DESTRUCTION OF RATS. 
91 
most approved methods of baiting, mixing, and using both 
traps and poisons. 
But I have three strong objections to poisoning in dwelling- 
houses, especially where the end can be achieved without. 
The first is, the danger of accidents through such deadly 
articles lying about ; next, the torture the poor creatures 
suffer before death ; and lastly, the most offensive and dis- 
gusting nuisance they create by dying and putrefying beneath 
the flooring and behind the wainscoting of our apartments ; 
so that often a carpenter is forced to be called in, and pull 
the place to pieces to dislodge them. But all this is entirely 
obviated by the use of Uncle James's infallible rat-traps. 
I lay it down as a fundamental principle that one practical 
and demonstrative fact is worth ten thousand theoretical and 
speculative opinions ; consequently, if I refer you to one 
easily ascertainable and well-authenticated truth, established 
upon seven years' practical experience, it will be worth all 
the floating fantasies of an age. 
A cheesemonger in London (of whose losses in wearing- 
apparel I have already spoken), was in the habit of using 
his front kitchen as his store-room, wherein he kept 
cheese, flour, butter, hams, eggs, <fec. The back kitchen 
was the bakehouse, and the oven ran into the yard. 
He carried on an extensive baking-business, and used to 
have a large stock of flour in at a time ; for years he 
had been terribly infested with rats, which had caused him a 
deal of uneasiness ; for daily and hourly there would be 
fresh proofs of their devastations, and the losses he sustained 
were enormous. Like thousands besides, he merely grumbled, 
yet never thought of resorting to some effectual means to 
put an end to the nuisance. He says the rats would make 
two or three holes in the sacks, and the floor every morning 
would be thickly strewn with flour, which, from their run- 
ning over it with their dirty feet, was rendered perfectly 
useless ; and some of the sacks would not have two bushels 
of flour left in them. He calculates that they used to eat 
and waste from half a bushel to a bushel of flour every night. 
Then when he went to fetch a cheese or two to place in the 
shop for sale, he would find some a quarter eaten away, and 
others half-gone. The butter also suffered most alarmingly ; 
