d Rat.

Having had a long experience in Manchester I am quite sure of this. As
an instance, I remember a private house where I was engaged catching Rats
under a floor with ferrets. I went as far as possible on my belly under
the floor with two candles in my hands, and I saw the ferret kill a large
bitch Rat, about six yards from me against a wall, where neither the dog
nor myself could get at it. I finished the job and made out my bill for
my services, but in about two or three weeks after they again sent for
me, declaring they could not stay in the sitting-room on account of the
smell that arose from beneath the flooring boards. They had in
consequence to send for a joiner; and as I knew the exact spot where the
Rat was killed I ordered him to take up the floor boards just where the
dead Rat lay, and the stench that arose from the decomposed Rodent was
bad in the extreme. I disinfected the place, and I was never sent for
again. This was under a cold floor, and it is much worse where there is
any heat.

Now to deal with the different methods of catching Rats. The best way,
in my opinion, is,

TRAPPING THEM WITH STEEL SPRING TRAPS.

Whenever you are trapping, never on any consideration put bait on the
traps; always put traps in their runs, but you will find Rats are so
cunning that in time, after a few have been caught, they will jump over
the traps, and then you must try another way. A good one is the
following, viz.:--Get a bag of fine, clean sawdust, and mix with it about
one-sixth its weight of oatmeal. Obtain the sawdust fresh from under the
saw, without bits of stick in, as these would be liable to get into the
teeth of the trap and stop them from closing. Where you see the runs put
a handful in say about 30 different places, every night, just dropping
the sawdust and meal out of your hands in little heaps. That means 30
different heaps. Do this for four nights, and you will see each morning
that the sawdust is all spread about. Now for four more nights you must
bury a set trap under every heap of sawdust. Thus you will have 30
traps, on each of which there is a square centre plate; you must level
the sawdust over the plate with a bit of stick, and set each trap as fine
as you can on the catch spring, so that the weight of a mouse would set
it off. They will play in the sawdust as usual, and you will have Rats
in almost every trap. You will find that this plan will capture a great
many of