Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1912 — Fair Bathers and Big Rats Use Beach [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Fair Bathers and Big Rats Use Beach

EVANSTON, ILL.—Fair bathers and thousands of rats are contesting for the possession of the bathing beach between .Dempster street and Greenwood boulevard. Thus far the honors are about even in the Warfare which has been jfoing on for nearly a week. The rats have been unable to prevent the bathers from invading the beach, and the bathers have been unable to frighten away the rats. Where all the rats came from Is not known, but the fact remains that thousands of the rodents have burrowed into the sides of the hank along the beach, dug holes In the sand and sought refuge under the piers.

Many bathers, while walking along the beach, have suddenly stepped into holes which the rats have dug, and have been filled With dismay when, with angry squeal, large gray and brown rats have turned and snapped at them. John J. Morgan, manager of a company which is. engaged in the work of exterminating vermin, stated that it was not an unusual thing for rats to take up their abode along the lake shores in summer. The hundreds of dead fish which are cast up by the waves, he said, attract the rats in large numbers. “The rats burrow in the sand, at the foot of the banks, ill large numbers,” said Mr. Morgan. "Then, too, the hot weather may have something to do with the condition. The rats will swim orut In the water In hot weather and will also make their homes in the wet Bands along the edge of the water.” The rats In many cases are extremely large and savage, and threaten to attack persoona who disturb them.