In 1861 Colin Pullinger, West Sussex tinkerer, registered his latest invention with the Designs Office (application no. 4373) and called it The Perpetual Mouse Trap. A century and a half later, we’ve learned the man wasn’t prone to exaggeration.
The Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading announced on their blog recently that one of Pullinger’s traps, displayed as part of the museum’s collection, fulfilled its raison d’etre when a mouse checked in, and subsequently did not check out.
The Perpetual Mouse Trap was actually designed as a humane device and lacked a killing mechanism. Purchasers would be expected to release trapped rodents after capture, perhaps not before giving them a good talking to.
In the present case, the museum staff are not habituated to inspecting their artifacts for successful operation, so the filthy little beast starved to death prior to discovery. This might sound tragic, or at least distasteful, but bear in mind the trap was not baited; the mouse climbed in there for no good reason, and was therefore too stupid to go on living.
All else that is known of the clearly superior Perpetual Mouse Trap and its genius inventor is that it, and he, hailed from the idyllic village of Selsey. Frantic efforts are underway locally to determine which door once belonged to Colin Pullinger, so that the world might beat a path to it.
