Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1911 — Children Swat Flies for the Bounty [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Children Swat Flies for the Bounty

BOSTON, Mass. —An endeavor to rid Worcester of flies through a fly killing contest Is under way In that city and scores of children have entered the competition. Many prizes, aggregating more than |«00, are being offered to the children producing the greatest number of dead flies within the time limit of the con test, and during the few days the competition has been going on several hundred thousand of the germ carrying Insects have been slaughtered. The insects are measured by the quart as they are brought in and throughout the city the little ones are dally engaged in a wholesale fly massacre. One boy tells of catching 10,000 flies tn an old cow stable and thousands more around garbage cons. In their hustling fqr the prises the children are Invading back alleys, stables, markets, setting traps among garbage and dirt of all kinds, and petroling various Insanitary places where the moot flies are found. Few contestants are conflning their

attention to homes, for they can gather comparatively few flies there. Some parents look at this feature of the contest with decided disapproval. They fear the children afe very likely to contract diseases in invading such places and handling the flies. Another feature U that each child must kill the flies and then dry them carefully before turning them in. In this way the children directly handle the germ-laden Insects. -- Traps of every shape and description as well as all manner of ingenious methods to kill the insects are being used. Fly catching devices are selling at a premium, and men And women appear as much interested in Um affair as the children.