I have quoted largely from this important paper, and now propose to quote a good deal more, and thus I append Dr. Conyers Morrell’s conclusion of the important experiments he conducted on the Union Castle liner.
The foregoing experiments, though insufficient in number to afford a basis for working out percentage results, are, I think, of some value, in that they prove the following facts:—
The common cockroach is able by contamination with its faeces (1) to bring about the souring of milk; (2) to infect food and milk with intestinal bacilli; (3) to transmit the tubercle bacillus; (4) to disseminate pathogenic staphylococci; (5) to transmit from place to place destructive moulds.
These facts, taken in conjunction with the life-habits of the insect, lead to the conclusion that the cockroach is able to and may possibly play a small part in the dissemination of tuberculosis, and in the transmission of pyogenic organisms; that the insect is in all probability an active agent in the souring of milk kept in kitchens and larders; and that it is undoubtedly a very important factor in the distribution of moulds to food and to numerous other articles, especially when they are kept in dark cupboards and cellars where cockroaches abound. The distribution and numbers of the cockroach are rapidly increasing, and unless preventive measures are adopted the insect is likely in the course of time to become a very troublesome and possibly a very dangerous domestic pest.[3]
CHAPTER III
THE BOT- OR WARBLE-FLY (Hypoderma)
Apropos de bottes.—(Reynard.)
Britain wants many materials in this war, and as long as our back door is open we are getting them. Petrol, rubber, zinc, copper, molybdenum, vanadium, thorium, nickel, saltpetre, wool, cotton, are all coming to us in greater—immeasurably greater—quantities than those in which they can filter through neutral countries into Germany. These things count. The shortage of leeches in Great Britain, on which I have already dwelt, is negligible, and is entirely over-balanced by the really serious shortage of sausage-skins in middle Europe. I am told that our meat-salesmen at Smithfield were offered an incredible advance on the normal rate for these products—so-very-necessary-and-under-no-circumstances-to-be-done-without-with-casements—but the meat-salesmen at Smithfield were patriots. In their dire extremity the Germans have been trying to make them of cellulose.
Amongst the things both combatants most want is leather. One of the most impressive efforts we non-combatants have been watching, since August 1914, is an army growing, near us and next us, with apparently an unlimited supply of leather belts, leather trappings, leather saddlery—leather harness for man and beast. Yet they tell me that the price of leather since the War began has appreciated by 140 per cent. This may be so; but, as Joseph Finsbury remarked in ‘The Wrong Box,’ ‘there is nothing in the whole field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid.’ But Joseph was no business-man, and kept in the background of the office a capable Scot who was understood to have a certain talent for book-keeping. Readers of Stevenson will remember that nobody had ever made money out of Finsbury Brothers, Leather-merchants, except the capable Scot who retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff, and built a castle with his profits. There are still many capable Scots about, and this may, to some extent, account for the present price of Sam Browne belts.
There must have been well over 150,000 Sam Browne belts made since the War began. A widespread belief—at any rate, amongst the junior members of the Army—is that Sam Browne was an American; possibly some slight confusion existed in their dear young minds between the inventor of the belt and John Brown whose ‘body lies,’ &c. The inventor of this useful cincture was, however, Sir Samuel James Browne (1824-1901), G.C.B., K.C.S.I., the well-known Indian fighter, who lost an arm, and gained a V.C. by his gallantry during the Mutiny. He was for a time the military member of the Governor-General’s Council, and he commanded the first division of the Peshawar Field Force during the Afghan War of 1878-9. The 22nd Regiment in the Indian Army, a frontier force, is known as Sam Browne’s Cavalry.
The belt was first used unofficially, but it gradually found favour with the authorities, and it is mentioned officially in the regulations drawn up for the Straits Settlements in 1891, and for Egypt and West Africa in 1894. It was only on April 24, 1900, that the pattern was ‘sealed,’ and adopted as a general item of equipment for all officers on Active Service.