1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



897 



OUR 



homes; 



BY A.I. ROOT. 



Ye are the temple of the living God. — II. Cor. 6:16. 



The following was suggested while, 7ve zvere building a 

 new Sniead close/ for the accommodation of the men and 

 boys of our different factories : 



Just now great progress is being made, not 

 only in the arts and sciences, but (may the 

 Lord be praised ) our physicians and our boards 

 of health are also making great progress in 

 warding off disease, especially the contagious 

 and pestilential kinds. We have not only 

 driven the yellow fever from our shores, but 

 we are banishing it surely, and with pretty 

 good speed, too, from the tropical cities that 

 have recently come under the jurisdiction of 

 the United States. We are also making prog- 

 ress here at home in warding off consumption 

 and other like terrible maladies. It has re- 

 joiced my heart of late to notice that, in dif- 

 ferent cities, they are not only passing ordi- 

 nances, but enforcing them, against promis- 

 cuous spitting on the pavements and in street- 

 cars. Physicians tell us that the saliva is one 

 of the first things to be contaminated by dis- 

 ease. For instance, if a patient suffering with 

 consumption is permitted to spit here and 

 there on the floor, and if this spittle dries 

 down and is then set flying in the air when 

 the room is swept, the germs of consumption 

 may be communicated to every person who 

 breathes the air. It is largely on this account 

 that promiscuous spitting is being stopped by 

 law. The city of Detroit, largely through the 

 influence of Mavor Pingree, obliges people to 

 expectorate in the gutters instead of on the 

 walks, where it dries down, and is then set 

 floating through the air when the walks are 

 swept. 



When Mrs. Root and I were in Los Angeles 

 (the City of the Angels, you know) we often 

 remarked, when we came out early in the 

 morning for breakfast, before many people 

 were up, that Los Angeles had the most beau- 

 tiful pavements of any city on the face of the 

 earth — that is, so far as we knew. The pave- 

 ments were made of a peculiar white or light-, 

 colored cement. Every morning they were 

 washed off and scrubbed, until they were al- 

 most white enough to sit down on. Well, be- 

 fore noon these beautiful white walks in front 

 of the finest stores would be literally bespat- 

 tered with tobacco spittle. Yes, there were 

 chunks of tobacco and zvhole puddles of the 

 filth so deep that a woman would have to raise 

 her skirts and pick her way, especially if she 

 happened to have on nice shoes and no rub- 

 bers. In that beautiful climate, rubbers would 

 be hardly needed if it were not for the filthy 

 men. Now, I do not know whether this City 

 of the Angels (?) has adopted a reform like 

 that of Detroit or not; but I shouldn't wonder 

 if it had; and if so, I should like to visit there 

 again. Mr. Rambler, will you please tell us 

 about it? Surely you go through the beauti- 

 ful city where you live, occasionally, in your 

 rambles, do you not ? I see by the papers that 



in San Francisco they put a man in jail just 

 because he persisted in spitting on the floors 

 of the street-cars. Yes, and he was a million- 

 aire to boot. May God be praised for this bit 

 of news, that millionaires are expected to obey 

 the laws — especially those pertaining to health, 

 just the same as anybody else. Truly we are 

 progressing. 



Do some of you think I am cranky in my 

 notions that so trifling a thing as spitting on 

 the walks or floors of a room is going to bring 

 fevers and consumption? Why, my friend, 

 the very latest method of determining wheth- 

 er a patient has consumption or not is by send- 

 ing some of his spittle to a competent physi- 

 cian. Whenever the lungs are affected with 

 tuberculosis the spittle shows it at once. 

 Furthermore, our dailies have just given us 

 an account of several clerks who had, one aft- 

 er another, contracted quick consumption in 

 a certain office where many book-keepers were 

 employed. The doctors finally traced the 

 cause to a certain book. A clerk who died 

 with consumption had been in the habit of 

 wetting his thumb in his mouth every time he 

 turned the leaves of that ledger, until the 

 book had become a veritable pest-house of dis- 

 ease, communicating the germs to several 

 clerks who used it. 



Now, boys, do not feel hurt or offended 

 when I make a practical application of this 

 subject. At this very minute, while I write, 

 in our Smead closets where we have expended 

 a great amount of money in making a closet 

 absolutely free from smell (and that might be 

 kept ?.s neat and sweet, almost, as a dining- 

 room) there are just piles of filth, the accu- 

 mulation of the work of tobacco-users. If it 

 were on the floor alone we would not say much 

 about it ; but you will all bear me out when I 

 say that it is on the walls, on the shutters that 

 afford privacy, on the pipes, and almost every 

 thing else. Perhaps you ask me if I am not 

 ashamed of myself for letting things get in 

 such shape. Yes, I am ashamed ; and I am 

 not only going to ask God to forgive me, but 

 I hope that, before these lines are in print, 

 things will be in better condition ; and then I 

 want you to help me keep them so There 

 are boxes of sawdust in every apartment of 

 the closet; but the expectorators seem to have 

 a dislike, some way, for spittoons. I provid- 

 ed them with the expectation of having the 

 boxes of sawdust burned up when they be- 

 came filthy. But I have neglected it for the 

 reason I really disliked to ask any good clean 

 boy, who does not use tobacco, to carry them 

 down to the furnace and dump them in. And, 

 by the way, I feel pretty sure there is not a 

 man or boy in my employ who really wants to 

 be called on to carry away the filth deposited 

 by the tobacco-user. There may be poor wo- 

 men needing work who would do it, but I am 

 not going to ask them to do it. 



Now, boys, I do not usually ask much of 

 you — that is, in the way of curtailing your 

 liberty. Of late I have not said much about 

 tobacco, though God knows I have felt a good 

 deal. We have not had any smoking on our 

 premises, because the insurance companies 

 back us up in our objection to it. And now 



