Evening star., 1923-04-11
CAPITAL KEYNOTES
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS

"A stitch In time saves nine" That
Is a poor rhyme, and worse illustra-
ton of the Importance of timeliness
XIII a fly today, or enough in two
months from now to balance a horse.
That teaches forehandedness better
than the stitch. A pair Of flies, or
even one female, will increase and
multiply SO fast that in two months
Its progeny will weigh as much as
the largest Percheron stallion ever
imported into America Think of
going out and butchering a prime
bull on Memorial day as a penalty
OF having neglected to swat the lit
tie fly which perched on the screen
this morning!
Imagine bear escaping from the
Zoo. and tearing down the street
where your baby isgetting it's air
ing. Or a cage Of snakes broken
open Ugh! Don't talk about such
Unpleasant things; they make ones
little fly. which, with it's progeny. in
1orty days weighs $40 pounds 1t
carries typhoid germs and various
other diseases in, Its hairy legs and
takes takes delight IN inocmating the
flesh, or in the flesh Of any other per-
son. especially where the skin hap
pens to be broken. Think of prowl-
ing animal weighing 500 to 1000
pounds wandering through your
nome, or your streets. and seeking
opportunities to poison human beings.
You would seek your gun or call out
| the militia.
*A x K
1t Is said that everything is made
for some purpose. 1t would be hard
to discover what useful purpose the
house fly serves. Yet it grows in
weight faster than any quadruped.
If a stock raiser could produce pork
or peer or mutton as rapidly as the
ny increases in weight. he would be-
come a millionaire in one season.
Every animal or bird or insect has
| its own special enemies. why does
| not some scientist discover a para
site Of the house fly which would an
| nihilate it? The trees Of America
| were infested with insects, until sci
| entists imported the English sparrow
! because it would feed on the insects.
1t did, but 1t fought off other birds,
| which also destroyed Objectionable in
| sects, and SO the evil outweighs the
| good.
Scale infested the fruit trees of
! California until men brought over
| from Asia some ladybugs, which ate
up the scale. but then the ladybugs
| began to starve to death after all the
! scale had been devoured, SO men had
/ to reproduce the scale to feed their
/ !adybugs to eat the excess scale, as
1t returned.
We cannot get along without the
insects, but we need to know how TO
| control their excesses. Where is the
parasite of the house fly? 1t is a lot
of bother to man the swatter.
The fly incubates in piles of filth
| superseded by the automobile, we
would find the fly disappearing. But
never so long as one fly grows to out
! weigh horse inside of two months,
unless We discover a deadly fly para
| site, which We can breed and turn
loose. will the fly cease to be a men
ace, more dangerous than snakes.
Now and then. as recently" says
the noted flctionist. Mrs Mary Rob.
| erts Rinehart, some representative
OF the people comes to Washington
without evening clothes. and declares
he will not get any. He receives
front-page advertising as result
| but Washington does not even known
he is here
There is a vast stretch between the
narrowness of the provincial and the
inarrowness of the snob. One is quite
as narrow as the other. The oddities
of the provincial are his pride, be-
cause he believes they set him apart
| a
.champion of the "peepul." There car
be every whit as much vanity in &
long, unkempt beard, or in wooder
shoes, as there may be in a diamond
ring or gold lorgnette. There car
also be genuine worth in the freak
just as there may be in the conserva,
tive.
! X X X
Probably there never was an oddel
isnecimen of the gentleman than Ben.