A calculation--like that which has made Tiny immortal--is given, and then the reflection, succeeds, "Is it not a most appalling thing to think that there are at the present time in the British empire, thousands, nay millions, in a state of starvation, while rats are consuming that which would place them and their families in a state of affluence and comfort? I ask this simple question" (emphatically continues our Rat Hater), "Has not Parliament, ere now, been summoned upon matters of far less importance to the Empire? _I think it has_." A fine opening this for an oratorical patriot, whose themes are worn out. An agitation for protection against rats would inevitably secure the hearty support of the agricultural interest. Enough has surely been said to show the great importance of rats, but it would be wrong to leave the little book which has suggested this article, without gleaning from it a few rat-catching statistics, and without pointing out the moral of the whole, by giving the writer's proposition for relieving us from the scourge he describes. It seems that one rat-catcher has frequently from one thousand five hundred to two thousand rats in his cages at one time--it is not stated, but we suppose--ready to be killed by "Tiny." It is averred that these are all brought up from the country--all "fair barn rats"--and that "it would not pay to breed them"--a question probably open to doubt. The natural enemies of the rat are thus mustered, the ferret, polecat, stoat, weasel, cat, dog, and man. The ferret's powers of destruction are estimated very lightly; the polecats are very rare, prefer game when it can be had, and do little against the rat; the weasel also prefers a chicken or a duckling "to fighting with a rat for a meal." Hence the farmers destroy them, and they do little against the rats. Cats, as a rule, prefer hearth-rugs; and traps, _unless quite new_, and consequently sweet and free from the smell of rats, are useless. No! There is nothing in Nature capable of saving the nation from rats, but "Tinies." "I do not know of any quadruped equal to a well-bred London terrier for sagacity, courage fidelity, color, symmetry, general beauty, and economy: in a word, he seems in every respect formed by nature for man's companion and protector." With a fine burst of eloquence, the author asks, "Are rats a calamity to be deplored, or are they not? The voices of religion and patriotism cry, with stentorian lungs, 'Yes!' the voice of philanthropy cries, 'Down with them! down with every barrier, and annihilate them!' the fainting stomachs of thousands of our starving fellow-creatures at home and in the sister country, with the agonized bowels of their withered offspring writhing beneath the ruthless fangs of hunger, shriek forth, with horrid yells, for their extermination!!"