142 COMMON SENSE * 
The rats and mice left the premises on the double quick, and many 
of them fell a prey to the dogs and cats that were on the watch, 
keenly enjoying the fun. But no tobacco smoke had ever been 
allowed to profane “Rat Castle,” and thither they allran. We 
could hear them fighting and squealing inside, and when we got 
through with the other buildings we just closed the four little doors 
of the house and they were all prisoners. Then we changed our 
tactics. Instead of tobacco we used sulphur, and by means of a 
simple furnace, made out of an old pot, with a wooden cover, and 
using our “smoker” as a bellows, we soon filled the little“ house 
with sulphurous acid—a most deadly gas. Being determined to 
make thorough work of it, we blew in gas at the bottom until it 
passed out in a steady stream at the top. We then closed every 
opening up tightly, and left the house till next morning. When 
we opened the house next day we found one hundred and fifty- 
seven rats in it—every one dead!! I thought, then, that this piece 
of work paid'me for the expense and trouble of the house, etc. 
It was nearly a year before another rat was seen about the prem- 
ises, and we have never been badly troubled with “them since. 
The reason for building the house was this: If I had killed the 
rats in their holes and runways in the barns and outhouses, which 
I might perhaps have done by means of sulphurous acid gas, they 
would have putrefied where we could not get-at them, and this 
would have been insufferable. On the other hand, if we had driven 
them out with tobacco, and had not provided a retreat for them, 
we might have killed a few, but the greater part would have es- 
caped only to return after a little while. The plan that I adopted 
obviated both these difficulties. 
My reasons for covering the floor and a few inches of the sides 
with tin was this: A rat will never gnaw his way out into the 
light; but if the floor had been left unprotected they would have 
cut their way down, and would have burrowed in the ground and 
underneath the floor. When the final act in the tragedy came these 
rats might have escaped. As it was, we made a clean sweep, and 
destroyed or drove away every one. One hundred and fifty-seven 
rats make quite a pile. What could we do with them? Bury 
