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Show A REPROACH. . j i There have been more diphtheria and i scarlet fever in this city during the past eight months than through any preceeding eight months since the sprinkling of the streets was generally established. There . must have been a cause for this. Of course many people have not been carefuLto keep their premises clean, but this is not any new . thing. Our belief is that the real cause is the carelessness of people who attend upon the sick and in the same clothing go about town, ride in the street cars and mingle with the crowds in the stores on bargain days, at matinees, etc. There is no other apparent reason for the persistent continuance of these diseases. Some people are thought less, some careless; thousands of people in flfl this city are indifferent, other thousands are D as much fatalists as are the stolid men of HI the Orient, who are ready to ascribe every- HI thing to Allah's will and then exclaiming jH "Blessed be Allah," leave events to drift. Wk There is no help for this except in a closer HI quarantine and in constant reminders to the HI people of the danger of carelessness and in- Bf difference. It ought to be mixed with the HI sermons and made a part of the Sunday HI School lessons. IBl It is not long since the American army IK took the direction of affairs in Cuba. Every '81 town was a fortress in which the pestilence 9. had been so long entrenched that its pre- S ' sence had been accepted as a matter of 9 course. The cities had become a terror to 9 the cities of our own southern coast. Today H those same cities are more healthy than our 9j own. H All that was done was to thoroughly clean M and disinfect those Cuban cities, keep them H clean and, where possible, to give the people HI a pure water supply. ;H With that example before us it is not only E shameful but wicked that diphtheria and H scarlet fever rage month after month with- H out abatement here, where the natural con- H ditions are the healthiest in the world. H |