The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-20
WHAT SHALL BE DONE !?
[Peck s Sun.l

There is sut -ct that is not much
 written about, but one which is of more
 importance to the people of this country
 than the presidential contest, the tariff,
 or prohibition. That subject is the
 cholera. For year cholera has been
 getting its forces together with an idea of jumping onto this country in dozen diff
 ferent places next summer. Everybody
 believes it is coming, and yet not much
 more preparation is being made to re- ceive it than there would be to receive a few cases of green apple collie. There is not city in the country that is making adequate preparations to prevent the spread of the disease when it comes, or to head it of. Boards of health, which are supposed to have the matter in hand, are not provided with dollar where they ought to have a thousand, and municipal authorities, slow enough in appropriating money for current expenses, have not the sand to provide fund beforehand for an emergency, for fear of being abused by tax payers. Sc nothing is done, except to hire man occasionally to take a hickory broom and sweep street. That kind of work will never head of cholera. Every city and village should have fund in the bank, equal to fifty cents for every inhabitant, and committee, or board of health, with full power to use it where i. will do the most good. In every city hundreds of men should be at work for the next month or two, purifying every place that is impure, with authority to go into the dirtiest houses and cellars and whitewash, and disinfect, to squirt bug juice into cracks and crannies, fire insect powder and chloride of lime and other drugs wherever they can detect a smell, or place where there may be a smell next summer. This board should have authority to arrest any person that stands in the way of cleanliness, and the people should stand by the acts of its agents. This is the only way city can escape the scourge, and the question is, how is the money to be raised2 It ought to be raised in every community by direce tax, but taxes are already burden on many who are poor. A few cannot be cleanly, and be saved, while others are dirty and lost, so the work of puri6cation must be general and thorough. Ask an alderman to vote for an appropriation of seventy i've thousand dollars, to be used to dis infect as a preventive of cholera, and he would laugh at you. He could not show his constituents that he had done what was for the best, and a majority of those who elected him would always believe the alderman was thief, who had voted to squander that amount of money. So there is no use of relying upon any city authorities to raise fund to fight cholera beforehand. If the scourge had appeared, and was carrying off hundreds of good citizens, the alderman and his constitu- ents would say, "Why, O course, we must raise the money, and next year we will get an appropriation into the tax budget, if we don't have to use too much money for other purposes But that would be too late. The money is wanted now, before there is danger, before the people have begun to die. It is like min- ing, in fact it is mining for health, for life. Few men would desire to sink fifty thousand dollars in seeking for gold in the earth, but after the shaft had been sunk, and gold was found, there are few who would not like to take a hand in. However. somebody has to take the lead, and spend money to find gold, and some body has to take the lead in spending money to provide against the sceurge of cholera that all may be benefited.