ALONE IN A ROOM FULL OF RATS 17 



During the summer of 1858, while school was 

 closed, workmen tore up. the floor of the "Long 

 Chamber" and removed two large cart loads of 

 bones which the rats had carried down their holes 

 and deposited beneath. 



RATS ARE DANGEROUS 



under certain conditions. Every one is familiar 

 with the expression that "even a rat will fight when 

 cornered," but from all accounts it does not seem 

 to be always necessary to corner the animals in 

 order to make them fight. When I was in the city 

 engineer's office of Cincinnati, the sewerage en- 

 gineer's office adjoined ours. The surveyors 

 from the latter office frequently had to enter the 

 sewers and they never did so without going armed 

 with revolvers to protect themselves from the big 

 rats which infest these places. 



THE BITE OF A RAT 



is exceedingly dangerous, probably because the 

 rat's teeth are coated with all manner of vile stuff 

 which produces blood poisoning. My brother, 

 James Carter Beard, was once bitten by a Norway 

 brown rat through the finger, and his arm be- 

 came very much inflamed and swelled, from the 

 hand to the shoulder, to the serious alarm of our 

 parents and physician. 



THAT RATS WILL ATTACK YOUNG CHILDREN 

 is only too true. Recently two children of Bos- 



