SOMETHING ABOUT RATS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 51, 22 February 1876, Page 2

SOMETHING ABOUT RATS.

(From Mitchell's Maritime Register.') Rats.have caused the foundering ot many ships, by gnawing holes in the planking, or 60 eating away tho inner sides of the wood as to leave very little ior the straining of the hull to do in completing the aperture. In their eagerness to quench their thirst at sea, they have been known to nibble tho timber at the water-way 8 until the wood was so thin as to admit the rain water through it. On opening ships to repair in dock, it is often discovered that rata have found out the soft part of tbe knees and lining, and made a passage tor themselves from one part to another. They will attack the buogs of cask-, and create leakage; and these disagreeable shipmates, are ot all the vermin class, the greatest enemies to the bull >of ves-e'.s. Ants, cockroaches, "beetles, and other insects, more or less destroy wood, but vats are the plague of ships and 6eamen. In harbor, at many ports, rats will run up the chatu cahles at nisxht, rummage a vessel, and leave at e.irly morn. They find their way on nerd vessels fioii wharves or docks by aw»rms, and it is almost impossible to get rid of them when the ship is ac sea. If poisun is laid for them along with their favorite meal of anieed, it is possible they may be destroyed, but tha remedy is worse than the disease, for their putrid bodies contaminate the cabins. They appear to be particularly fond of tallow, and if they reach a box containing candles, they are pretty certain to nibble at the weakest point until they effect an entrance. It bus been said of a rat that, in the case of hunger, lih will not hesitate to seize a lighted candle and bear it off to his hole. Incredible stories have been told of his rapacity and caring in this respect, and that it is n common occurrence for ships to be burned in thiß way. The crew of the barque Commodore, of Hartlepool, have bowever preferred this charge of incendiarism against a rat or rats. It appears that the vessel was loading a cargo of wool at Witsatawarf, near Sundswall, and a conflagration broke out in the hold. At a naval court held at Sundswall on August 5 and 6 last, the witnesses examined were almost unanimously of opinion that a candle which had been suddenly missed hud been taken away alight by a rat and placed below the battens, thus causing the fire. Ihe Court found that the fire originated through using a lighted candle candle, and animadverted in strong terui3 upon this pernicious and dang-rous pracrice of working in the loading of timber. .... Sailors declare that sealing a lighted candle is not an uncommon feat for a rat to perform, and if all the deeds in this line laid to the charge ot these animals be true, they are quite capable of committing arson as wt 11 a» ielony. We fear tbat many a ship that, has kft thi* port thoroughly Bound in hull, has heen made unseaworthy by the ravages of rats. Leakage sometiuitg occurs for which no reason can be nesignei. Many, perhaps, are advanced, whereas the injury may have been done by a party of industrious rats It is said that a rat wilt desert a sinking vessel, and that he has BufHcieat instinct to know when she is likely to founder. This may arise from the /act of bis quarters having been uncomfortably wetted by leakage, and tbat he believes he may reach land or another ship. old tars, however, are superstitious; and if, when the vessel is about sailing from a port, tbey obsecve all the ruts leave the ship for the shore, they will look upon the exodus as an evil omen. You may as well endeavor to convince them that it is not unlucky to sell upon a Friday as that rats have not a prescience with regard to doomed ships. Human weakoe? ses of this character are not to be reasoned with, and we shall, therefore, not attempt to disprove established beliefs. The rat, however, is a nuisance; and if it can /t_*ize a lighted candle and drag tallow and _i__ v 3 to hia quarters, or drop nre amongst -deals __d battens, the Naval Court assembled ,at .Suadswal! were perfectly right in deaouueing itfae practice of exhibiting naked jigbts between the decks of a ship. .... The rat may pfiv be placed upon the list of vinceadlarieß. ,