The Ubiquitous Rat.

War between man and the rat dates back to the beginning of time. The economic cost of the rat, by way of the destruction of food supplies and materials, is incalculable. To the economic damage must be added the menace to health, for the rat carries either pestilence or the pestilential flea, and is both directly and indirectly a menace to public hygiene. And yet human science has hitherto been incapable of reducing the prolific rat tribe to permanently small proportions; even within limited areas only a moderate measure of control has been secured, at no small cost. Now enters the Pasteur Institute with a counter pestilence, “the bacillus of rat typhoid,” with which to “infect whole colonies, which die in a few days.” Something similar seems to happen occasionally among rabbits, but no one seems to hold the secret. A country without rats and rabbits would be a country transformed. The saving should be equal to New Zealand's national debt.