COUNTRY LIFE
IRONMONGERS' shops in country places attract me. When I see the coils of a long net, a cluster of purse-nets or snares, I stand in reverie and cause an obstruction on the pavement. I was looking at a scythe when I saw the ratz.and squirrel trap. A card told me what it was. It was a green-painted, efficient-looking thing. A rat might go into it in the middle of the night or at noon, for rats have the impudence of the devil, but a squirrel ? I wondered whether a squirrel's curiosity would take him so far. If a trap has to be used at all, I prefer to see the squirrel- or rat-cage type of thing. There is something diabolical about a gin. The spring is usually strong enough to hold a bear, and the serrated jaws are a relic of the inquisition. To me, it makes no difference whether the gin is in a hole or in the open; it is still a shameful device. Is the cage-trap any better ? Bait one and forget it or fail to find it, and the cage is as inhuman as anything else. If a _rat starves to death in a cage, its end is as awful as that of its neighbour twisting and writhing with a leg in the jaws of a gin.
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