A REJOINDER 151 



of his family, we are nearer than we imagine to the 

 consummation of such a folly. The medical and 

 dental inspection of the school children in our own 

 country is but the prelude to further agitation by 

 the sentimentalists ; for even now they are calling 

 for free medical and dental treatment in addition to 

 inspection, and they will next demand the free 

 supply of tooth-brushes and tooth-powders. Even- 

 tually finding that the tooth-brushes are consigned 

 to the dust-bins, and the powder is forgotten, they 

 will further demand a house-to-house visitation by 

 County Council teeth- cleaners ! In this way the 

 social momentum of hysteria over the unwashed, 

 unwashable, and hopeless increases until we fail to 

 recognise in the current momentum the tiny mass 

 and the slow pace we set in action only a generation 

 back. 



Thus the plague is benign to the race in the long 

 run, though ruthless to the inherently undesirable 

 individuals of the present. It evolves ethical beauty 

 and destroys ethical ugliness. No doubt a few of 

 the beautiful are also destroyed, but it is better 

 that this should be so than thousands of those who 

 are inherently ugly and dirty in their attributes shall 

 be reared by the pampeiings of civilisation. In this 

 matter there are before us two alternatives. We have 

 to choose between our overwrought humanity and 

 the consequences which the manifestation of that 

 humanity will beget. 



Let us pass to the tsetse fly. Miss Wodehouse 

 seems to regard it as a curse ; so do medical men 



