Rat Week

Bombay's health department, by using some statistical mumbo jumbo, had concluded that the city's rat population was 3,200,000 and that each rat's gnawing cost ten rupees ($3.02) a day. When the city councillors heard that last week, they got into a squabble along ideological lines.

Some conservatives suggested a Western-style solution: they wanted a "Rat Week," with plenty of anti-rat ballyhoo, and, to stimulate private enterprise, an increase in the present bounty of a half ana (1-c-) for each rat caught. Others objected that if the bounty were raised, it would pay the city's poor to go into the business of rat-raising and Bombay would wind up with more rats than ever. Councillor Gordhandas Goculdas Moraji, an orthodox Hindu, shuddered at even considering rat extermination during the current festival in honor of Ganapati (Ganesha), an elephant-headed god who likes to ride around on a rat (see cut). Councillor Dinkar Dattatrya gave what he called the "socialist theory on rats": he declared that "only eradication of the slums, overcrowding and hoarding would result in eradication of the rats." In the end, the councillors voted to go ahead with Rat Week, but decided to play it safe by keeping the bounty at the conservative level of 1-c- a rat.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.