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Show "DEAD OR ALIVE" IS SLOGAN IN BATTLE AGAINST RATS M tl'pper left) Joe Iloulet. 'himp'on rat catcher of the world, who cleared i7S in June for catel ng pents. dead or alive (Center) Rat proof-Ing proof-Ing a N' Orleans building. , Below une of Ihe rodents that have set Rtiif ports busy on a rat kill ns? bee. Bj GEORG1 B. ri BS N ! . Staff Correspondent NEW iK.'.KA.S.-f The bubonic plague has brought on a slogan of dead or alive" for all rats, and gulf port cities have entered, with n spirit, in the battle to exterminate the disease dis-ease carrying pe3ts. In New Orleans alone 270,600 rats have be' n trapped in the past eight months. n:id It It estimated that there are still 1,000,000 In the city l'r. M S I.omb'ird. surgeon of the United States public health service, serv-ice, in charge of tho rat extermination campaign in Louisiana, h.-i started a school to train rat catcher, In the hope that they would be trapped and killed fuster than they breed. In tho parish of Orleans thoro are now 2?.0 men who do nothing but catch rats, ilead or alive, and they have worked their way into the rattiest rat-tiest quarters of the port. With a price nl i-ofi on 'he pests' heads 25 cents for a live rat and 10 cents for a dead ono tho new occupation occu-pation has already brought forth the man who claims to be the Chainpioh rat hunter of tho world He Is Joe Houlet, and. a? a reward for valiant f service, has been sent to Beaumont to aid In ridding th.Vt section of rats. Boulet made $178 In bounties In ; June for tho high r ord I'., sides (bis he received J80 In salary from the , government. As fast as the pests are brought in. h corps of bacteriologists examine them for bubonic plague infection. Of the 270,600 trapped so far, 568 were , Infected The bubonic plague broke out in I New Orleans in 1912 and In 1914. but i was not as erlous as If appears this time Certain Interests have sought to minimize th danger, but Ir. Ixni-bard Ixni-bard and State Health if,. er how-ling how-ling arc taking It seriously. "We hope to stamp out tho plague ! In time.' saj.s Dr. Lombard, "but it is going to cost a great deal of money! and take considerable time The millions mil-lions of rats In all ports will have to be killed and their breeding places destroyed." de-stroyed." I Thousands of buildings have had to undergo what is known as rat proof- ing. and New Orleans is to bo thor- j oughly cleaned, with the garbage! problem properly sohed In or. lor that I tho rodents will not return after they; i are once routed. |