74 THE START 



the house to take care of its own mosquitos for a time. 

 The wayward householder will soon change his atti- 

 tude. Mosquitos will continue to worry him and his 

 children, and then his neighbours will complain. 

 This will soon bring him to his senses. Householders 

 will sometimes bring forward the most extraordinary 

 excuses to justify their action in refusing admission 

 to the moustiquiers and the workmen into the back- 

 yards of their houses. It is because they are frightened 

 at the visit of the sanitary authority, and fear pains 

 and penalties at the hands of the law. One man 

 objected at Port Said because he preferred the bites 

 of mosquitos to the smell of petroleum once a week ; 

 he owned a most insanitary fried-fish shop. Another 

 said that he liked mosquitos ; the pleasant buzzing 

 noise the insects make amused his children they 

 were always ill, and had plenty of opportunities of 

 listening to the music. The man's house was flooded 

 with sewage, and he did not want to go to the expense 

 of emptying his cellars and cesspool, which had burst. 

 A third said that mosquitos were put into the world 

 by the Deity to punish recalcitrant human beings, 

 and that it would be a sin to try to reduce them ; he 

 was a very devout man until his next attack of fever, 

 when his devotion suddenly disappeared. A native 

 said that the British official was poisoning the water 

 in his cesspool perfidious Albion again ! 



It is better to leave such people alone until they 

 realise the stupidity of their action. If they remain 

 obdurate, a little tact, as will be described later, will 

 generally overcome their prejudices. Complaints will 



