Subiaco Stories...Kiddies, Rats And An Infectious Disease Hospital (1938).
This is an interesting story and photograph of children hunting rats at the local rubbish dump at West Subiaco as a result of a plague. The thought of children playing at a local rubbish dump and killing rats would be horrific today.
The article and photograph are from Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Mirror, 27 August 1938.
Rat-Infested Dump Is Subiaco' s Danger Spot
TWO KIDDIES with rats they killed at the huge dump at West Subiaco this morning. Many kiddies wage relentless war on the rodents, but officialdom doesn't seem to bother about the rat menace. (See story and other picture).
Mirror, 27 August 1938.
MILLIONS OF RATS MENACE A HOSPITAL
Hungry Horde Moves Toward Infectious Diseases Institution
Millions of rats are swarming within half a mile of the new Infectious Diseases Hospital. Screeching, scampering, eating, fighting among themselves on a huge rubbish tip, they have grown so cheeky that they no longer take notice of visitors. Enormous, filthy looking things, they live on the pestiferous and decaying refuse that smells high to heaven, and scamper about the flat top of the dump in hordes.
A fortnight ago the authorities eeased dumping rubbish on this tip, but made no attempt to cover it. And the rats, having almost eaten themselves out, are now making for the nearest place — the Infectious Diseases Hospital. From there it is a stone-throw to Subiaco, which, unless the whole thing is cleared up, is threatened with a plague of the rodents. Decaying bags, vegetable refuse, rotting paper — a huge paddock of it — forms the diet of the rats.
The stench from it is almost unbearable. At times the whole dump looks like a moving mass. Irony of it is that a huge cat has made a home there with her two half-grown kittens. But, so full of the creatures ie she, that she sits sunning herself while they scamper harmlessly around her. What will happen if a few thousand of them, disease-laden as they must be, cover the few hundred yards to the hospital, ie best left to the imagination.
'THE MIRROR" VISITED THE SPOT THIS MORNING AND WHAT WE SAW WAS ENOUGH TO TURN ANY STOMACH.
Tragedy of it is that this pestiferous dump is the playground of barefooted children. With, sticks in their hands, they roam over the huge heap digging out the rats from the millions of fruit, milk and jam tins that cover the dump and make wonderful hide-outs for the creatures. Then, as the rale run into the open, they swing their slice. laying the things flat around them. The slightest cut on the kiddies' feet would almost inevitably result in tetanus.
A Disgusting Sight Twenty yards away is an experimental sanitary digester that was erected 18 months ago to supplement the filter beds some distance away. This was later abandoned. But it still remains e disgusting, horrible uncovered vat, with microbe life swarming over it. 'The Mirror' has no hesitation in saying that the open digester and rat-infested rubbish heap are posi five menaces to the public health, and invites the Minister for Health (Mr. Alec Panton) to visit the spot and form his own conclusions. For the sake of the patients in the infectious Diseases Hospital, and the health of Subiaco and districts, to which, the filthy rodents will undoubtedly go in the search for food, 'The Mirror' demands that immediate steps be taken to eradicate this plague spot.
A FEW OF THE RATS WHICH INFEST THE TIP AT WEST SUBIACO PUTE POSESSION OF A TASTY MORSEL.
