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Show The Corporation and the Rats. It is calculated that 8,000 rats have been killed during one week at the Birmingham Market hall, snd the slain have been found every where.under stalls, in poultry baskets and flower pots, and even in the open streets. A provision merchant in Philip street opened his doors the other morning and found thirty-one rats lying dead near to a butter tub, in which there was water. Tho manner in which the animals decompose decom-pose under the new treatment is peculiar. The body swells first of all, and within five days collapses again and becomes perfectly per-fectly flat. The rats killed a week ago would be perfectly unrecognizable but for their heads. The bodies have lost shape altogether. It this method of destroying the vermin had not been discovered the city would have been put to a considerable expense. So extensive were the ravages of the rata that the market and fairs committee had decided upon lifting the flooring of all the markets and relaying them with cement. That would have meant an outlay of many hundreds of pounds. Tho corporation paid to its market officials a penny for every rat destroyed, and a few years ago tho number annually killed reached 4,000 representing in itself a sum of 16. Pall Mall Gazette. |