Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 25 February 1892 — Page 3

THE WAITING CHAIR.

Will You Take a Seat Beside ¥V Your Loved Ones? !t:

Heaven and Barth are Close—The Distance '"'v Is but a Flash—Dr. Talmage's Sermon.

Dr. Talmage preached at Oskaloosa, Iowa, last Sunday. Text, Luke xv, 7. He said:

A lost sheep! Nothing can be "more thoroughly lost. Hook through the window of a shepherd's house at night. The candles are lighted. The shepherd has just placed his staff against the mantal. He has taken off his coat, shaken out of it the dust and hung it up. I see by the candle light that there are neighbors' who have come in, The shepherd, fagged out with the long tramp, sits down on a bench, and the wife and children and the neighbors say to him: '"Come, now, tell us how you found the poor thing." "Well," he says, "this morning I went out to the yard to look at the flock. No sooner had

I looked over the fence than I saw something wrong. The fact was jthey did not count right. Ninetyfive, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninetyeight, ninety-nine—only ninety-nine. McDonald, you know we had a hundred. And I wondered which one was gone, and I began again, and I .counted ninety-five, ninety-six, nine-ty-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine. •.Well, 1 whistled up the dogs, and I started on the fields and across the bridges, and I tracked the moors, and I leaped the gullies, but no bleating of the poor thing did I hear.

I said to myself: "The lamb must have fallen into a ditch, or a pack of wolves from the mountains must have torn it to pieces and sucked its life out." But I could not give it up. You see it was a pet lamb. It was one with a black spot on the shoulder that used to come and lick my hand as I crossed the field, and somehow I could not give up. So I went on and on until after awhile I heard the dogs bark and said "What's that?" Then I hastened to the top of the hill and looked down and there I saw the poor lamb. It had fallen into the ditch, and as I came where it was and bent over the ditch and stooped down to lift the poor thing out I wish you could have seen the loving and imploring and tender way it looked at me. I lifted it out and it was all covercd with slush and mud. It was au awful thing to do, but I lifted it out, and it was so lame and so weak that it could not walk alone, so I threw it over my shoulder and started homeward, and the condition of that lamb you may judge from the coat which I have just hung up. But I tramped on and on until it is safe in the yard, poor thing! Thank God! thank God! Then the shepherd's wife spread the table and brought out the best fare the cabin could afford, and they sat up very late that night, and they talked, and they laughed, and they sang, and they ate, and thev drank, and they danced, and toid*ovev- and over and over again the story of the lost sheep that was found.

With such tenderness and rusticity of illustration does Christ represent the soul's going off and the soul's coming back when He says: "Likewise there is joj* in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance." To repent is to feel that you are bad and to be sorry for it, and to turn over anew leaf and to pray far forgiveness and help. Just as soon as a man does that they hear right away of it in heaven. There are no gossips iu glory going around to chatter and laugh when a man falls, but there are many souls fh glory who are glad to run about and tell it when a man is saved. The news goes very quick from gate to gate, and from north wall to south wall, and from east wall to west wall, and in three minutes every citizen tf heaven has heard of it, for "there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

I can very easily understand how there should be joy in heaven over a Pentecost with 3,000 souls saved in one day—no mystery about that I can understand how there should be joy in heaven over the Parish of Sehotts, when 400 souls were saved under one sermon of Mr. Livingston, I can understand how there should be joy in heaven over the great awakening in the time of Har4and Pasre, when in one year 473,000 souls were brought to God in the

United States can understand very easily how there should be joy in heaven over 500,000 souls converted in 1857 in this country but mark -you, mv text announces there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one, just one sinner that re'penteth.

