1,000 Guilders

Rats!

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives Lead most Bubonic plaguey lives.

Accordingly, the Treasury Department requested Congress for $275,000 to be used to destroy an outbreak of plague among rats reported at New Orleans. Trapping, watching, fumigating are to be resorted to to suppress the disease among the vermin and prevent any chance of its spreading to humans. Presumably Congress will accept the Treasury Department bid, although it is somewhat higher than the Pied Piper's flat rate of 1,000 guilders* an extinction.

*The old German guilder varied with the time and place. The present-day guilder is a Dutch coin worth about 40-c- (exchange is nearly normal); and 1,000 guilders would be, therefore, about $400,