Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Random Rants, Notes and Articles No.2 . .

This year, “Rat Week" is to commence on Monday, November 5. Two considerations have influenced the Ministry in fixing upon this date. One is that, being Guy Fawkes Day, it will be easily remembered, and the other, a much more important one, that it is about this time of the year that a considerable portion of rat population which, during the summer months frequents the fields, hedgerows, and banks, takes to its winter quarters. The latter are, of course, the more cosy nooks to be found in houses, barns, outhouses, stores, warehouses, goods sheds and offices, &c., where the rigours of winter are not so keenly felt.

This occasion affords, then, an opportunity of directing, with more than an ordinary chance of success, a concerted campaign of destruction. At such a time many of the vermin will be in more or less unfamiliar surroundings and thus more easily fall a prey to the wiles of man.

It must not be overlooked that the rat possesses a very large brain in proportion to the size of its body, and as a result is possessed of remarkable intelligence for so small a creature. It has, moreover, a mechanical genius, and soon discovers the trick in a trap. For instance, all who have done any trapping of rats must have been amazed at the clever way they can take the bait from a "breakback" trap without releasing the spring, a feat which even the layer of the trap, once it is set, finds extremely difficult. Consequently, in waging war on the rodents, our tactics must be varied frequently. The same kind of trap should not be used for long, or its success will become a rapidly diminishing quantity. Similarly, poisons should be changed as often as possible, or a different bait used occasionally.

In large towns special steps are organised by the local authorities, who usually depute an official, such as the sanitary officer, to carry out the arrangements in detail. Large property owners and proprietors of works, factories, and warehouses are invited to co-operate, and the Great Western Company naturally come under one or more of these heads and are asked to do their part. This the Company are only too anxious to do, as they realise the importance of the matter.

Let November 5th this year witness the hatching of many and much more successful conspiracies than the Gunpowder Plot. - The Great Western Railway Magazine - [1348] [1349] - November 1923.