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Show WAR ON RATS. The United States health service has issued a bulletin entitled "The Rat." Figures are published to show the enormous enor-mous damage done annually to grain, tho computation indicating that the an- imals destroy moro than $1S0, 000,000 worth of wheat, corn, oats and other cereals every year. It is asserted that there is "a rat for every man, woman and child in tho United States," and that every one of our 110,000,000 inhabitants is paving one-half of one cent every day to keep the rat population in vigorous health. The survey conducted by the health service shows that there are only three kinds of rats in this country. They are the Norway or brown rat; the black rat and the Alexandrian rat. The Norway Nor-way species is more ferocious than the other two and has fought them so successfully suc-cessfully that tho black and Alexandrian Alexan-drian types are now seldom found except ex-cept in seaports. The health service, in addition to calling attention to the millions of loss occasioned by rats every year, points nut that the rodents are an exiremely grave menace to Jyalth.' They breed and carry disease and aro the direct cause of many epidemic outbreaks. An urgent appeal is made to the authorities authori-ties and to the public generally to wage a determined war hh rats. |