CO129-348 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1908 [7-10] — Page 218

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3051

Enclosure 2.

Memorandum by Medical Officer of Health.

RATS.

215

There are 14 rat catching coolies now employ

-ed, while some portion of the time of the coloured Foreren

Interpreters on the Plague Staff is given to the supervision of

these coolies.

I have for many months past been convinced

that, in this Colony at least, the rat-catchers are not worth

retaining. They are a source of irritation to the Chinese, who

resort to every method of stultifying their work such as by

springing off the rat traps, turning the birdlime boards up-

-side down, or hanging them up in inaccessible positions, and

if perchance a rat is caught it is usually flung into the road-

and opposite a neighbour's house rather than opposite

the house where it was caught, or had died. We cannot hope to

make any appreciable impression upon the enormous rat popula-

-tion that lives underground

-way 2

in sewers, storm drains, retain-

-ing walls and burrows and hence I think that our efforts

should be directed wholly to excluding rats from dwellings.

This we do by requiring concreted ground surfaces, the provision

of gratings to all drain inlets, and ventilating openings, the

abolition, as far as possible, of ceilings and hollow walls

and the regular collection of garbage so as to leave as little

food as possible available for this vermin.

I would not abolish rat-catching altogether,

but would make this merely a small part of the ordinary duty of

the Plague Inspector, who should supply rat-traps, rat poison,

or birdlime boards on application by any householder, and

should otherwise only apply these measures when specially

directed by one of the Medical Officer of Health. This would

dispense with the necessity for any special rat-catching staff.

I am glad to see that only within the last

two or three months Dr. Ashburton Thompson has expressed similar

views

(3)

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