ABOUT THE HOUSE FLY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22388, 29 April 1938, Page 15

ABOUT THE HOUSE FLY

VO TU* BDITOB or m PBES3. Sir,—l abominate that little filthy, pertinacious winged enemy of mankind, the house fly, with a wholehearted hatred. There is not one good thing to be said in its favour. Even Mr Norman Bell, friend of humanity and all living things, will find it hard to champion this universal, all-pervading curse of flies, or if he can point out their service for use or ornament or pleasure, we should like to listen to him. I cannot suggest how the plague can be abolished. I leave that to the scientist; but I do suggest that the annihilation of the house fly—in fact, all flies —presents a field of noble service to tjie man of science, and he who will devise a means or method of exterminating once for all time this age-long annoyance and danger to humanity will attain a higher rank in the realms of science and a more honoured place in the grateful hearts of men and 'women than Pasteur, or Sir Ronald Ross, who conquered the mosquito. For, after all, the mosquito is not universal. The house fly is. What useful purpose do flies serve, or have they ever served? We know them as dirty scavengers, flitting from feasts of filthy garbage into our homes to annoy us with their ceaseless attentions, to disgust us with their fiendish insistence on settling on our food. They are with us at every meal, and in summer time they raid us not singly blit in battalions. And even when meals are over, they continue their pestiferous attentions as wc attempt to rest or read in armchair or on couch. I have been living for some time in a tent in the country, and the experience would have been delightful but for the fly. He was my first visitor, and has remained ever since, and has been joined by his myriad relations, every one of them ■ as detestable as himself. One day I hung up one of those paper fly-catchers. Next morning I counted my catch —315 flies —and they seem to be as numerous as ever. I recall a story of some profound German scientist who was once descanting on the errors made in the Creation “Why,” said an indignant and protesting Christian, “I believe you think you could have done the work of Creation better yourself. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that, said the scientist, “but if I’d been there I could have given many good hints. And I think he would have suggested the non-creation of the pernicious house fly and earned the approval of subsequent suffering humanity.—Yours, etc S.M. April 26. 1938.