The times., 1892-03-18
Sanitary Surroundings.
A Paper read by Stanley E. Parkill before
the Farmers Institute at Durand.


The expression Cleanliness is akin to
G0dlness," is one of the best known and
most often quoted of our familiar proverbs.
1t seems to be an accepted idea that GOdli-
ness should lead to cleanliness. Certainly
we must LOOK with some doubt on the pro-
testations of dirty professor of christianity,
and we always entertain certain feeling of
respect for cleanly inidel. 1t is one of
the great marks of civilization, this desire
to be clean, and it is one of the greatest
boons that civilization brings, to live in
cleanly community. 1t is safe TO assume
that by far the greater portion of our fellow
citizens desire to be clean; that by far the
greater portion of any community thinks 1t
is clean, and it is also undoubtedly true that
not one community in ten is as clean as it
thinks it is, simply because as community
il does not understand the duties and Obl-
cations that careful cleanliness implies.
| once knew an extensive manufacturer
of soap who had made study of the use of
his particular product He divided humanity
into four classes. There are, he said, about
2 percent who use too much soap, about 20
percent who use just about enough soap, 80
percent who use very little soap, and the
balance use no soap at all. The better edu-
Gated a people is, the more soap it uses. |
intelligence of the peoples of the earth could
be arrived at by comparing the amount of
soap they use. They could he classified in
gradations from the excessively clean-who
like Roscoe COnkling take Turkish bath
every day-down to the Comanche warrior
who covers his body with grease and streaks
il over with bright cOlored mud.
With us l think reasonable degree of
personal cleanliness is the rule rather than
the exception. l believe the people of this
county are, as a whole, well washed
people. There are exceptions of course,
and you will occasionally find yourself, even
in Shiawassee county, sitting next neighbor
to some nOn-bathing specimens of humanity,
who, like Widow Bedot has not felt water
on his back in twenty years. 1t is not pleas
ant, but it is not very dangerous, and one
can get away from it.
II is not on this particular phase of in
dividual cleanliness that l propose to dwell,
bat rather on the surroundings Of the indi-
vidual-On those matters that affect not only
the individual, but the whole neighbOrhOod
i'm which he lives.
wish to emphasize this fact: Cleanliness
is not only a duty that we owe to ourselves,
but one that we owe to our neighbors as
well.
The Declaration of Independence states
that ''all men are endowed with certain un-
alienable rights and that. among them are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
Life, you notice, is placed first. ''Al that
man hath, that will he give for his ife,"
and yet life without health is not so greatly
to be desired. That is why the law estab-
fishes boards of health, with almost despotc
power to enforce their commands, to protect
society against the ignorantly careless and
the wllfully negligent. Every man must
suffer the penalty of his own violation. for
there Is no vicarious atOnement i'm natures
laws. If you sit in draft, you take cold.
If you drink polluted water containing the
germ of typhoid fever, you are very liable
TO have typhoid fever. If the trouble ended
here and only the sinner against sanitary
laws suffered the penalty, If the innocent
did not suffer with him, il not for him. the
situation would not be so bad and we could
say VERY well, let justice take her course"
But the fact is that many innocent people
are liable to suffer also. 1 may conduct my
house, keep my yard and all my surround
ings in the strictest compliance with sanitary
laws, and yet If my neighbor is careless or
negligent, | am in constant danger from his
neglect. Typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diph-
iberia, ETC., may at any time invade my
house by the way of my careless neighbOrs.
So It becomes our duty not only to keep
clean ourselves, but to insist on our neigh
-bors being clean also.