Mouse Power.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 16 October 1914, Page 2

Mouse Power.

To an ingenious Scotsman goes the credit of being the first person to harness a mouse and make him a money-earning factor. He was David Hutton, a native of Dunfermline. Though he proved that an ordinary mouse would average a run of 10J miles a day, he had one mouse which ran the remarkable distance of 18 miles in that time. A half-penny's worth of oatmeal was sufficient for its food for 35 days, during which time it ran 3G2 miles. He kept two mice constantly engaged in the making of sewing thread for more than a year. This thread mill was so constructed that the mouse was able to twist twine and reel from 100 to 200 threads a day, Sundays not excepted. To perform this task it hud to run 10£ miles a day, which it did with perfect ease every other day. On the half-penny's worth of oatmeal which lasted for five weeks, one of these little mice made 3,350 threads, 25 inches long, and as a penny was paid to women for every hank made in the ordinary way, the mouse at that rate earned nincpence every six weeks. Allowing for boa.rd and

for machinery there was a clear yearly profit from each mouse of fis. It was Mr. Muttons intention to apply for the loan of the Jhmfermline Cathedral, which was empty, where he planned to set up 10,000 mouse mills and still leave room for the keepers and several hundreds of "spectators, but this wonderful project was never carried out because of the inventor's sudden death.