]
Dirty as they came in from every vile contact, they went out in
the morning to scatter from door to door, where they begged their
breakfast, the seeds of festering disease. Turning the plank was
"making the bed." Typhus is a filth-disease, of all the most dreaded.
If ever it got a foothold in those dens, there was good cause for
fear. I drew up at once a remonstrance, had it signed by representatives
of the united charitable societies--some of them shrugged their
shoulders, but they signed--and took it to the Health Board. They
knew the danger better than I. But the time had not yet come.
Perhaps they thought, with the reporters, that I was just "making
copy." For I made a "beat" of the story. Of course I did. We were
fighting; and if I could brace the boys up to the point of running
their own campaigns for making things better, so much was gained.
But they did not take the hint. They just denounced my "treachery."
I warned them that there would be trouble with the lodging-rooms,
and within eleven months the prophecy came true. The typhus broke
out _there_.
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