HOUSEHOLD PESTS 257 



numbers and ferocity of these plagues great and 

 small, from rats * as big as rabbits' to clothes moths 

 and cockroaches innumerable. 



Since the hot summer of 1893, Fleet Street 

 itself has been invaded by armies of starving and 

 thirsty rats, which are said to leave the dry 

 sewers, and take up their summer quarters within 

 easy reach of the river ; Dublin has suffered from 

 a plague of rats unknown in the memory of man ; 

 and in the interval which must elapse before the 

 complete emancipation of Ireland from the upas 

 tree of English rule, the Lord Mayor has so far 

 sacrificed patriotism to expediency as to employ an 

 English rat-catcher for their extirpation, and rewarded 

 his success with a gratuity in addition to his stipu- 

 lated wages. It is high time that the services of 

 this gentleman were secured by his suffering country- 

 men in London ; for one of the most audacious rat 

 outrages yet chronicled was recently reported from a 

 western suburb. A baby, left in a perambulator by 

 the child in charge of it, was attacked by rats issuing 

 from a sewer at Acton, and badly bitten before it 

 could be rescued from these vicious and unexpected 

 enemies. It is high time that we set our house in 

 order, otherwise our neighbours beyond the Channel 

 may be tempted to see in the sufferings of our 

 middle-class a requital for that last indignity offered 



