Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     During the fall of 1874 rats became a serious menace to the farmers of Jackson County, Kansas, and one night at a meeting of the literary society in the Coleman school house it was proposed to organize a hunt. Sides were chosen, and it was agreed that the losers were to pay for a supper and dance. Three weeks were fixed as the limit of the hunt, but this was reduced to ten days when it was discovered that warm weather was making it impossible to preserve the tails, which were to be used in making the count. At the end of ten days both hunting teams assembled at the school house with their tails and a count was made, with the result of showing 6,350 dead rats. More than 1,000 of these had been killed on the farm of G. W. Reynolds alone. After the count supper was served and a dance followed until daylight. The affair is still known in local circles as the great rat dance.-Holton [Kan.] Signal.