Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service 



A RAILROAD WAREHOUSE IN NEW ORLEANS 



Showing method of rat-proofing by a concrete Avail. The part not walled is a sample of 

 conditions which are ideal for the rats. 



"bors, thus strongly evidencing the need of 

 a still wider campaign against them. Any 

 person failing to abolish^ rat shelters on 

 "his property is maintaining a public nui- 

 sance, menacing not only his own prop- 

 erty and the health of his family, but that 

 of his neighbors and the community at 

 large. 



On premises where rats occur traps 

 should be used persistently to keep down 

 "the number, as they will continually come 

 in from elsewhere. By a small reward 

 "to the juvenile members of the family for 

 rats captured the pests may be kept down 

 -and the primitive joys of the chase ex- 

 perienced by the young trappers. The 

 popular estimate of the usefulness of 

 -cats and ferrets in catching rats and mice 

 is very much exaggerated. 



The personal relief to be had by per- 

 sistently trapping rats on the premises is 

 indicated by the results at a suburban 

 summer home near Washington, where 

 from fifty to sixty (and several hundred 

 :micej are captured each year. Without 

 this reduction in numbers rats would in- 

 crease and render conditions extremely 

 "burdensome. 



Civic organizations which desire to 

 better conditions in their communities 

 have no more fertile field before them 

 than that of controlling rats among the 

 markets and establishments dealing in 

 produce and other food in their cities. 

 A large part of the food supplies of 

 nearly all of our communities is handled 

 in places swarming with rats and mice. 



Produce dealers are usually located on 

 contiguous premises, usually in old build- 

 ings under which the ground is honey- 

 combed with rat burrows and the walls 

 are so riddled with holes that rats pass 

 freely from store to store through entire 

 city blocks. Here meats, poultry, fish, 

 fruits, and vegetables are dealt with in 

 great quantities. For a large part of each 

 day rats in almost unlimited numbers 

 swarm in and over this food, eating some 

 of it, and polluting quantities of it which 

 pass on to the consumer. 



These repulsive conditions prevail 

 largely because property owners desire 

 to avoid the expenditure necessary to rat- 

 proof buildings. This could be done at 

 so small a cost that it is a discredit to 

 civilization that communities of intelli- 



