Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1875 — An Army of Rats. [ARTICLE]

An Army of Rats.

Such scenes as that described from the sewers of Paris by Victor Hugo in “ Les Miserables” are likely to be repeated in the depths of Nevada mines, if recent accounts are correct Away down, hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth, among the deserted drifts and galleries of the mines, are thousands of rats, and their number is constantly increasing. The famous Comstock mine is overrun with the animals, and in the Belcher mine they are even bolder and more numerous. The rats live on what the miners leave from their lunches, and find, thus far, abundant sustenance. Hundreds of men eat daily in the mines and the fragments of bread and meat left are sufficient to feed a small army of rodents. Very fortunate rats are those in the mines, too. They are never molested, for they are looked upon as scavengers by the miners. In the heated depths of the mines the fragments of food left would if not consumed soon become offensive, but the rate leave nothing. Even the bones left about are polished by their teeth. No dogs or cats are yet al. lowed to molest them and the rate caper up and down the timbers of the shafts at pleasure, made bold by long immunity. It is a feature of the mines not heretofore described, and one which may yet result in something unpleasant to tell of. Rate multiply fast, and when, some time, a miner shall have been imprisoned by an accident, a caving in of the walls or something of the kind, there may be found by the rescuers only a skeleton picked clean enough to adorn a physician’s closet. Such an incident would probably create a prejudice against the rats, but rate have eaten men before now,— Bt. Louia Republican,