Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1913 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

New York Women in Crusade to Rid City of Rats

NEW YORK.—A war on rats on a scale hitherto never attempted hi now being planned here in an effort to make this the country’s first ratless city by exterminating the rodents which, aside from their inroads on the health of the city, cause through their depredations property losses which are estimated at more than $5,000,000 yearly. While this city has long realized the need of a Pied Piper, the rats until now have»been little molested, so that experts now declare that the local rat population is the largest in the country. It is of course impossible to estimate the number of rodents accurately, but it is held that the city harbors at least 10,000,000 of them. v Curiously enough the war on rats is not to be undertaken by the city authorities, but by an organization of women who propose to enlist In their

fight of extermination the assistance of all those on whom the rat is now Inflicting financial loss. They are not yet ready to open their campaigh, but when they are they will undoubtedly be aided by merchants, hotel men, keepers of restaurants, owners of buildings and store keepera' who suffer losses of millions of dollars annually from the depredations of the rodents. As an example of the condition of affairs now existing one downtown I restaurateur states that the rats cost him several thousand dollars a year in spoiled foodstuffs and the wages of exterminators. So rapidly has the damage which they inflict been ihcreasing that it is now recognized that the only efficient protection is to be found in an organized warfare. Dealers in one of the city’s largest markets report that the place is so overrun at night with rats that it is necessary to turn loose the largest possible number of their natural "enemies. In the war which is now being planned by the women it is proposed to make extensive use of ferrets, since they have come to be regarded as the most effective agency in freeing the city from the great financial loss, which the rats now exact every year.