Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1908 — MONTICELLO SCHOOLS WERE SUSPENDED [ARTICLE]

MONTICELLO SCHOOLS WERE SUSPENDED

In Order to Give the Janitor a Chance to Renovate the Rooms and Get Rid of Bed Bugs. Monticello Journal: Last year scarlet fever caused a dismissal of the schools in Monticello. This year it is bed bugs. A week ago Wednesday, Miss Orton discovered some queer insects crawling about on the walls of her school room, but thought they were some plant lice that had been brought in on flowers or leaves by the children, but on going home her mother discovered what she pronounced to be a genuine bed bug on Miss Orton’s waist The next morning an alarm was raised and an investigation commenced, which developed the fact that the whole northwest corner of the room was literally alive with them, and they were found crawling around the room on floor and walls. The primaray grade was dismissed and the work of fumigation and destruction commenced at once, but up to Tuesday evening you could scarcely see that any diminution had been made in the numbers. Monday they were discovered in the Bth grade room, which is just over Miss Orton’s room, and Tuesday it was concluded that it would be a wise plan to dismiss the school in the afternoon and fumigate the entire building. The eighth grade had been dismissed in the morning. Where they came from it is hard to say, but it is the general opinion that bats and swallows have colonized them in the big chimney and the heat of the furnace when it was starred last week, started them to crawling out into the building. Some are of the opinion though, that their progenitors were snugly housed in the lumber used In the rebuilding of the school house, and that they have been multiplying along from year to year, and that conditions have been unusually good this year for the propagation of the “variants” until they had to set up a migration and seek for new'worlds to conquer. Be that as it may, the "pesky things” are there and the housewives .of the town, as well as the teachers and pupils, are very much put out about it. After canvassing the situation'carefully- Wednesday afternoon, it was concluded that it would be the best policy to dismiss all of the schools until Monday, and go after the matter in a systematic way all over the building. They are getting the upper hand of the critters and it is thought that they can be controlled now. z No time will be lost, as-, the te ch rs will .take their visiting days now instead of later in the term. *- —.