Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     If you are pestered with rats, try the method suggested by the Boston Cultivator: “Take a barrel with one head, put in sufficient water to drown the rats. Fasten over the top some thin, elastic covering a drumhead, or sheepskin with the wool off will do; put in meat or some kind of bait which they will like, and when they have got well baited slit the cover with a thin knife so that the incisions will meet in the centre. A brick should be set on its end in the water, or some solid substance put there of sufficient height to allow one rat only to stand upon it out of the water. When all is thus prepared, the rats as they go on the barrel will be let down by the trap door into the water. A struggle will commence to obtain possession of the island. The cry they will make for help will be heard by the other rats on the premises and they all rush to the top of the barrel, and be precipitated into the water together, and a regular Kilkenny fight will ensue.