The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-12
Terse Records i'm Board OF Health
ONCE Hint of Tragedies the Long,
Hot Nights Cause.
WHEN PEOPLE SUFFER MOST
REAL MISERY COMES IN THE DARK
HOURS WHEN SLEEP IS WOOED.
Mercury Continues to Hover I'm the
Nineties and the Weather Blu
reau Offers Little Hope.

Day after day on the records of the Board
of Health appear the names Of babes that
are the victims of the fearful heat. Day
after day doctors telephone to the board Of
flee names of small bits of humanity that
have succumbed to the suns dAggers. Old
Sol, in addition to the rest of his crimes,
is literally a murderer.
Hard as the heat is on the older people, It
is on the babes that its most terrific effect
is felt. About two weeks ago the pathetic
reports Of the doctors began to come in.
Even the terse, brief, formal announce
ments, made in accordance to the law, could
not hide the tragedy that lay in every
case. 1t could not tell of the hopeless strug-
giles of the mother through long days and
nights TO preserve the little life the sun
was burning out. During the past two
weeks the records show that no less than
twenty very young children have died di-
rectly or indirectly because of the intense
heat.
HOT NIGHTS FATAL.
All through the hot summer nights. on al
most any street that one may walk, the
wall of some sick child will echo MOURN
fully, and there is hardly any sound that
contains the same depth of melancholy.
During the day it is not so bad, but through
the long, close night the flame Of life
burns down to q mere spark in these tiny
children. Sleep comes not to the little eyes.
Night after night it is the same until. one
morning, the weary mother finds in her
arms little bundle of clay from which the
spirit has fed. Every doctor knows a little
tragedy of this kind these days. and. al
though the return may contain some scien-
tific term explanatory Of the death, the
doctor knows, and even better than he the
mother, that the heat is the real cause.
Uncomfortable as the day is with the
burning rays of the sun, 1t is probable that
there is more real suffering at night than
any other time. The favored few whose
lives are spent in great houses set in ex-
pansive lawns, on which big trees shiver
in the slightest breeze, who sleep in large.
well-aired rooms, cannot realize the misery
that the summer nights bring thousands in
Indianapolis, or any other city for that
matter. Even in the big apartment houses,
where there are many comforts calculated
TO relieve discomfort, il Is unpleasant
enough after the mercury gets to staying
around the eighties throughout the night;
but IL is in the tenement houses, the close
packed warrens where human beings dwell
like rabbits that real misery comes. With
WnOie ldmliy IN a room or TWO, Will uO
ventilation, little that the fetidness
of the air is not removed, the summer night
often brings death in its course.
A CITY AT NIGHT.
Rudyard Kipling.S who had keen eye for
this very thing. wrote somewhat remark
able sketch almost at the beginning Of his
literary career picturing an Indian city in
the watches Of the night. The white, sheet
ed forms, for all the world like corpses,
stretched on roofs for a try at sleep. the
walls of children, the queer noises of the
hot night, all. with the Hindoo atmosphere
removed, might serve almost for a picture
of Indianapolis between the dark and the
dawn Many people do not care to swelter
ia bed IL there Is any other way To catch
much-needed rest hard floor, comfort
a pillow-these are the elements of a decen,
rest IL a veranda on the second story Il
to be had ii Is all the better Some. per-
haps, have roofs that can be utilized, which
Is ali the better for wooing slumber.
Yesterday the mercury climbed to 90 at
o. M The day was as hot within two de-
xrees as the day before. when the record
Ter the season 90 fax. was mado> TheEl