Some

cathedrals have one tower

some cathedrals have two, three, four tow2"S- Did you ever hear them all ring at once? I am told that the belf in the cathedral of St. Paul rings only on rare occasions, for instance, at the birth or death oi a king. Have you seen a cathedral with four towers? and have you heard them all strike into one great chime of gladness? Here is a man who is moral. He is an example to a great many professors of religion in some things he never did a mean thing in his life he pays all his debts, and is a good citizen and a good neighbor, but he says he is not a Christian. Sonis day the Holy Spirit comes into his heart, and he sees that he cannot depend upon his morality for salvation. He says: "O Lord God, I have been depending upon my good works. I find I am a sinner, and I want thy salvation. Lord, for Jesus' sake, have mercy on mel"

And God pardons himf tnd iminS-

diatelv

one of

Eim,

the towers of-heaven

strikes a silver chime, for there are four towers to the heavenly temple. Here is a man who is bad ne knows he is bad, but he is not an outcast: far from being an outcast. He moves in respectable circles. But one day, by the power of the Holy Ghost, he rouses up to see his sinfulness, and he says: "O Lord, have mercy! I am a wanderer, and without thee I

erish. Have mercy!" God hears and immediately two of the towers of heaven strike a silvery chime. But here is an outcast. He was picked up last night out of the gutter and carried to the police station. He has been to the penitentiary^hree times. He is covered and soaked with loathsomeness and abomination. Arousing from his debauch he cries out: "O God, have mercy on me! Thou who diest pardon the penitent thief, hear me cry for mercy."

And the Lord listens and pardons, and no sooner is the wretch pardoned than three of the great towers of heaven strike up a silvery chime. But here is a waif of the street. She passes under the gaslight, and your soul shudders with a great horror. No pity for her. No cotftmisseration for her. As she passes down the street she hears a song in a midnight mission, and as she listens to that song she hears:

All may come whoever will, This Man receives poor sinners still. She puts into the harbor, she kneels by the rough bench near by the door, she says, "O, Lord! Thou who didst have mercy on Mary Magdalen, take my blistered feet off the red hot pavement of hell." God says, "My daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee go in peace." Now all the four towers of heaven strike silvery chimes, and those who pass through the celestial streets say, "What's that? why, the worst sinner must have been saved. If you would this day repent and come to God, the news of your salvation would reach heaven, and then, hark! to the shout of the ransomed.

Your little child went away from you into the good land. While she was here you brought her all kinds of beautiful presents. Sometimes you can?e home at nightfall with your pockets full of gifts for her, and no sooner did you put your night-kev in the door than she began at you, saying, "Father, what nave you brought for me?" She is now before the throne of God. Can you bring her a gift to-day? You may. Coming to Christ and repenting of sin, the tidings will go up to the throne of God, and your child will hear of it. O, what a gift for her soul to-day! She will skip with new gladness on the everlasting hills when she hears of it.

Right beside your loved one in that good land is a vacant chair, not made vacant by death, for death never enters there it is a vacant chair for you. Will you take it?

My subject also impresses me with the idea that heaven and earth are in close sympathy. People talk of heaven as though it were a great way off: They say it is hundreds of thousands of thousands of miles before you reach the first star, and then you go hundreds of thousands of miies before you get to the second star, and then it is millions of miles before you reach heaven. They say heaven is the center of the universe and we are on the rim of the universe. That is not the idea of my text. I think the- heart of heaven beats very close to our world. We measure distance by the time taken to traverse those distances It used to be a long distance to San Francisco. Many weeks and months were passed before you could reach that city. Now it is six weeks before you could voyage from here to Liverpool. Now you can go that distance in six or seven days. And so I measure the distance between earth and heaven, and I find it is on\y a flash. It is one instant hereinother instant there. It is very near to-day. Do you not feel the breath of heaven onyour face? Christ says in one place it is not twenty-four hours distance, when He says to the penitent theif "This day shalt Ihou be with me in Paradise." It is not a day, it is not an hour, it is not a minute, it is not a second. O! how near heaven is to earth. By oceanic cable you send a message. As it is expensive to send a message, you compromise a great deal of meaning in a few words. Sometimes in two words you can put vast meaning. And it seems to me that the angels of God who carry news from earth to heaven, need to take up this hour, in regard to your soul, only two words in order to kindle with gladness all the redeemed before the throne, only two words: "Father saved," "Mother saved." "Son saved," "Daughter saved." And "there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

The Supreme Court of the United States does not adjourn for anything trifling. It must be the death of a Cabinet Minister, or the death of a President, or some matter of very great moment. When I find all heaven adjourning its other jovs for this one joy. I make up my mind it is of very great importance if heaven can afford to adjourn all other festivities to celebrate this one triumph. Do you wonder that so many of these Christian people have toiled night and day in this work of soul-saving if it is of such vast importance? Do you wonder that Nettleton and Finley, and JBishop Asbury, and John Wesley, and George Whitefield, and Paul, and angels, and Christ, and God stripped themselves for the work? Around that one soul circles the mist, the fire, the darkness, the joy, the anthem, jbhe wailing, the hallelujah, and the woe of God's universe. If the soul is saved, then lip comes to trumpet and fingers to harp

andhammer to bell, and "there Is joy among the angels of God over that one soul forgiven." For such a soul I plead.

