SUFFOLK, Daring the past week, said "The Times of October 31, the number of rats killed in the Samford Hundred has been enormous, and it has almost wholly been due to private effort, It has been practically impossible for the local authority to undertake organized destruction, as most of the ratcatchers are men privately engaged. There is no doubt that where the hearty cooperation of land-owners and farmers has been obtained more satisfactory results have been secured than could otherwise have been the case, The supposed plague-infected rats a tributed over an area of about 20,000 acres, Plague-infected rats are still being found. Dr, Heath, bacteriologist to Ipswich Hospital, has found plague in several brown rats, but until two days ago no English black rats bad been found; now one which was sent to him is proved by bacteriological tests to be infected with bubonic plague. Seeing what has already been done voluntarily towards the extermination of the rats, there is little doubt that if all farmers acted in anison the whole district might be cleared, Unfortunately agricaltarists, who are the greatest sufferers from the rat scourge, hi taken spasmodic action, and." neglect, as one farmer puts it, "is the cause of the enormous increase in rate in the country districts during the last few years, The warnings of medical men as to the danger of eating rabbits and bares ought, it is argued, to render it possible prevent the exportation from the infected district of any rabbits or hares. Landowners have stopped the killing of rabbits, and as the Great Exatern Railway Company are refusing consignments from any place in the infected area it is hoped not only to check but to stop the sale,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.