CHAPTER VIII 



THIEVES OF THE NIGHT 



Wherever we go we meet with rats — ^town 

 and country, stackyard, warehouse, and garden, 

 it is all the same, they steal and rob anything 

 and everything that is good to eat. Potatoes, 

 grain, peas, beans, to say nothing of eggs, and 

 even young chickens and ducklings, are seized, 

 and in the latter cases murdered and eaten. 

 Indeed, there is hardly anything that rats will 

 not eat, and the damage done by them in 

 the course of a year is simply appalling. 

 Supposing that there is in this country one 

 rat for every person, and there are certain to be 

 many more — ^well, that would give us roughly 

 forty million rats ! Just think of all the good 

 food they must waste in the course of a year ! 

 Supposing each rat only eats a pennyworth, 

 that would be forty million pennyworths each 

 day, and as to what it would come to in twelve 

 months, I think I will leave to any person who 

 is fond of doing a sum to find out. 

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