Having found in mv own experience that this religion is a comfort and a joy, I stand here to commend it to you. In the days of my infancy I was carried by Christian parents to the house of God, and consecrated in baptism to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost but that did not save me.

In after time I was taught to kneel at the Christian family alter with father and mother and brother and sisters, the most of them now in glory: but that did not save me. In after time I read Doddridge's "Rise and Progress." and Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," and all the religious books around my father's household but that did not save me. But one day the voice of Christ came into my heart, saying "Repent, repent believe, believe," and I accepted the offer of mercy, and though no doubt there was more joy in heaven over the conversion of other souls because of their farreachinginfiuence, I verily believe when I gave my heart to God there were some spirits in heaven the gladder for the deed. There is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Turn this day to the Lord who bought you. Let this whole audience surrender themselves to Jesus Christ. If for ten, twenty, fifty years you have not prayed, begin now to pray: "Oh!" you say, "I can't pray," Can you not say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner?" "No," you say, "I can't say that." Then you cannot look to the throne of mercy? "No," you say, "I can't lookup." Can you not then give some signal?

ECHOES FROM SEW YORK SOCIETY

New York Mall and Express. Society is quicker than ever now to condone and forgive the sins of its own people.

No people take more interest in other people's affairs than those dubbed "fashionable.

It is a great feat in these days of publicity to"quietly slip off to Europe without mention.'

Big dinner parties,so common now, in a double sense are best appreciated by the caterers.

They are foolish families who run into debt in order to keep up fashionable appearance.

Some sinful person has purloined a lot of bric-a-brac from a private house during a reception.

A seasonable question is: "Don't you want to join our Lenten reading class? Only $10,dear."

Cigarette smoking in private houses on occasions of evening parties is again complained of.

The necessity for more useful education is very apparent among the belles and beaux of the day.

Not many more large entertainments are on the social bulletin board for the balance of the season.

Many a modiste is unjustly blamed for not "sending home in time" a gown that was never ordered.

Marriages "late in life" are advocated by parents who have passee daughters in the fashionable field.

People with moderate ambition try other cities and have met with success without finding the cost extravagant.

The curiosity of some women cannot be curbed and restrained except when they are guests at the houses of their social superiors.

Invitations to poker parties at private houses, women being among the players for money, are no longer a novelty among us.

There is a magnificent field for the bichloride of gold alleged cure right in the heart and center of the most fashionable society.

Mrs. Grundy accused some society women of selling their photographs with the understanding that they are to be published in the newspaper.

There ought to be a great many "return entertainments" to Americans in London next season otherwise there will be disappointment among some New Yorkers.

Two recently married young gentlemen of social note who have resigned from their several clubs, deny that they have been at all influenced in the matter by their wives. It is not known who presumed to call upon them for an explanation.

A Name to Be Proud Of.

Washington Star. Mr. Micky Colan write3. "Oi wish to pretest agin a man gittin the swull heab because he kin play on the pianny. Oi have reason to sushpect that Paderewski should be spelt in twoworruds instid av wan. If it's Paddy Roosky let 'im come forred an'be proud av it."

A New Variety or Celery.

A new candidate for the market gardener this winter is the new Giant Pascal Celery, an illustration of which we present herewith. It is an entirely new variety, being offered for the first time this winter by the leading seedsmen of the country through their respective catalogues. The originator says of it that it is a wonderful keeper, heiDr

especially desirable fer shipping

during January and February, keeping crisp under shipment for a long time. The height is about two feet, the stalks very large, thick, solid and not stringy. The heart is of a rich, golden yellow color, and the plant blanches very easily, in five or six days after earthing up. jit has a fine, nutty £avor, entirely free from any taste of oitternesa. These are most desirable qualites, and should make this new addition to our list of vegetable? popular with Vtfth market and home gariners.

