The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-12-21

ried. They are never cleaned or dis
ken or the skins burst asunder thru
mingled foulness and old age. The
major portion of the water drunk
consumers In this fashion. and emil
nent scientists have shown time and
again that when once the germ Of
some disease has secured footholG
in the shiny interior of mussack or
OF an earthenware Jar It will infect
successive charges of water, no mat
ter how pure the source Of the lat
ter supply.
But the latter seldom is pure, for
the native water carrier, unable to
understand our prejudices about the
matter, in nine cases out OF ten Nils
his Jars and h is bags from the near
est tank or pool, no matter how pol
luted.
Then there is the question OF per-
sonal cleanliness and that OF the
houses. One finds the most majestic
Of mosques and temples, the most ex-
quisite and fairy-like Of palaces thru
out the east, defiled by the most filthy
denominations, which apparently Of
fend neither the olfactory nerves OF
the natives nor yet their sense or
proprlety and cleanliness. The houses
of the affuent and the huts of the
poor have each their own domestic
heaps of offal sometimes alongside,
sometimes beneath the raised floor,
which are never removed, but kept
ripe by daily additions and by the
constant rootings of the pariah dogs,
the yuItures, the razor-backed hogs
and the other members OF the BEAST
and bird creation that attend to scav-
enger duty in the orient. The mar
kets. too. are great breeding
ground for epidemics, and in the Phil
ippines riots were almost precipitated
in various towns and villages by the
insistence on the part Of the Amer1-
can authorities that the accumula-
tons Of centuries of rotting fish,
meat, vegetables and fruit matter
should be carted away and DESTROYED,
and the various market booths burnt
before any further buying and selling
was allowed there.
Fire is g favorite agent OF pur1Hca-
ton employed by the white man IN
the orient, one, too, that is used with
a ruthless hand, especially during the
visitations of the cholera and OF the
plague, and has served to intensity the
hatred with which, in spite of all
that is said to the contrary, the for
eigner is regarded by the Asiatic. Con-
WINGED that the dirty conditions OF the
native dwellings were responsible Tor
much Of the spread Of the disease, the
torch has been freely applied to them!
| But it has proved Of no use. For
experience has shown, among other
places quite recently at Hongkong,
that the inhabitants Of the houses
! which had been destroyed by the
health authorities had carried into
their newly constructed abodes the
injection of the plague by means OF
| insects harbored on their persons and
in their clothes. Fleas, in fact, are
pronounced responsible for the lat
est outbreak of the plague in native
quarters that had been carefully dis
! infected and pronounced wholly free
from contagion.
This shows that clothes-in the case
Of the oriental-are almost as dis
| astrous in the spread Of disease as Is
water. Some natives, who invariably
wear the cleanest raiment, will never
wash, while others, who perform nu'
merous daily additions, insist on re-
Stunning and wearing their clothes
especially those concealed from view
until they are infested with vernir
and drop to pieces from old age. lT
! the end the result is the same. and
unfortunately, the white man in the
east finds himself obliged by his sense
of propriety to insist upon the use o.
clothes, his prejudices on the score
Of decency manifestly predominatins
over sanitary considerations .r