they really belong. We must admit, however, that Shaitan was 1 QX 

 clever when he endowed his children with such extraordinary 

 fecundity. After thousands of years, suffering mankind has 

 waked up, in spots, to the moral necessity of making a con- 

 certed effort against the offspring of that Evil One. We have 

 national and international societies for the destruction of 

 vermin, and one small nation has found it profitable from 

 a business standpoint alone to place a bounty on rats. This is 

 a good beginning, but there seems to be some confusion about 

 the modus operandi. Had those Poles not checked those East- 

 ern hordes, we would have taken in with our mother's milk 

 the knowledge that the cat is the especially created enemy of 

 the rat, and the reasons therefore, and so have averted the just 

 criticisms of Buchanan. To expect extermination of the rat 

 seems preposterous, for we are but human. However, so far 

 as plague prophylaxis is concerned, that is unnecessary; the 

 factor of safety may be reached by reducing their numbers. 



Buchanan prevented the recurrence of plague in certain 

 Panjab villages by importing cats. . . . "It is one of the mea- 

 sures of plague prevention dictated by their scriptures to 

 Mohammedans and Hindus alike, and which will, therefore, 

 be acceptable to all." 



Independently R Koch expressed the opinion that the only 

 solution lay in the breeding and maintenance of an efficient 

 race of cats. Like Noah, he found that keeping them on ships 

 bound for the tropics insured comparative freedom from rats. 

 His plan has been advocated by Kitasato in Japan. There the 

 latter found that the percentage of cats to houses varied from 

 four in Tokyo to forty-nine in the Yamanashi district, where 

 cats are kept to protect the silk industry from rats. Shiga 

 considers the latter place safe from plague ; we know that the 

 former is not. That sounds like plain sailing, but Shaitan has 

 kept busy — he put the Cysticercus fasciolaris in the livers of 

 rats and mice so that cats may suffer and often die; and strange 

 ideas into the brains of the more weak-minded humans. 



. . . When a corporation or large stable owner is able to 

 evade successfully an explicit ratproofing ordinance in the face 

 of a State Board of Health backed by the Federal Government, 

 one must surely conclude that the relation of hygiene to 

 material progress is still unappreciated. ... In the mean- 



