The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-15
THE "'NEW" MOSQUITO.


Among the many News of this decade
of the century place must be given
to the Mosquito. For ages man has
known 1t, and marveled at it's place
in the great economy Of nature as he
lay at night listening to the warning
humming of the insects wings and
wondering where due and formal pre-
sentation Of it's bill, with demand for
instant liquidation, would be made.
He has built up smudges to repeI it,
and invented bars to drape the bed,
and concocted lotions to drive 1t away
or to relieve the smart and itch of it's
successful attack. To countless gen.
erations it has been simply a nuisance,
without any information of any useful
part played by 1t in the divine orange
ment of things to compensate. Irri-
tating, annoying, provocative Of vol
can1c language, disturber of maps in
t%errupter Of evening socfabilities. all
these things has she-for the gentle
man mosquito is stingless-been to all
men and women in all past times.
But the New Mosquito has arrived
in this good year of 1897, with the Ding
ley act and other disturbing and an
noying things. She has come in greater
numbers. with sharper bill and more
Unsuitable appetite and more persist
ence in gratifying it, than ever. That
infallible person. the oldest %inhabitant.
cannot recall the like. She has i'm
pressed society with the fact of her
presence and her new quality. News
papers discuss her ed~ttorially, stirred
by the prominence she achieves in the
local news columns. New Orleans. the
paradise Of the mosquito, boasting of
more Of them in greater variety than
any region on the ~footstool, where
mosquitoes are as common as flies, and
+ before have been regarded as
news" even there the New MOSQUITO
has forced recognition and public atten-
ton. For the first time it is found that
the prisoners in the parish prison are
positively suffering from the swarms
of mosquitoes that infest it; that deaths
have resulted from their stings. and.
for the first time in the history of
the old dungeon, mosquito bars were
supplied for the u~nfortunates inear-
cerated there.
But the New Jersey mosquito, famed
as she has been, rises in the general
ascent to new qualities. From being
merely irritating, she becomes danger
ous. A few weeks ago the death of a
man from a mosquito "bite," as the
inaccurate scribe terms it, was re-
teemed with notes of cases of poison
ing, more or less serious, from the
stings of the mosquito. Summit, N. J..
reports two severe cases Of blood peis-
oning following the insertion of a mos
quito's bill. New York papers cnron-
icle several cases, one young pima
nearly dying, and other cases less seri-
Gus, but all showing that the New
Mosquito has new qualities that must
be reckoned with. Recently she go
into the courts by poisoning, a, Ken
tuckian to death, and h accident in
surance compony resisted payment of
the policy issued on the ground that
a death so caused was not due to ac-
cident. The court held against the
company, and thus a new item is added
to the chapter of accidents. 1t will
be observed, of course, that this Ken
tuckian's case disposes Of one tena-
cfous notion, for it would seem to fol-
low with irrefragable logic that, if
whisky were an antidote for snake
bites, it should render one immune
against the stings Of even the New
Mosquito. But if it shall develop hat
his arrival among the News is to bring
these serious consequences to our poor
humanity. Humor, that a found re-
lief from the acerbities of life in the
idiosyncrasies of this insect, will have
h%enceforth to sober her face when it's
threatening hum is heard in the land.