"Gentlemen _do_ not spit; men _must_ not spit" is a notice
which may be seen in an American city; also there is a similar one
which says: "If you _expect to rate_ as a gentleman, don't
_expectorate_."
On the steamships to South America the English passengers were often
disgusted by the amount of spitting about the decks done by some of
the foreigners on board.
One of the captains thought of a good idea; he ordered a sailor,
carrying a mop, to follow each of these foreigners where-ever he went;
whenever the foreigner spat, the sailor used the mop, and in a short
time _all_ the foreigners learnt that if they behaved like other
gentlemen and did not spit, they were spared having an attendant with
a mop, so they soon gave up the dirty habit.
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.
Unhappily people are rather fond of spitting in railway carriages. A
man doing this was fined ten shillings and two guineas costs not long
since.
His excuse was that he had a bad cough.
Any Scout could have told him, apart from the dirty, disgusting part
of the habit, how very dangerous to other passengers it is for a
person with a bad cough to indulge in this habit.
Little living seeds of disease are in this way let loose to get into
other people's throats and lungs, and possibly to bring them illness
and death.
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