The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-01-27
Scien.if c Reform.

New York city is determined 10 nolu
its place as the reform center of this
terrestrial ball. On the theory that
cleanliness Is next to goodness, the
metropolitan board of health is backing
up the police department with ordin-
ances that at first glance seem to be of
of a most astonishing character. The
saloons can be closed only on Sunday,
but the health officers are going to get
their work in every day in the week.
1t has been formally declared to be un-
lawful to expectorate in public places.
Street car passengers desiring to
| divest themselves of superfluous saliva
are required under penalty to go to the
rear platform and fire over the DASH
board onto the pavement, or pursue the
alternative policy of retention and de-
glutition. Hotels, restaurants and other
public resorts are expected to provide
a plentiful supply of cuspidors for their
patrons, and these, it is expected, are
to be frequently and thoroughly
cleaned. The system would seem to
involve a small army of cuspidor in
spectors, but New York is enlisted for
the war. Expectations contain the
germs of disease, particularly the
germs of consumption, and in the inter-
ests of good government, good health
and good morals expectoration must be
stopped.
The New York board Of health does
not stop with expectoration either.
Last Wednesday it passed an ordinance
|
from free lunch tables. These utensils
have commonly been supposed to be a
distinguishing mark of civilization
While the use of the knife in some other
regards may have been known to saw
ages from the earliest ages. it has never
been held by them as an indispensable
or even as an auxiliary. adjunct to the
free lunch; and as for spoons and
forks, generations of barbarians have
lived and died without so much as ;
conception of them in that or any othe
capacity. But while IL is admitted tina
, knives, forks and spoons are regarde'
: as tokens OF refined and highly civilizeN
life, they are, as applied to the fire.
lunch. a fruitful source of contagiol
I ana ulSCdSC NOlNNg " III
mouth not only the viands of the cola
tion, but innumerable deadly bacterta
- The New York board of health con
tends that the water IN the glass Q
other receptacle in which they are do
- posted between mouths, becomes quick
ly contaminated and loses its purifyin
powers. Nor does the beer or othe
u beverage with which every consume
d is expected 10 accompany his quota (
IN the free lunch I.ossess the requisite al
10 t1septic qualities.
{ Hence knives. forks and spoons mu
~ so. Civilization has finally reached a
anti-climax and man finds himse
III thrown back into savagery and on
= more reduced to the primitive, cruz
IL and supposedly reprehensible methS
&c OF eating with his fingers. But whe
ne has science now led US? What adva
OF rage do fingers possess over knive
be spoons and forks as representations
ne bacteria? VIII not c0nsump.,ve ms
ed by such system OF communication b
on tween his mouth and a dish OF cold sla
IS conuaminate the entire dish jus, as
ar. fectively as before? VIII not la grip
&c lur,k in the salad and malaria breed
'r- the pickles and rheumatism play haV
ng in the pigs feet and catarrh roam abo
to over the whole outfit just as freely,
las even more 50 under the new systt
ial than the old? Science has played ma
an kind a trick. She offers for the thin
ia she would deprive I OF no suos.--'
that does not possess the disadva
EEK ages complained OF. The only way
ate OF the difficulty would seem TO be
XII abolition OF that ancient and honora