CtfHK-hii \JUMMENT*

Interesting Topics Brought to th Attention of Intelligent Readers.

Springer's Sophisms—Fake Farmers Only to Testify as to the Tariff—The Duty on Salt.

TARIFF PICTURES.

"Abolish the duty on raw materials and you will kill trusts and reduce prices," says the free trader. Well, the 20 per cent, ad valorem duty on jute was abolished by the McKinley tariff when this raw material was selling for 3 cents

a pound. Since that happened we have been free to buy in the markets of the world, but jute now sells for 51-2 cents

B—W——3M

a pound. A trust got hold of the world's jute market and it now sells at trust prices.

TESTIMONY OF REAL FARMERS NOT WANTED. Washington Special.

Although it is conceeded on every haud that the investigation wh ch the House committee on agriculture is to make into the operation of the McKinley tariff law as it affects the farmer will be a farce from beginning to end, it is anticipated by every one with much interest. In the first place the measure has been in effect scarcely a year. Some of its provisions have not yet been sufficiently tested to enable any one to pass judgment upon them. In the second place, it is not at all probable that farmers will be asked to testify before the committee—that is, real farmers, who till the soil. There will be farmers of the Jerry Simpson, Peffer and other similar stripes, and therefore, their testimony will be based upon hypothetical ideas, not practice. And again, the investigation will be conducted purely upon partisan lines. Had the idea been to really ascertain what the bill is doing for the farmer—what the possibilities of the law are for the rural classes a commission would have been prooosed, to be composed of nonpartisans, or the resolution would not have given the partisan committee of the House, had fairness been desired, absolute control of the character of witnesses summoned and the questions pronounced. '"It will doubtless demonstrate one thing.sure enough," said Representative Funston, of Kansas, a member the committee, "and that is that the Democrats are never practical in their tariff ideas They invariably deal in theories and never attempt Anything with practical affairs. You see them now trying to pass judgment upon a law before it has been tried. You will see them bring before the committee a class of men, iu all probability, who know absolutely nothing about farmers and farming— a class of demagogical politicans, who will make statements based wholly upon hollow theories. I hope the committee will not fail to summon Secretary Blaine and a few others as to what has been and is being done in the way of reciprocity and the extension of our markets abroad, and also some of the Treasury Department experts who will show the enlargement of our export trade. I want to compare the figures these men will produce with those given by the Democrats in the House when they predicted disaster to our foreign markets if the McKinley bill became a law.

Secretary Rusk will be given a chance before the committee. He will doubtless open the eyes of some Df the stupid Democrats who affect to believe "that the increase of tariff upon some of our productions prejudiced our products iu foreign markets. The Secretary will give some interesting figures fresh from our ports of entry as to the exports of meats, lard and cereals. And they will be compared with figures taken just before the adoption of the McKinley bill, when every effort of Eurtpe was being bent to defeat the bill.

Attention is being called to the fact that this investigation is being brought forth before the farmers of the country have had an opportunity to produec and market a crop wholly unaffected by the law itself. Farm produce took a sharp advance as soon as the bill went to President Harrison for signature and has been up ever since. The seed procured for the last crop, raised since the bill became a law, was purchased at the advanced prices, so that it is not possible to approximate fairly the net results of" last year's crop under the operation of the law. Labor has advanced, too, and everything that affects the farmer for his own benefit has taken a rise, while it will be shown in the investigation that manufactures are cheaper today than they were eighteen months ago. The Democrats have for every reason chosen an inoportune moment for their partisan attack upon the tariff law.

CLEARING UP.

'.J. Y. Sun (Democratic). There has aiwavs been a certain amount of mystery hanging over the momentous phrase "a tariff for revenue only." Such an economic system has ne** e* existed in this country, but under ordinary circumstances there has never been a time, from the beginning of our tariff of McKinley, when one for revenue only could not have been had for the desire to have it.

