The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1909-06-17
Some Mosquitoes.

nlCleQ Dy prague Ol mosquitoes !,
and, since we do not possess in our
midst the particular Moses to raise
his rod and smite them to the ex-
tent of determination, they are
shifting our people, irrespective of
creed, color, or race, very hard.
lust now we abound in all of the
species known to the entomology
cal department of our national
government, principally the culex
solicitaus, the anopheles malarial-
atum, the stegomyia fasciata, and
the stick-my-ear and stick-me-else-
where, with the stick-me-elsewhere
very largely predominating.
Unless they are specially desired
for making our delightful town
more lively in the good old sum-
mer times, some public means
should be taken to eradicate them
or they should be utilized for
boring into the ground for pros
pective petroleum-wells instead of
boring into our bodies for the un-
profitable extraction of blood and
profanity.
Our underground cisterns and
above-ground tanks should be oiled
or screened, or both, without ex-
ception or privilege. Our wash
ladies' water barrels should be dis
earded and condemned Our
empty bottles and jugs, of the good
old wet days gone by, should all
be held once more with their bot
toms skyward TO discover if rain
water has not partly replaced the
departed spirits that used to cheer
large and inebriate small por-
ton of our populace.
The grading of the town cutters,
drains and bitches appears to be
well attended to and all right. We
have no more -wallows and
ooose.Donds in our midst. There
is nothing of which to complain in
our much-abused bath-tub drain
age. Because the fluid thus used
would most likely have fatal ef-
fects on mosquitoes in their infan-
tile form instead of carrying them
safely through the perlls of early
childhood and developing them in
to wicked-bilIed, light-winged gut
tersnipes to prey upon a peace
loving community.
This plague must originate from
some discoverable cause and our
municipal government and most
gifted local scientists should all
get busy and discover it. When
the causes are found, as there are
doubtless more than one, the prop
er public and philanthropic efforts
should be made to remove them,
that their effects may be avoided
and their consequences extirpated.
This mosquito problem is not
only a physical question but a
psychic issue and a religious con-
sideration. Psychic because the
minds of our foremost commercial
and professional men cannot work
to their maximum advantage when
their bodies are being continually
presented and punctured with
hated and venomous bills to dis
tract them with the miseres of
mundate affairs. Religious, be-
cause, in falling like the rain on
the just and the unjust alike, these
myriads of mosquitoes come in d.
rect conflict with the proper spirit
ual frame of mind. Among the
most hardened sinners they incul-
cate the wicked belief that Satan
had more of a hand in the creation
of torments in this world than he
will have in those of the next.
They interrupt the pious medita-
tons of the devout over the excel
lent sermons they heard on the
Sabbath for all the days andnights
of the week and sometimes cause
IN the meekest among US careless
expressions in language entirely
unfit for publication.
| Domestically, Commercially,