When I was in charge of a public building in Malta, which was guarded
at night by Maltese watchmen, I soon found that I need not be always
going round to see that they were alert, because their habit of
constantly spitting showed me next morning whether they had been awake
and where they had stood or walked during the night.
One day I found the pavement of one man's beat quite clean and dry, so
I had him up and accused him of having been absent without leave. He
did not know how I found it out, so confessed that he had been away to
see a friend, thinking there was no harm in it, since the place was
all locked up and secure.
Englishmen are fortunately not so dirty in their habits as to be
always spitting, but, still; there is a little of it going on in our
streets; and even a little is a bad thing.
It is not only a habit that is nasty to other people, but it is
dangerous as well, for the following reason;
So many men are suffering from consumption or disease of the lungs
even without knowing it. When they spit they throw out a number of
tiny "germs," which, although too small to be seen, get into the air
and are very easily breathed in again by other passers-by; and these
germs contain the seeds of the disease, which are thus sown in healthy
people, and make them "consumptives" also.
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