s such, ignorant
people do not understand how to escape it; indeed, until anti-spitting
laws are more universal and more rigidly enforced, every one may be
exposed to these deadly germs. They respect neither race lines nor
intellectual grades. The Negro, however, seems to be peculiarly
susceptible to this class of ailments. 1. Because of comparatively
small lung capacity. 2. Because of general low nutrition. 3. Because
of lack of bath rooms and their proper use. 4. Immorality. 5. General
indifference to the incipient stages of the disease. Colds and coughs
are passed by as matters of course with little or nothing done to
prevent or cure them.

The physical life and death of man has a much more intimate connection
with his moral life than is at first thought apparent. Too many
children are robbed by Sin of a child's first right, viz.: the right
to be well born. If parents have lived lives of shame and thereby
weakened their bodies, the effects of this will be a sad legacy of
weakness in the persons of their children. Men and women given to
social impurity will hardly escape the notice of those about them.
Their characters are imitated and shame and weakness, physical as well
as moral, multiplied. "Sin conceived and brought forth Death."

Among people of low intellectual development and low moral standards,
family love is below normal. With this defective class, there is much
indifference to the life and death of their dependent relatives. The
young and the aged are shamefully neglected. It is sufficient to be
bereaved--better, the relieved, to say: "The Lord's Will be done."
Remedies for these sad and unfortunate conditions are much more easily
suggested than applied.

Better environment, greater comfort in the homes, come only as a
return for money. Money will come as a return for labor. Money will
come to those who earnestly desire it, because they will work for it.
They will do whatsoever their hands find to do, accepting the pay such
labor brings, but fitting and aspiring for something better. There is
usually plenty of work for all honest, industrious Negroes in Southern
cities.

Even money may not cause the old shanty to give place to a good house
nor raise the standard of general comfort very materially, except as
the demands of the family are enlarged as a result of education. No
one factor will have such weight in the decrease of suffering and the
reduction of the high death rate as enlightenment of mind.