' TACT ' 81 



showed that Mohammed was indeed a very poor man, 

 and had a large family to support. His house was 

 rat-infested, and one of his sons had died of plague 

 the year before. Therefore the necessary sand was 

 conveyed to his door at the expense of the mosquito 

 fund, and then he and his family borrowed shovels 

 and filled up the cellars. There has been no plague 

 there since, and his mosquitos have disappeared. 



The moustiquiers will also discover many other 

 sanitary defects in the town of a similar nature to 

 these. Their regular visit will disclose many matters 

 that will astonish the sanitary inspectors. They will 

 report the presence of laundries and wash-houses, 

 clothes-ironing shops, bakeries, skin-curing depots, 

 leaking and unsafe steam engines and boilers, cafes 

 and dirty restaurants, and many other insanitary 

 trade depots that exist unknown to the town council 

 or ever licensed by it. Such must be dealt with 

 gently, and the owners invited to put their establish- 

 ments in order. Choked rain-water gutters and eaves, 

 drains, and old sewers will be found. Blocked canal- 

 ends and pools of stagnant water will be discovered 

 in the most unlikely places ; and wells sunk into 

 the subsoil water to save the water-rate will also be 

 unearthed. Holes in trees containing rain-water, 

 garden irrigation reservoirs, railway borrow-pits, infil- 

 tration water collections, ornamental ponds, steam- 

 launch water tanks, barge bilge- water, and many 

 other mosquito-breeding foci will have to be dealt 

 with each on its own merits. The foremen and the 

 workmen will soon find them out and report on their 

 6 



