Cooperative efforts to destroy rats have taken various forms in
different localities. In cities, municipal employees have occasionally
been set at work hunting rats from their retreats, with at least
temporary benefit to the community. Thus, in 1904, at Folkestone,
England, a town of about 25,000 inhabitants, the corporation employees,
helped by dogs, in three days killed 1,645 rats.
Side hunts in which rats are the only animals that count in the contest
have sometimes been organized and successfully carried out. At New
Burlington, Ohio, a rat hunt took place some years ago in which each of
the two sides killed over 8,000 rats, the beaten party serving a banquet
to the winners.
There is danger that organized rat hunts will be followed by long
intervals of indifference and inaction. This may be prevented by
offering prizes covering a definite period of effort. Such prizes
accomplish more than municipal bounties, because they secure a friendly
rivalry which stimulates the contestants to do their utmost to win.
In England and some of its colonies contests for prizes have been
organized to promote the destruction of the English, or house, sparrow,
but many of the so-called sparrow clubs are really sparrow and rat
clubs, for the destruction of both pests is the avowed object of the
organizations. A sparrow club in Kent, England, accomplished the
destruction of 28,000 sparrows and 16,000 rats in three seasons by the
annual expenditure of but L6 ($29.20) in prize money. Had ordinary
bounties been paid for this destruction, the tax on the community would
have been about L250 (over $1,200).
Many organizations already formed should be interested in destroying
rats. Boards of trade, civic societies, and citizens' associations in
towns and farmers' and women's clubs in rural communities will find the
subject of great importance. Women's municipal leagues in several large
cities already have taken up the matter. The league in Baltimore
recently secured appropriations of funds for expenditure in fighting
mosquitoes, flies, and rats. The league in Boston during the past year,
supported by voluntary contributions for the purpose, made a highly
creditable educational campaign against rats. Boys' corn clubs, the
troops of Boy Scouts, and similar organizations could do excellent work
in rat campaigns.