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other plants appeared, including a wild fig. Still further down came a 
small patch (one cannot say a field) of Lupines; probably that is the only 
cultivated plant that is able to thrive in the cinders. Next came a small 
vineyard and the cottage of a family. These people, like the plants on the 
slopes of the volcano, are in constant danger of being overwhelmed. Small 
plants are, of course, in danger on account of clouds of cinder dust, the 
wind at times being terrific. 
All this came to mind vividly while standing at the cinder covered 
railway embankment. Then I mentally retraced my steps down to the 
river and to the plants that lead a precarious existence and are constantly 
threatened by high water. Then I thought of the people who live on the 
river front and especially on the little island, who, once or twice a year, 
are in danger of floods. Occasionally some must be rescued in boats. 
These, too, are reckless; prudent people likely would not be found under 
such surroundings. We all know how large cities with a river front are 
infested by a class of people known as “river rats,’ a highly undesirable 
class; human weeds, so to speak. When botanizing, we are frequently 
asked, What is the plant good for? One may also ask, What are weeds good 
for? Shall we also ask, What are some human weeds good for? 
Continuing, I retraced my steps to the railway shops and the smoke. I 
recalled the sad-eyed women and sickly-looking children who exist in that 
atmosphere. The men, of course, are employed in the shops and I won- 
dered how long they are able to hold out. It is well known that the city 
“takes it out’ of strong and robust men—-they soon fail. Large industrial 
cities have little use for a man after the age of about forty or forty-five. 
Now I knew that smoky air about the shops killed the trees and that only a 
few weeds were able to grow, and I wondered how long human life itself is 
able to endure under such conditions. Trees being fixed to the soil, live and 
die in situ; human beings are not fixed to the soil and so when they fall 
sick they generally remove to another neighborhood. If they are unable, 
ohn account of sickness, to pay the house rent, they are evicted and others 
move in. People remeving from an unsanitary environment may regain 
health and perhaps again become seli-supporting, but only too often they 
continue to fail and many die prematurely and the children become public 
charges. Who is to be blamed for premature deaths? 
[ further retraced my steps to Shanty Town. I recalled how the news- 
papers had frequent accounts of the prevalence of typhoid fever in that 
