FIVE HUNDRED SILK BOBBINS CARRIED OF BY RATS.

Evening Star, Issue 4186, 27 July 1876, Page 4

FIVE HUNDRED SILK BOBBINS CARRIED OF BY RATS.

The ‘Journal de Paris’ contains the following curious news from Bale ;—At the large silk-spinning mill of Messrs Bulger and Kingwald, at Niederschoenthal, near Bale, every night for some length of time a certain nuinbei of silk bob bins havedisappeared. Theentrances were closely guarded in consequence, the workpeople searched, the police put on the watch night and day, but the pilferings continued ; each night more bobbins were carried off, in one night alone as many as 152. At last, when the number of bobbins missing reached to about 500, the abstractions ceased, and the mysterious manner of their disappearance, was almost forgotten. Last week, however, a workman engaged in repairing the ceiling discovered hidden between the cross planks a great number of rats’ nests, very carefully arranged and comfortably stuffed with the silk from tho stolen bobbins. The novel ncst-buiklers descended and remounted by means of a transmission pulley, and as bobbins are awkward to carry, and the journey difficult to perform, none of the rats could take more than one at a time, and must have been busily employed the night they carried off 152. . Tho news of the discovery of the mysterious thieves soon spread about the mill, and caused great delight and satisfaction to the workpeople, some of whom had naturally been suspected of the silk pilferings.