"The Old Oaken Bucket."

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2159, 11 July 1895, Page 49

"The Old Oaken Bucket."

AS HEVISED AND EDITED BY "A SANITARIAN." With, what anguish of mind 1 remember my child* hood, .Recalled in the light of a knowledge sine* gamed — The malarious farm, the wet, fungus grown wild* wood, The chills then contracted that since have r«msuued ; The scum-covered duck pond, the pigsty close by ' it, The ditch where the sour-smelling house-drain* age fell, Tho damp, shaded dwelling, the foul barnyard nigh it. But more than all else was that terrible well, And the old oaken' bucket, the mould-crusted bucket, The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well. . Juet think of it ! Moss on the vessel that lifted The water I drank in the days < ailed to mind, Ere I knew what professors and scientists gifted la the water of wells by analysis fiud. The rotting wood fibre, the acicU of iron, The algal, the frog of unusual size ; The water, impure as the verst-s of Byron, Are things I remember with teai s in my eyes. I And to tell the sad truth. — tho' I shudder to tell it — I considered that water uncommonly clear ; And often at noon, when I vrent there to drink j it, I enjoyed it as much as I now enjoy beer. i How ardently I seized it with hands that were grimy,/ And quick to the mud-covered bottom it fell 1 Then, reeking with nitrates, and nitrites, and Blimy With matter organic, it rose from the well. Oh, had I but realued, in time to avoid them, The dangers that lurked in thut pestilent draught, I'd- have tested for organic germs, and destroyed them With poUsaic permanganate ere I had quaffed. Or, perchance, I'd have boiled it, and afterward* ! strained it Thro' filters of charcoal and gravel combined ; Or, after distilling, condensed and regained it In portable form, with its filth left behind. For little I knew of the dread typhoid faver Which lurked in tha water I Veutured to drink ; But since I've become a .devoted believer In the teachings of science, I shudder to think. And now, far removed from the scenes I'm de* scribing, The story, for warning, to others I tell, As mem'ry reverts to "my youthful imbibing I gag at the thought of that horrible well, And the old oaken bucket, the fungus-grown ■ bucketIn fact the slop-bucket— that hung in the welL J. C. Bayles.

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