Animals: Rat Man

“I hate rats,” hisses James Lorenz Nicholes, with a sinister smile upon his small, ratlike features. “I would rather kill a rat than an elephant—any day.” Had they been wise, 8,000,000 rats would have fled Chicago last month, for James Lorenz Nicholes was there.

It is a wise rat that knows its own fodder. Chicago’s rats were scurrying out of their retreats by the thousands last week, slinking away to shudder and die in gutters and alleys. James Lorenz Nicholes, famed ratkiller, well knows the limitations of a rat’s wisdom. A rat can distinguish between two kinds of food, may prefer one to the other or shun both. Put three kinds of victuals before a rat and it will confusedly gobble all. Applying this principle, Ratkiller Nicholes was busily ridding Chicago—temporarily, at least—of several million of its rats. Last week, his work done, he left for St. Louis.

Three weeks ago Ratkiller Nicholes was called to Chicago by some companies in the rat-infested stockyards and by the Walgreen drug stores and Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. He arrived in the automobile in which he pursues rats throughout the U. S., bringing with him two large suitcases and his young wife. Ratkiller Nicholes went to work. Wherever rats were plentiful he distributed pieces of bread, hamburger steak and apples, in each piece of food a drop of his chemical (barium carbonate with a slight touch of barium sulphide). Because the Nicholes poison is comparatively slow acting the rats do not die on the premises they infest. Hungry human beings who might eat the poisoned food, which is odorless would not be harmed. They would vomit immediately. Rats cannot vomit.

Ratkiller Nicholes is a small mild man of 63. His main office is in Atlanta, Ga., where his son handles his correspondence. He has been killing rats for 20 years, has operated all over the U. S. He kills rats free. Then he shows his method to his clients, sells them Nicholes Over-Nite Rat Exterminator (price, 50¢ a can). In this way he makes more money than if he charged for his work. He killed 49,000 rats in Chicago in 1922, gained much fame thereby. His best clients are food stores, schools, hospitals, colleges. He has killed rats at the Edward F. Hutton and George Alexander McKinlock estates at Palm Beach. Private estates he charges $100, but he prefers larger jobs. Rats, says he, always return in six months unless an exterminator is used continuously. He estimates that if only one healthy rat couple were left alive in Chicago it would produce 359,000,000 descendants in three years. He is proudest of a kill he made in one night near Baton Rouge, La. The State called him in, asked him what he would need. Said Ratkiller Nicholes: “I’ll need one ground-up cow, 16 barrels of sweet potatoes, 16 full cheeses and 50 niggers.” The 50 Negroes distributed cow, potatoes and cheese, all poisoned, throughout 50-mile drain ditches. Next day 15,000 rats lay dead.