SOME BEGINNINGS WITH THE RAT PROBLEM.
THE widespread interest in the question of the connec- tion of rats and plague which has been taken by the newspapers and their readers during the past two or three months has led to at least one satisfactory result. A meeting of persons desirous of considering the possibility of the destruction of rats and other vermin was held on Monday, at the Guildhall, under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, and at the meeting a resolution was moved by Sir James Crichton- Browne, and duly carried, to the effect that it was desirable that rats should be destroyed throughout the country, and that meetings should be held in the various counties to determine the best methods of going about the business of destruction. There can be no doubt that the holding of such meetings would do a great deal of good. At present, as Sir James and other speakers and writers have urged, there is no reason for real panic. But there is abundant cause for anxiety. We cannot feel at our ease while we know for a fact that the plague bacillus is among us again, spread over a very large area of country, for the first time, so far as our know- ledge goes, for two hundred and fifty years. We know more than we knew in the seventeenth century, when the plague was regarded by the majority of the victims as a disease sent by Heaven against which men were powerless. We know that it is a disease carried by rata and their fleas, and that rat-fleas, acting as the host of the plague bacillus, can and do bite man. But that knowledge still needs to be spread far and wide into every village and cottage in the United Kingdom, and for that mason the suggestion of public meet- ings to disseminate and discuss the known facts is to be welcomed. We do not want country farmers and villagers to obtain their first convincing evidence-of the virulence of the plague bacillus from cases of plague at their doors. Yet that is a possibility which, unless some kind of education of the lowlier and less well educated classes of the community is taken in hand, cannot be regarded as far off or visionary. - Speakers and writers on the problem of rat destruction, beginning with the correspondent of the Times, who first wrote on the subject of the rat plague in East Anglia, and Professor Cambon, who has contributed highly interesting articles on the same subject, have one after another repeated the assertion that the complete extermination of rata in England is im- possible. Extermination has been attempted, they tell us, in India and Japan,-and, though the result has been that enor- mous numbers of rats have been destroyed, the prospect of extermination is as far off as possible. The rats which are left over, finding more room and more food than before, follow the rule of their nature and produce a correspondingly numerous progeny to fill the room and eat the food. But to argue, because of this difficulty of extermination, that rats cannot be kept under so as to become an almost negligible enemy is surely to take a needlessly pessimistic view. It is a matter of time and money, doubtless, but within limits it can be done. If we can only keep the rat population in certain districts within limits, we shall have done something. To begin with, the rat problem as regards towns or closely inhabited districts is, in the first instance, a building problem. Rats come to buildings in search of food and shelter, and they can certainly be prevented from obtaining both. We do not imagine, for instance, that there are rats in the passages of the War Office, or that there will be rats in the cellars of the Automobile Club in Pall Mall. When a man builds a house in the country, again,he does not expect that rats will run under the floor of his dining room; he would be rather annoyed with his architect if they did. In the same way, by adopting different means, rats can be excluded from chosen areas of ground. In the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, for instance, they are kept out of the enclosure known as Three Island Pond by a rat-proof fence. If you can surround an acre with a rat-proof fence, you could, by spending enough money, surround a hundred acres in the same way. There would be difficulties as to roads and gates, no doubt, but the thing is not impossible. In any case, if rats can be excluded from buildings, the danger of rat-fleas infecting man obviously becomes extremely small. The ideal beginning,then, is to render all buildings rat-proof,whether they are human dwelling houses, farm buildings, barns, granaries, sheds, or pig-sties; next, to see that in the neighbourhood of such buildings there is no food left lying about which could possibly attract rats; next, to destroy all the rats which can be got at in the neighbourhood. If it is retorted that the making of buildings rat-proof, especially farm buildings, is too costly, the answer can only be, "Is it too costly ? What do the rats cost you now, and what would the plague cost you to-morrow-F" To make buildings rat-Proof, however, although it is an important step, is no more than a step in the taking of pre- cautions. We cannot diminish the numbers of rats in the neighbourhood of our houses—which is the essence of the problem—if we continually import fresh supplies of rats from our quays and docks. If we allow ships to arrive day after day in London, Liverpool, and Southampton, with rats from the Continent, from India, even from China, where the plague is now raging; if we are continually introducing into our ports fresh blood from abroad, we are doing the very thing which all breeders of animals try to-do when they wish to set up an exceptionally vigorous and healthy strain. They cross the home strain with strains from a distance, and so prevent deterioration from in-breeding. If, then, we wish to tackle the question of fresh rat-supplies at its source, we must go to our ports and do our best to ensure that no rats, least of all plague-infected rats, can cross from the hawsem and cables and in other ways from incoming ships to the shore. That, again, will be an expensive business; but the exclusion of rats from a port is not un- thinkable. It is merely very difficult.
After the beginning of exclusion comes the question of de- struction. Clearly the essence of the matter is to have as many destroying agencies at work as possible. Trapping, killing with dogs, bolting, clubbing, shooting, poisoning, if care is taken with the poison used, all have their separate virtues and recommendations. The use of some of the various viruses advertised has proved effective, but they are not all innocuous to man, and the claim that is put forward for some of them that they induce an infectious disease among rata has never been proved. As regards introducing a new natural enemy of rats into the country, Professor Cambon in the Times, speculating on the legendary connection of the snake with zEsculapias, the god of healing, suggests that snakes may well have been introduced into Rome to rid the plague- infected city of its rats. Snakes from time immemorial have been kept in Eastern houses as potent domestic allies against rats, much as we keep cats to devour our mice. Snakes, perhaps, would hardly suit the constitution of the people any better than the weather of these islands. But we have with us already more than one tried and powerful animal ally against the rat whom we discourage by every means possible. We may trap and poison rats, but we still go on reducing the numbers of the rat's chief enemies—enemies, too, which, unlike dogs and cats, do not come into contact with man, and so would not carry plague infection—the stoat and the weaseL Why do we kill stoats and weasels? They are the cleverest- and most relentless. enemies that the rat has ever had. The answer is, of course, that they are also enemies of game. But that_is also true of foxes, which nevertheless are protected- from destruction not by the law but by sentiment. Foxes account for very large numbers of partridges and pheasants every year, and yet keepers take a pride in being able to show a good head of pheasants, and at the same time ensure a find for the hunt when it comes their way. The question is whether in the near future it may not be as necessary for purposes of public policy to keep up a good stock of stoats and weasels on a country estate as it is now decided to be necessary for private sport to keep up a good supply of foxes. The argument is inexorable : if rats bring the plague and stoats kill rats, you must not kill stoats. The most enthusiastic of shooting men, rightly championing his legitimate sport, would admit the force of that. We suggest, then, that one of the first activities of the proposed Royal Commission should be to enquire into the numbers of rats and the damage done by them in places where stoats and weasels are killed down ; and that then the Commission should compare these figures with the numbers of rats in places where stoats and weasels are allowed to go free. It might be difficult to make the corn parison, for there are not many places where these handsome little beasts are permitted to run and kill as they please. Let us, then, suggest an experiment—that the owner of some extensive East Anglian shooting (the plague bacillus being known to be firmly established in Nor- folk and Suffolk, and only waiting the warmer weather to spread again) should give orders to his horrified keeper to stay his hand from the rat's enemies, and to let stoats and weasels increase and multiply. Let him then watch the result ; he will deserve the gratitude of his country, even if he may have to contemplate with complacency a depleted game-larder. He may be patriotic and far-seeing enough o realise that the danger is lest the plague bacillus should begin fresh activities again, before we for our part have begun any activity at all.
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