The Hawaiian gazette., 1908-09-11
Ralph Bergensron in Boston Transcript.

nature and prolongation treated New
York to q plague that nearly reached
serious proportions. New Jersey has
long been conducting a pattern cam
paign against the mosquito, by draining
her swamps and "meadows. +" Staten
Island had been declared cleared of the
pest. Yet recently New York was in
undated with swarms of mosquitoes.
They made night impossible; by day
they stopped busy New Workers, in
curiosity at the remarkable numerous
ness of their swarms. Their presence
was everywhere a serious embarrass-
ment, but the embarrassment became
alarming at their invasion of the hos
pitfalls.
The wise ones promptly proclaimed
them of the harmless variety, so far
as concerned their capacity to bring
and spread disease. In the end annoy
ance was all they brought. Yet, be-
tween slaps and scratches New York
wondered whence they came. Was it
by way of the new North River tun-
nels, from New Jersey7 asked the
humorst. But strong and a long
southeast wind brought them from the
salt marshes of Long Island. the neg
lected spot in the metropolitan fight
against the insect
The incident ended in a passing joke,
yet it might have had calamitous
side, and it was productive of several
SOLDERING consideration. Will the ex-
termination of the mosquito ever be
accomplished! The outlook is not the
most cheerful one, and it gathers no
cheer from the surprising past of the
campaign. 1t would probably astonish
most people to learn that that record
is best set forth in the files of the
patent office. The Pilgrims themselves
must have begun the battle, but it does
well enough to begin with the patent
annals. And they make an amusing
commentary on the absurd. the frantic
and the discouragingly futile efforts of
mankind to be rid of these persistent
insect pests.
Since the beginning of the century
Invention although still alive is visibly
losing interest. Mosquito inventions,
as recorded in the somewhat stiff and
: unpicturesque phraseology of the Pat
, ent Office, divide themselves into two
!. kinds, passive and aggressive. One
may elect to hide from the mosquito,
to shut ones self away from her in
the doubtful security of the screened
room or mosquito netted bedstead; or
, one may advance to the combat like
Goliath against David but without Co.
liath's comforting sense of prestige
and self-importance. Even from the
beginning the inventors have evidently
doubted the ability of the average man
to kill the average mosquito with any
weapon whatever, and as we all know,
slapping at mosquito is usually taken
as kind of applause and encourages
!, the creature to further effort. Among
, all the mosquito inventions of the last
century hardly more than half dozen
attempts to kill the mosquito, and only
one, so far as moderately careful search
can discover, insults its intelligence by
} trying to take it in trap. Even the
idea of making sticky man for this
purpose has been sadly neglected. What
is even more curious, the aggressive
and deadly inventions are contributions
of the female intellect. 1t has taken
an Ida or an Elizabeth to attack the
, mosquito as burglar attacks the I'M
suspecting householder, and it is the
mind of woman that conceived the
revengefnl notion of capturing them
alive and drowning them afterward.
But what wonders these inventors
accomplished in nets and bars! They
have evolved MEETINGS that hang from
the ceilings, that project from the
walls, that are part of the bed, that
defy the mosquito by night and sup
port the pillow sham by day, that can
be put over the bed like a dish cover.
40 4 Al. n
hours, round and round the sleeper I'M
til even the mosquito gets dizzy and
r gives up trying to penetrate the mirac-
ulous obstacle. Then, too, there was
mosquito netting that shut up or
opened like an umbrella; you pulled a
cord at night and its folds descended
about you; you released the cord in
) the morning and the netting folded it
, self up in jiffy-and if for any rea.
son you tired of it as a protection
against mosquitoes, you could cover the
frame with some other material and
use it for a carriage umbrella. Or,
? again, there was the mosquito bar that
was also clothes dryer. In the mat
ter of screens, there was somewhat less
variety, but as for minor improvements
they were fguratively as the sands of
! small beach, and each inventor was
happy in the belief that his fellow
citizens were at last protected from
an insidious and resourceful enemy. A
century of such labor might be expect
ed to exhaust all possible variations
| in the cart and practice" of hanging
nets and screening windows. But even
now an occasional inventor appears
with a new invention, although there
now is but one such invention a year
where there were once from two or
, three to a dozen.
There was splendid and typical OPP
timism in the gentleman from Newark,
N. J., who wrote in his specifications:
81 have, therefore, in a simple man
: ner secured very important object,
i viz, the protection of the face from
the mosquitoes, with no annoyance to
the wearer, and with trifing expense -
; But it was optimism marching to dis
appointment. Nothing has ever com
pletely succeeded against the mos.
quito, not even the killers invented nv