t6 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



is a question which all the ingenuity the world has produced, 

 from Archimedes to Mr. Edison, has left unanswered. The 

 black rat was indeed got rid of in England by the introduc- 

 tion of a greater nuisance, the brown rat ; but there is no 

 greater nuisance left now, so that road is shut. The black 

 rat was the aboriginal race in Britain, and tradition says 

 that the same ship which brought us the Prince of Orange 

 brought also the first brown rat. From that day the natives 

 disappeared, as the red Indian, or the Maori, disappears 

 before the face of the white man. A black rat is now a 

 great curiosity in England ; they have all been slaughtered 

 or scattered. A good many have of course found refuge 

 in such a colluvies nationum as Bombay, where they haunt 

 outhouses and servants' quarters. But the brown rat mean- 

 while spreads before the Scotchman and the crow, and 

 possesses the earth. And a monster of iniquity it is. In 

 fertility of resource and energy of execution it has no rival 

 when evildoing is concerned. Its appetite is most glut- 

 tonous, and everything is food to it. Bread and cheese, beef 

 and mutton, the horse's grain, candles, canaries, soap, pigeons' 

 eggs, fiddlestrings, the in'ards of the harmonium, all contri- 

 bute to the maintenance of its nefarious carcass. And it 

 will not be suppressed. Every man's hand is against it 