Although a tariff for revenue only, made without the toleration of juggle or humbug, is free trad# pure and absolute, the stress of defense against the fatality of such an understanding throughout the country has led

the revenue-only agitators to permit a very different explanation of their design. There has been a popular cultivation, never forbidden on their part, of the idea that a tariff for revenue only, means a tariff sufficient to meet the financial needs of the Government that it is simply a prudent system of business and bookkeeping. Other characteristics or restrictions have ever been left to the supposition that they were unnecessary. The main moving purpose of the second Cleveland canvass, with its display of moral obligation to abolish the surplus, and protests against the imputation of a more far-reaching theory, was said to be merely to cut the tariff down so as to make* it fit the Government expenditure. Cut off the amount of the annual surplus, reduce the proceeds of the tariff to the sum of the Federal expenses, and it would be brought to a "revenue basis," or to the state of a tariff for revenue only. So in good time, for the suppression of further humbug and delusion upon this engaging topic, along comes that repentant but none the less high and orthodox professor of revenue only economy the St. Louis Republic, to proclaim the doctrine under circumstances that will not admit of mistake in its interpretation.

The foremost issue for the Democracy, saj^s the Republic, must be "the reduction of the tariff to a revenue basis."

With that all room for the old error is crowded out. When the demand is again made for a revenue tariff, at a time when there is no surplus, when the national receipts barely meet the expenditures, as is the case at present, tha "tariff reform" movement slips away from all connection with the practical balance of income and. outgo and finds itself transferred to the cold domain of unconditioned theory, the theory bent on the unsparing abolition of protection, the theory of free trade.

THE DUTY ON SALT.

Indianapolis Journal. It is claimed by the manufacturers of Michigan salt that the repeal of the duty would destroy the salt industry in this country without benefiting consumers in. the least. Of the salt used in the United States, two-sixths are imported, the area supplied with foreign salt being south of a line drawn east and west through Little Rock and Nashville, and extending from Galveston to Bangor. Most of the transportation is what determines the division of the home market between the foreign and home product. The east-and-west line dividing the two areas pass through the points where foreign and domestic salt meets on equal competative terms. North of this line the domestic product has the advantage, and south of it the foreign product. As to the relative price to the foreign and domestic salt and the effect of the duty, the following statement is made by a recognized authority: "The average price of English salt in Liverpool and Michigan salt in Michigan, for the last few years, for the same grades, has been about $2.75 a ton the average freight from Liverpool to the entire sea cost is about $1.40 a ton, making $4.15, to which add the duty of $1.60 a ton, and you have $5.75 as the cost of a ton of salt laid down at any point on our coast. Starting with Michigan salt at the same price, $2.75 a ton, add the average freight to these various points on the sea coast of $5.40 a ton. making $8.15 as the cost of a ton of domestic salt laid down at these same points, which is $2.40 a ton more than the cost of imported salt.

Michigan salt now sells at 55 cents a barrel, including a twenty-cent package, and the manufacturers say there is no money in its production at this price, except where it can be evaporated by the steam made by refuse in saw mills, the fuel costing practically nothing. Under these conditions it is evident that the effect of placing salt on the free list would simply be to diminish the area of the market for domestic salt and increase that for foreign sait without any reduction of prices, since the price of foreign salt at competitive points is already equal to that of the domestic article. In short, the effect of placing salt on the free list would be to close American sait factories and surrender the entire home market to the foreign product, with an almost certain probability of an increase of prices in a short time.

The result of the repeal of the duty on sugar furnishes no argument for a repeal of the duty on salt, since the latter is a protective duty, while the former was not. We import nine-tenths of the sugar we use, while of the salt we use we only import one-third, the rest being manufactured in this country. Unless we wish to be entirely at the mercy of foreign manufacturers, both as to supply and price, the domestic manufacture of salt should be protected.

SPRINGER'S SOPHISMS. Chicago Inter Ocean. Mr. Springer's idea of "How to Attack the Tariff" may be condensed into this: "grumble about it and let it alone." His labored article in the North American Review amounts to neither more nor less than this.

It is true that Mr. Springer proposes to repeal the duties levied on raw wool, But this is not attacking the tariff. Seven hundred and sixtyone articles are mentioned specifically in the tariff bill of 1890. The amount of duty on each, or its freedom from duty, is defined. To choose one article out of this long list and to argue that by error ol rudiment it has been made dutiable ('when it should have been made free 'is not to "attack the tariff." It

rather is to enter confession of thq meritorious principle which underlies it, and to plead specially that in one instance this meritorious principle has been misapplied.

