(i) The French used Vietnamese workers for this and paid them for each rat they killed. (ii) Rats began to be caught in thousands, but still there seemed to be no end. (iii) This dirty work was to be done only by the Vietnamese, they began collective bargaining. (iv) Those who did the dirty work of entering the sewers found that if they came together they could negotiate of a higher bounty. (v) Another innovative way they took was that they clipped only the tail of the rat to show as a proof of killing and released rat, so that the process could be repeated. Some people began raising rats to earn a bounty. (vi) In this way, the rat menace marked the limit of French power and contradicted their civilising mission and the action of the rat-catchers tell us of the numerous small ways in which colonialism was fought in everyday life.