9 DUST AND ITS DANGERS. 



all the people who die are prematurely carried 

 off by tuberculosis, and a large proportion 

 of these through dust-poisoning, which if we 

 choose we can largely prevent. We are apt 

 to forget that, as soon as we know the cause 

 and the means of prevention of a disease like 

 consumption, the responsibility for a large 

 death-rate is no longer to be laid to the charge 

 of Providence or fate, but at the door of human 

 ignorance or carelessness. We are apt to for- 

 get, too, that such dangers from uncleanly air 

 are constantly increasing with the crowding 

 together of large numbers of people in cities, 

 and especially in cities in which the manage- 

 ment of municipal affairs is in the hands, not 

 of intelligent and honest men, but of political 

 tricksters and unjailed thieves. 



We pay the penalty of the close huddling to- 

 gether of large numbers of people in cities, by 

 the increasing vigilance which we must exer- 

 cise to prevent the spread of infectious disease. 

 We may deplore the necessity for such homely 

 and incessant painstaking as is imperative if 

 we would keep our living-places clean and 

 wholesome ; we may carp and cavil at sanitary 



