The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-07-28
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THIS is FLY TIME.
~~~~~~%~~>>>>A
Claude L'Engle's Dixie.

When the Persians, under Xerxes.
invaded Greece, the scouting party
sent out by the Grecian generals came
back and said that they could not
count them. Yet Xerxes's army. count
less as it was, looked like a crowd
hanging about a primary polling place
after the votes had been counted. in
comparison with the progeny of one
female fly with luck on her side. be-
ginning in the spring and ending in
the autumn.
Scientific observation has shown
that one female fly may. during the
summer months, be the progenitor of
5,3l2, 100000 flies. The statistician
has shown that allowing a million flies
to the bushel, these fly children of one
mother would fill 95,000.00O bushels
with a few wagon loads thrown in for
good measure. Some people say that
all of this number do not survive, but
these are not the people who sit out on
the front porch in the middle of a
summer day where there are no
screens, attempting to engage in the
pleasant process of eating strawber-
ries and cream with plenty of sugar.
For its size, the house fly carries
more disease germs than any other
created thing known to science. Ex-
periments conducted at we'll equipped
stations have shown that a single fly
can carry 100000 germs and that in
one walk across a gelatine plate a fly
terra.
These facts, discovered in compare
lively recent years, are what have led
to the universal war on the fly.
Have you ever seen a fly washing its
hands? Certainly you have. Every
body has. A fly washes it's hands for
the same reason that humans do. An
nfh 81
why fly washes it's hands, showed
| that specimen just like all the rest
was caught in a sterilized net and
| dropped into a bottle of sterilized wa
| ter, shaken so as to get a Turkish
| bath and rub down. The water ex-
amined afterwards showed more than
| 100000 germs.
The best way to get rid Of flies is to
go direct to the source of fly supply,
which, summed up, means keeping
your premises clean and complaining
about your neighbours if they don't do
| likewise. No recipe, however, has
| proven simple enough and certain
enough to get rid of the flies. The
next best thing is to keep them out of
the house and thus escape the deadly
consequences of their germ spreading
procilivities.
Here are a few simple recipes which
are recommended as first aids to fly
radiance:
Fly paper is good like hare stew;
you've first got to catch your fly.
| Pyrethrum powder burnt in a house
stupefles the flies so they may be
swept up with a broom. Morning is
the best time for the burning.
Twenty drops of carbolic acid on a
hot shovel makes a vapor that kills
flies.
| Mignonette and white clover. known
to childhood's happy hours, hung in a
room makes life so disagreeable to flies
| that they will escape if you let them.
| All of these things are good, but the
| best of all considering all the disad-
vantages is a solution Of formalin-a
| spoonful in a quarter of a pint of wa
| ter-left exposed in the room. This
will kill all the flies in it. 1t is mighty
disagreeable to all other forms of life
that may inhabit the room, including
of course, the human inhabitants, but
keep out of it until you get the flies
and then pick out another room.
This editorial may be considered ''toc
fly by those who are terrified at the
uncontrolled tendency Of the whole
governmental system to go to the bow
lwows and who, therefore, wonder why
500 much space is used for fly tall
when the trusts are still pursuing u:
but this is fly time and as the sum-
mer progresses heat and the flies are
going to get worse and I like to tall
about timely topics.
| l will tend to those terrible thing:
that are happening to our government
and to our country, state, county anC
city all right, there being plenty OF
time to do it in, and very little com
petition.