The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-12

IA NAN Is supposed to be the highest MI type of animal created by God 4V4 Yet cleanliness is acknowledged to be the attribute next to godliness.
 In case this latter assertion is accepted, the first supposition must fall to earth. Man is taken in his primitive state and studied in the aggregate, the most un- clean of all animals.
 It requires civilization, education and prosperity to arouse in man an apprecia- ton of cleanliness.
 But the same, is not true of animals. The wild beasts and fowls keep their bodies clean and move from lair and nest in search of neat home conditions. No mother animal or bird on earth will allow her young to lie in soiled beds or will permit the helpless creatures to suf- fer from unelean fur or feathers.
 The bear. the wolf, the dog, the cat. all carry their babies to fresh places when the old ones become unhygienic and spend hours in washing their children with no sponge but the tongue. The horse IS miserable when he is covered with dust and mud, and he rolls violently on the earth to cleanse himself the moment he Is allowed the opportunity.
 The pig alone seems as indoient and ! as filthy man.
 Yet even the wild hog is cleaner than the wild man.
 The aboriginal tribes of human beings have never shown the ambition to combat dirt which all wild animals show, and one has but to visit the tents of the American Indian and the huts of the American or Jamaican negroes to see how little the influence of civilization has af- fected these races in making them bathe their bodies or wash their clothes or scrub their homes.
 And in most foreign lands the filthy conditions of the masses is appalling.
 If cleanliness is next to godliness, it seems to me there are just four countries on earth that are approaching godliness.
 These countries are (named with due respect to the precedence Of age) Ger many, Holland, England and America Wherever English or American rule IS founded in southern or Oriental countries there is a vast improvement in the ap- pearanc of the streets. hotels and the peo- pie who are under the influence Of the new regime.
 saw Cuba before the Spanish-Ameri can war. It was dirty, unhygienic and devoured with fever.
 saw it four years after the war, when that great good man and martyr, Colo mel Waring, had given his life to cleansing the city of Havana and teaching It's people how to be clean, and the trans formation was beyond belief.
 Cairo, Egypt, is underkoing similar transformation under English rule. Just as England is slower than America in all 1t does, so the transformation In Egypt is slower than that in Cuba, but 1t is steady and sure.
 The dirt in Cairo is still unspeakable; the filth of the streets of "Old Cairo and the filth of the persons who compose "Old Cairo, is impossible to imagine or de- scribe. It must be seen-and smelt!
 Yet I am assured by resident natives that is a state bordering on Paradise compared to what 1t was forty years ago. or even fifteen or ten years ago.
 But England ought to organize a great society of medical people, men and wo- men, doctors and nurses, who speak the Arabic language, and station them in Cairo.
 Their work should be to teach mothers how to leeb their children from becoming blind.
 The awful preponderance of blind or half blind people in Egypt is appalling. I counted ten people with one or both eyes diseased in a drive of live minutes one morning.
 And the whole cause Is dirt with ignor- ance and superstition added. I saw moth CTS carrying dirty-faced babies through the streets and making no enort to brush away the vicious flies. that swarmed about the eyes and mouth of the poor infants. Added to this, a brisk wind was blowing fine particles of sand; and one can ina zine the results upon weak and unframed eyes. maccustomed to ablutions of soft, cleansing water.
 Men lying on the ground in squares Of the city, or beside the walls, taking siesta, permit swarms or flies to buzz about and rest on their besmirched faces without a protest.
 It is difficult to reach the Arab women. They are guarded by the men from Flu ropean intrusion. Even the Coptics, the descendants of the first Egyptians who came under Christian influence veil their women from public gaze and keep them from the world as much as possible. i All this means delayed development, de- layed progress for the race Wherever and whenever women are prevented from keeping step with the march of the world and allowed no opportunities for knowledge and education there and then the human family is retarded and wronged.
 I do not ask that all religion and creeds should give way to our religion or creed in order that the world be saved.
 believe the earnest praying, devout Mahonedans. Buddists or Jews. who live r'- near the truth as they can under