Baby Week Sees the
Destruction of Many Flies
“Into one home which I visited last week, and which was my
first visit to that house, flies were swarming like bees. I studied to myself
how to bring up the fly subject without making the housekeeper mad. Finally,
she went out of the room for a little while and I offered the two little boys
10 cents for 100 flies swatted in the room. They started with a rush, and after
killing the flies and listening to my talk of the danger of flies and how they
breed and grow, they went out and brought in switches and we all went to work
driving out the pests. After this we swept the floor and when the housekeeper
came back she looked around, and missing the flies, she said “My, but you’ve
run out all the flies, but they will come back quick enough.”
However, we all, the woman included, went to work, beating
them out, placing fly paper about, and the next day I took mosquito netting out
and placed it over the windows. There is a sick child in this house, and I
begin to think that perhaps they will give him a chance to get well.”
This from a letter from one of the volunteer workers for
Baby Week, which was generally observed in North Carolina.
In one community in Wayne county 12 families joined in
buying wire at wholesale to screen their homes, the men in the families doing
the work. This piece of work was the direct result of the war waged on flies by
school children, suggested by the Bureau of Infant Hygiene of the State Board
of Health.
At another place, in Martin county, a little girl secured
the prize of $1 offered by the Welfare worker for swatting flies in a screened
house. She has 18,700 flies to her credit.
Kathleen Smith and Herman Baker, pupils of the Caraleigh
School, each won $1.50 for leading in the fly swatting contest in Wake county.
One of the pupils in the colored schools of Wake county announced that he had
swatted lots of flies but he did not want a prize for it for fear people would
think his home was “nasty.”
It does not follow that a house shall be unclean if there is
an open back privy and uncovered garbage pail or stable within 300 feet of the
residence.
Every precaution must be taken to get rid of the flies at
this time as every week they are increasing and deadliness to humanity.
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