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Show .. aMi,a,gi k -- i i t THE TOWN DOCTOR I (The Doctor of Towns) ' " taya " " ' """ " i IIAS (YOUR TOWN A HOLE IN ITS HEEL? How do you feel today the man who wears good clothes, keeps his ehoes shined and his hat cleaned, hut always on whose abdominal covering, cov-ering, there is conspicuous evidence of many a slip between the cup and the lip; who always needs a shave, aud for the years that you have known him never has had a manicure? mani-cure? What is your reaction when you n. ladv walking down the er such thing3 of repulsion are to a community what a soup-stained vest or a heelless stocking is to otherwise well-dressed people. I know a town where, seven years ago, a store building in the heart of an attractive business district was gutted by fire. Weeds grow rampant through the brickbats within the confines con-fines of- still-stajiding, smutted, charred char-red half-walls. Several years ago a school building build-ing surrounded by fine homes was condemned and abandoned. It still stands, dark and gruesome, its hrok- Btreet all dressed up in the finest raiment, with a hole in her heel? And what would you think if you saw this same lady every day for a week, and every time that you saw her there was the same hole in the same hoel of the same hose? Whatever your reaction to such people, it is sure that you are not attracted to them. It is certain that contact with them doe not AH you with joy and pleasure, nor create a desire to be toUmately associated with them. in people such is called slovenlinessor slovenli-nessor perhaps you have a better word for it; in communities it is "op- presslve ugliness". Vacant store rooms with dirty, placarded and mess ed-up windows; broken, cob-webbed and paper-stuffed second story windows win-dows in the business district; vacant lots overgrown with' weeds, cluttered with all sorts of rubbish and refuse; 1 vacant houses with tumble-down buildings; dirty streets, highway entrances en-trances littered with nondescript road signs; open city dumps and th en windows and rotted doorways! yawning ghost-like, from under sagging sagg-ing roof and mildewed walls. The city hall, of a town I know was destroyed by storm some time ago. What was the basement of this building is now a. catch-all a dumping dump-ing ground for street sweepings, tin cans, 'unk and corruption a rodents' paradise of filth and hogwash in plain view of every passerby. As you are affected by slovenliness In people, just so are the potential residential, commercial and industrial indust-rial customers of your community affected by "oppressive ugliness". Don't tolerate abominations that create "oppressive ugliness". They can be eliminated and it's your business busi-ness and the business of every other citizen to see to it that they are eliminated, because it's costing yon money by driving business out of your city and keeping new business and new people from coming in. Copyright, 1929, A. D. Stone. Reproduction Re-production prohibited in whole or in part. This Town Doctor Article is published pub-lished by this paper in cooperation wit hthe local Lions Club. o |