56 THE HOUSE FLY 



in which to breed. Destroy their breeding-places and you 

 will get rid of flies. To effect this there must be a thoroughly 

 efficient system of sanitation and rubbish removal, with a 

 set of stringent bye-laws, and a special officer or officers 

 to enforce them. There is no sense in having a law or 

 regulation unless efficient measures are taken to enforce 

 its provisions. 



It is a common practice for municipal authorities to 

 remove the town garbage and fill in disused quarries with 

 it, or run it out a mile and dump it down, thus providing 

 one of the finest of breeding-grounds for flies that could 

 be imagined. I know from personal observation that flies 

 breed in these deposits in uncountable numbers, and the 

 majority of them, sooner or later, find their way into the 

 town or village, as the case may be. This vast collection 

 of garbage, it must be borne in mind, is from the rubbish 

 tins and boxes of citizens. It is well known that the 

 most loathsome of filth is thrown into these garbage boxes 

 and cans, including slops and various kinds of infected 

 matter from sick rooms. These rubbish heaps are, there- 

 fore, seething with disease germs. It can thus be reason- 

 ably assumed that the majority of the flies which breed 

 in such deposits are swarming inside and out with disease 

 microbes of various kinds. The most efficient method 

 of sterilising town rubbish and preventing flies using 

 it to breed in is to burn it, as did the Israelites of biblical 

 times. Another plan is to bury it under at least two feet of 

 soil. A common practice is to simply spray rubbish heaps 

 or piles of manure with paraffin, sheep-dip, or scatter 

 chloride of lime over it. This plan is useless for the reason 

 that it does not reach the fly maggots, and even when it 



