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(3) DAMAGE DONE BY RATS.—The damage done by rats in the City must be
enormous, but it cannot be estimated without systematic enquiries and thorough
investigation. Great damage has been done to property by rats gnawing through doors,
floors, ceilings, walls and lead soil and water pipes. In places where food is stored in
quantities, as in wharves and warehouses, much food has been destroyed by these
animals, as also in workshops and similar premises where meals are provided for the
staff. Such items as boots, books, clothing, furs and articles of furniture and valuable
textile goods are also damaged and rendered unsaleable.
At a butcher's shop near Holborn Circus, not only were the floors, walls, ceilings,
and chimneys riddled with rat holes, and the lead soil pipe eaten through, but when
the business closed down and the supply of food ceased, the rats, before migrating to
other premises, actually gnawed the wooden handles off the meat saws left behind.
The apparently wanton damage done by rats to such articles as hard-wood
furniture, lead pipes, bricks, &c., is possibly done with the object of keeping their
continually growing teeth at a proper length. Specimens of damaged lead pipes, boots,
furs and clothmg from City premises were sent to the Curator of the Zoological
Gardens and formed part of " Rat Exhibition" recently held there.
(4) RECENT LEGISLATION. The Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919,
which became operative on the 1st January this year, involves the Corporation, the
citizens and the occupiers of premises within the City in additional responsibilities
in connection with the suppression of rats. The first section of the Act reads as
follows :—
"(1) Any person who shall 'fail to take such steps as may from time to time be
" necessary and reasonably practicable for the destruction of rats and mice on or in any land
" of which he is the occupier for preventing such land from becoming infested with rats or
" mice shall be liable lo penalties."
In the City, the Common Council are the Authority required to execute and enforce
this Act. The London County Council are responsible for rat suppression in any
sewers in the City which may be vested in the County Council. The Corporation are
also required to observe the requirements of this Act in respect of land of which they may
be the occupier, and in case of failure the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries may
undertake the work and recover the expense incurred.
The Corporation may, within its area, give instructions by public notice as to the
most effective methods that can be adopted both individually and collectively with a
view to the destruction of rats and mice.. Presumably the free distribution of a
pamphlet of instructions would be regarded as public notice. The Corporation can
also call upon the occupier of any vacant land to take steps to destroy rats on the land
or to prevent the land from becoming infested with rats and mice.
(5) POSITION IN THE CITY.—Although probably not every premises in the
City harbours rats, I do not consider that there is any part of the City area which can
be reasonably deemed to be free from rat infestation. Such buildings as are generally
free are exposed to intermittent infestation as a consequence of rats gaining access in
the ways already described. Two problems present themselves—(1) the riddance of
buildings of rats and (2) the riddance of the district as a whole.
(6) INFESTATION OF PREMISES.—The first of these problems cannot be
regarded as insuperable, given an unlimited purse. Investigations show that under
present conditions of outside infestation and provided a building is structurally such
as will furnish the rats which gain access with means for nesting and, therefore, for
propagation, and that it also contains the necessary food supply, such a building will
continue to be infested to the limit of the means of subsistence unless suitable measures
are adopted. The problem as regards buildings, therefore, resolves itself into the removal
of internal structural defects, so as to ensure that walls, rooms, floors and ceilings shall
furnish no nesting places and the provision that all food supplies shall be stored in
rat-proof receptacles. An efficiently rat-proofed building should not only provide no
means for breeding or shelter, but the walls should be resistant to the burrowing or
gnawing activities of rats, and premises should be provided with defences against