AUSTRALIA: The Mice That Roared

"Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock"—and if he knows what is good for him, the Melbourne mouse will run right down again, straight into his hole. Beset by a city-wide rise in food poisoning and mouse-nibbled documents in the Supreme Court, Melbourne health authorities have ordered all-out war on the city's mice. "Even pet mice must go," decreed Dr. Adrian Palmieri, the city's senior district health officer. "They breed like the rest and will mate with wild mice if they get the chance."

Palmieri, however, did not reckon with the power of the Australian National Mouse Club, a...

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