To the Editor of the "Norta-Cuina Dairy News."
Sirn,—The furore created by the possible destruction of a few trees in the Public Garden is merely proof of what a. little advertising can do. Certainly not one in a hundred people here had ever heard of the trees till they were so well advertised, and it is doubtful whether the remaining one in a hundred would ever have missed them. All of which leads one to wonder why such effort is not directed towards very materially improving the health and comfort of the neglected ninety-nine by starting a campaign for the destruction of the mosquito.
In your leader yesterday you quoted Confucius as - saying "You cannot decorate a mud wall." That, it seems to most of us, is just what is being done in Shanghai. From one to two lakhs are annually spent on public gardens, monkey houses, parks and the band—all very _acceptable in their way, amenities which no one who fails to make use of begrudges those who do—while a miserable Tls. 8,500 is spent on mosquito prevention. A referendum of Shanghai would show—almost certainly that the band and the gardens would both be permitted to go West if only they would take the mosquito with them.
Were there any possible doubt that the mosquito could be exterminated, such indifference as exists at present might be excused. But on the contrary, there is no possible doubt. The worst mosquito ridden districts have been cleared of the pest by the simplest means—efficient drainage and the destuction or control of breeding places.
We read of the oil running to waste on the Huangpu and __polluting the drinking water we use. The writer has seen it more than an inch thick in the neighbourhood of oil-burning vessels in the harbour. Barrels of it could be salved, but it is cheap anyway and is all that is needed, with foreign supervision, to prevent any further breeding of Mosquitoes. Sprayed on the many ponds and stagnant creeks in the International and French Settlements, especially on the French side, and combined with the destruction of smaller breeding places, it would finish off the mosquito pest in a season. If would, moreover, make all the ditference between a liveable Shanghai and a Chinese city in which life in summer becomes a burden.
Set against the physical and mental ill-health for which the mosquito is responsible, the great amount of money that must be spent on mosquito-proofing houses to make them habitable, and the hospital and holiday expenses that would be saved, no expense would be too great, no measure of pre. vention too harsh to stamp out the pest which, unless something done, we shall have to endure as best we may till the cold weather sets in again.
Some of your correspondents: in the great magnolia tree molehill have called the ratepayers "'indolent noodles," with others 4
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.