Dr. Johnson. prophesied in "Rasselas" that when men learnt to fly the first use they would make of their new. discovery would be to exterminate one another.' Even his gifts of provhecy, however, did not ena him to foresee an intimate relation between the new acquirement and that tiny pest of humanity—the ubiquitous mos-quit io. Thus thig latest devglopment inthe use of aeroplanes, we are told, is that of the French hygienic authorities who have decided to wages 2 pitiless war against the mosquitoes which swarm in certain swampy districts of Alsace and Lorraine. In this warfare it is proposed to use machines to spray petrol on the marshes in order to destroy mos-quite larvae. "Well," says the office cynic, an authority on pest war European problems. "it is a moot point as to which of these two uses is the most beneficent."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.