as Enemies of Mankind, 



31 



says : " Quand on est sans pain et sans travail, la conscience n'est 

 quelquefois pas tranquille." 



In all towns occupiers of rat-infested property should be 

 obliged to notify the local authority of the fact that their premises 

 are infested with rats. For the purposes of certain trades — e.g.^ 

 the catering trade — the use of rat-infested premises should be 

 forbidden. Some years ago the writer had much personal experi- 

 ence of two rat-infested eating-houses situated in a main street of 

 the City of London. These were next door to each other ; the 

 one, more expensive, catering for professional men, was in a 

 comparatively modern building ; the other, a cheaper place, was 

 in a house dating from the seventeenth century. Eats swarmed 

 in both of them, doing great havoc to the stores. Each restaurant 

 blamed the neighbouring establishment for its rats, and each had 

 an extensive underground kitchen. Food was frequently con- 

 taminated; rat dejecta not unfrequently appeared in portions of 

 vegetables, jam, or stewed fruit ; and rat fleas were by no means 

 uncommon in cornflour blancmanges and suet puddings. In the 

 evening hordes of rats came up into the public rooms from below, 

 as the shops were closing. On one occasion workmen, who had 

 been painting the walls of one of the establishments during the 

 night, informed the writer that the rats had been so numerous 

 upon the floor that the men were afraid to descend from their 

 trestles. Dogs were kept in both premises, and on ordinary nights 

 had the run of the shops ; these killed many rats each night, and 

 entrails of their victims were sometimes tossed by the dogs into 

 the urns on the counter. Despite the rats, the writer, being a 

 chess player, remained a customer at one of these shops until a 

 new building was erected across the road ; that building was of 

 the rat-proof type and its ground floor and basement became a 

 restaurant. It has been so used for some ten or fifteen years 

 now, and it has remained free from rats, although these pests are 

 quite common in adjoining and older houses. In our opinion no 

 refreshment licence should be granted in respect of any premises 

 not certified to be free from rats and to be rat-proof. 



Eats, of course, cannot be attacked with equal success at all 

 places in towns. Sewers are usually infested, and it is naturally 

 difficult to cleanse them of rats. In those of Paris a means of 

 electrocuting them has been introduced ; a live wire is supported 

 at a height of a few inches, and dainties are hung at intervals 

 above it. When a rat attempts to snatch a morsel it puts its paw 



