars' worth of food in n vear, and he estimated the rodent population ot the American metropolis at ;),500,000; lie advocated amendment of the building laws so as to mako all structures mt proof.