I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the way
you suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere with
your fishing. What else have you got against him?"
"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle on
account of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."
"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what I
recollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richly
deserves prosecution."
"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn't
been a case of typhoid in the town as long as I can remember."
"That's not the point," said Meldon. "You're looking at the matter in
the wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until you
begin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show that
sanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one of
Simpkins' strongest points."
"If that's so, we'd be better without sanitation."
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "You might just as well say that we'd be
better without matches because children never died of eating the heads
off them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught the
baby in the act of trying to swallow a black-headed pin the other day;
and that, of course, would have been a great deal worse than getting
whooping-cough.
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