We do not believe that the princi-' pie of protection has been misapplied to wool. We believe that its application to wool is as wise.as just, as necessary, as its application to wheat, or silk, or meats, or iron. But if it were true, as Mr. Springer says, that wool an exception to the rule of protection, the rule itself remains inviolate. No general rule can be attacked from the side of exceptions to it. Mr. Springer knows this, and he soon will know that the people are too intelligent to be deceived by the trick that he has devised.

The principle of protection must stand or fall as a whole. It is quite possible that in dealing with 761 articles some misapplication of the principle majr have been made. Something ma}' have been made free that should have been protected something may have been protected that should have been made free. The discovery of any such error will be welcomed by protectionists, for their purpose is to have the principle applied fully and truly. Taken as a whole, the tariff of 1800—the McKinley bill—is the best that ever was enacted.! That some details of it may be amended as experience sheds ligM* upon them is more than pro'*' The tariff act of 1883 undei amendment in every year of its istence. The same is true of the a of 1860 and of every one that preceded it.

The Democratic party gained a majority in the House of Representatives on two propasitions and two promises. The first proposition was that-the tariff act of 1890 was "infamous." The first promise was that they would repeal it. The second proposition was that the existing coinage laws are infamous. The second promise was that they would repeal them. Now that it has a majority in the House, has elected the Speaker and has full control of the order and length of debate, the Democratic party must demonstrate the truth of both of its propositions or stand convicted of obtaining a verdict at the elections by misrepresentation of facts, and when it has demonstrated the truth of its propositions it must perform both of its promises or be adjudged guilty of obtaining power by false pretenses.

Already the majorty in Congress, by Mr. Springer, in counsel, has begged leave to withdraw its promise of repeal of the McKinley bill and to promise of amendment of it. This can not be granted. For if the bill is "wholly bad, infamous," as Springer and others asserted in their inflamitor}^ appeals to the people, it can not be amended it must be repealed. Arfd the Democrats in the House must redeem their pledge of voting for its repeal, and raising a distinct issue upon the refusal of the Republican Senate or President to sustain them. On the other hand if the Democrats in Congress confine themselves to resolutions or propositions for the amendment of the tariff law, they confess that its general structure is good, which is a denial of their campaign proposition., And if its general structure be good" certainly amendments of it,

it

amendments be needed, will be made more wisely, and more cheerfully to, by those who constructed it thr.n. those who obstructed it.

Mr. Springer has, as the lawyers put it, "confessed and avoided" the guilt, cowardice and incapacity of hi.n party as a "reformer" of tariff and coinage conditions, The Democratic party is "to-day, yesterday and forever the same," a body of thinkers and trimmers in National policy, it originates nothing, completes nothing. strengthens nothing it meddles., with everything, disarranges everything, confuses everything, disturbs commerce, checks manufacturers, aud leave deficits behind it.

A dry, loamy soil not excessively rich is best for growing young trees for sale. There must be potash in the soil, but until fruit trees get into bearing-, they need less of other pi ant-food than do most farm crops. In moderately heavy soils, potash is seldom lacking, and on these good drainage aud cultivation are more important than manure. The bulk of growth ol leaves and wood is carbon, and ia drawn from the air through the leaves. If nitrogenous manures are largely used they make a soft, sappy growth, that is easily killed by severe cold. And besides this young trees thus grown are apt to be too much checked when transplanted into soil less slimulated by manures.

Spring-Sown Timothy Seed. The surest catch of timothy is secured by fall seeding, but it is worth while to sow some of this grass seed with clover in the spring. Timothy seed sown in spring is generally overshadowed by the clover, and does nol make much show the first year. Bui the plants, though small, are not killed, and as the clover dies out they come in and fill its place. Where alsike clover is sown there should be full timothy seediug, as the alsike dies after its first crop is cut. The decay of alsike clover roots in the soil give an extraordinary stimulus to tha timothy, which for a year or two thereafter will produce very heavy crops, and sometimes, when cut eariyc producing a large second "rowth the same season.

To Get ItUl ol i. i. ,.

Sprinkle copperas freely on cellar floors and wash the walls with carbolic acid. This will cause rats to leave the premises, and is better around the house than poisoning them, which cannot be done without danger of killing something else, nor without offence from their dead bodies after the rats crawl into their holej and die.