Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1896 — DIRTIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH. [ARTICLE]

DIRTIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH.

Recently Discovered by an Explorei in the Caucasus Mountains. The dirtiest people in the world have recently been discovered by an explorer in the Caucasus. They live in an inaccessible mountain range between the Black Sea and the Caspian, their villages being so snugly hidden away that no government lias yet been able to reach them. As they were 2.500 years ago so they are to this day. Seen from without there is a certain picturesqueness about a Syanetian vil lage, although it merely consists of mis erable stone hovels, without any attempt at form or adornment. Within, however, the houses are inconceivably filthy. They are filled with rags, ver-1 min and dirt of every description. They 1 possess no fireplace or chimney. All the cooking, in fact, is done over a 1 hole scooped out of the middle of the j floor. In these houses men and women and children are huddled together; during the long winter months they are shut up for days at i time, the entile often sharing their quarters. E very aperture lias to he closed on account of rim cold. This long imprisonment is. perhaps, the chief cause of the degradation of ilie people; horrible diseases result from it, which are aggravated by an abnormal consumption of arrack, the strong distilled drink of the Asiatics. Besides being the dirtiest they are probably the laziest people on earth. It Is an Invariable rule to take four days a week holiday, with saints’ days as extras. Since they have adopted the holidays of every other country with which they have come in contact, it is not surprising that the men find little time for work. Farming, bee culture and cattle breeding are the only industries of these lazy people; throughout their territory there is not a single manufactured article; their children marry while very young; they attend no j school, and, lastly, they have no money.