CHAPTER II 



"HE who laughs last laughs best " is a saying familiar to 

 all. It has a deeper meaning than most of us are inclined 

 to believe. Since the time when ape-like men began to 

 chip stones and use them for weapons and tools, there have 

 been those who have laughed at the efforts of their more 

 progressive fellows, and in consequence brought disaster 

 upon not only themselves, but frequently the entire tribe. 

 It is a strange thing, but nevertheless true, that the acquisi- 

 tion of practical knowledge is distasteful to the majority of 

 people, except when its acquirement means the securing of 

 money or other forms of material wealth. The man who 

 limits his knowledge to those subjects which enable him to 

 make money, is like the man busily employed sifting gold- 

 bearing sand in a dry creek in a gorge, utterly blind to a 

 gathering storm in the distance which will presently convert 

 the creek into a vast torrent and sweep him and his money- 

 making apparatus to destruction. 



When it is stated that the House Fly carries disease and 

 death to man and his domestic animals, there are many who 

 laugh and joke in derision. If they only realised that, 

 possibly, at the very moment of their merriment, flies were 

 infecting the milk with the germs of tuberculosis or some 

 other serious disease which is going to rob their households 

 of one of their loved ones, their faces would blanch with ap- 

 prehension and fear. There is a saying, " where ignorance 



