New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-13
Mother Goose Is Rewritten This Time
to Hill the Fly While Vet He's Scarce
Every Rhyme Leads to the Same Deadly
Moral to Impress Housewife and
Child, and Safeguard Our Health.
Il IS which Is rewritten the moral !.
KILL THE FLY.

KILL THE FLY.
There are times when the Board
OF Health considers other things OF
Importance beside the hy, but just now
It's one object Is to rid the state, so
far as possible, of the fly. That every
body, from the grandmother to the
baby, shall take part in this work, the
little verses have been rewritten. For
instance, Il the grandmother is Groom
ing to the baby she must not do any
thing so banal as to invite the baby's
attention to the fly, as she used to.
No, indeed, Instead, she must sing 1t
this way:
Baby-bye, here's a fly,
Let US swat him, you and l.
/ Just at first II seems rather a blood
! thirsty doctrine 20 be teaching an
innocent baby, but Dr. c. +. A. Wins
low, who is director OF the educational
work of the State Board of Health,
Is of the opinion that II q choice Is
TO be made between the bsby's life
and the fy's, II is best TO sacrifice the
fy's. Probably everybody will agree to
that, and after one has listened to DR..
Winslow and seen some Of the pictures
which he Is using in his educational
work one is willing to agree that per-
haps the fy's Importance as murderer
has been underestimate all these
years.
If a child Is Of . pessimistic nature,
one of the jingles may depress him.
IL tells In the first stanza Of ten little
flies and Of there being only nine sitter
one got swat" The stsnzas go on
telling Of the swats given each fly,
until the last ones read:
Four little flies,
Colored green-blue,
Swat (Ain't it easy,
Then there were two.
Two little flies
Dodged the civilian,
Early next day
There were a million.
Now, q reasoning chile might figure
IL out that there wasn't much use in
working to kill the flies if two could |
multiply like that. Because what lit
Ito boy or girl could hope to kill q
million flies? But, on the 9th hand, |
1t is just that matter of the way in .
which flies multiply that the Board Of
Health wishes to impress upon the
children.
Organize Children to Fight Files.
zone of the things which We are /
trying to do this year." said DR.. Wins
low, sis to organize the Boys Health .
League. OF course, the league, which .
will be similar to the Little Mothers
League, will do other things besides
fight flies, but it Is so important to
get rid Of the flies we are laying in
sistence on that feature Of the work. /
The children grow very much inter- /
ested in this work, if it is put before
them in the right light.
1--WE have little chart which shows .
the way flies multiply. On April II .
there are only two flies. By May 2
there are 100. BY May 20 there are
1900. But that figure seems as moth /
ing compared to the grand total on /
September 5, when there are 6,598, $780, |
100000. II isn't much wonder that |
boy looks at that and says 'Whew!' is .
til
"The poster OF the fly lowering over |
the baby's crib, with skulls on its legs, |
which Mrs. Pierre Jay Wurts, Of Engle- |
wood, drew and sent to US we consider /
so good that we are having it repro |
duced TO use in this campaign against
the fly.
at wasn't, you know, until the Span |
ish-American War that our people be- !
gan 10 realize what menace the hy Is. /
IL had always been looked upon as q
necessary evil. II was not considered
as anything worse than q nuisance. /
That 1t literally carried death where
1t went seemed a humorous idea to
many people at first. But the idea .
isn't considered humorous any more.
Last summer the Association for |
Improving the Condition of the Poor !