TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF FLIES.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3045, 18 November 1878, Page 1

TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF FLIES.

Everybody will remember the old lady of blessed memory who expressed' the conviction that total depravity was a very good doctrine, if people would only live up to it. It is evident that the common house fly is an earnest believer in this doctrine, and that it iives up to its faith with the utmost zeal and fidelity. The man does not live who has ever discovered a single virtue in these pestiferous creatures, while there is not a vice known to the moral code,to which they are not recklessly and hopelessly addicted. It is a case of original sin working out its results unchecked, and no scheme of regeneration has ever been introduced among them. The ant is industrious, the bee is skilful and useful to man, the flea may be. taught, amusing tricks, spiders have, ere now, become pets and - relieved the tedium of solitary prisoners, . and even bugs and worms have their modest merits, and at least serve as food for nobler forms of creation; but the fly was never known to perform a meritorious act, and, all his energiei, are devoted to making an unmitigated nuisance of himself. Perhaps his most conspicuous trait is his colossal impudepce. Albeit diminutive in sice, he will outdo a wilderness of hotel.clerks and railroad officials in the display of arrogance ancl impertinence. He is more penetrating than love, and stony 'limits cannot keep him out. No privacy is .so sacred that this pestilent intruder does not make his way to its inner depths, without even offering an apology. He never waits for an invitation, but cornea everywhere as a " deadhead," without as much as remarking "by your leave." The most enterprising and persistent of special commissioners is diffident in comparison. In august assemblies of state he invades the seat of honour, and does not forbear to perch upon'the nose ot the grandest plenipotentiary, or to' explore the nostrils of the Prime Minister. Even Slings and Queens are not exempt from his prying curiosity, and he will walk boldly into their royal ears; if carelessly left open, without the smallest compunction. At banquets he evades the most vigilant doorkeeper and makes himself at home—an unwelcome but inevitable guest. He pounces upon 4 the choicest viands and takes a taste from every dish, aud does hot scruple to use the frills and laces of the company as his naptkin. He hies him to my lady's chamber, and unblushingly explores iti most guarded secrets. What he does not know about these things is not worth knowing, and he pries into them from sheer depravity. Thence he ranges through all the habitations of high and low, and makes himself acquainted with every department of every household. He is found at every resort" of fashion or of pleasure, and is thoroughly cosmopolitan iv his tastes. Sea-shore ■ and mountain are alike to him, if he can find human beings to torment and annoy. Not only. i« the fly an intolerable bore, through his persistent presence where he is not wanted, and his bffensive familiatry but his habits are in every way bad.' As a " dead-head " he has no rival in animated nature. He keeps all manner of late hours, and utterly disregards the laws of health and decency. He loafs about barrooms, and partakes of' free lunches without the least sense of shame or degradation. He eats and drinks of everything that can be eaten or drunken, and always' at the cxpence of somebody else and without the slightest show of gratitude. Filth is as attractive to him as elegance and luxury, and he has a tuoit repulsive habit of exploring every accessible mass of pollution and straightway betaking himself to the unprotected cheek of beauty or tlie delicious cates of the fastidious epicure. He dolighta' in tormenting man, from whose labors he derives , his chief sustenance, and will take any

mean advantage to give him' anuoyance. | If his victim has the misfortune of having ! to part his hair with a towel, he will rally his forces and "make the sensitive expanse of the bald (jraniuru a regular parade ground. He will pounce upon a man while he is helpless in a barber's chair, with his arms swathed beneath half-a-dozen yards of calico, and the perilous edge of the razor at his throat, and will harry him to distraction. He will catch hiß victim in the act of taking or trying to take a nap, whether in the morning as a fringe to the* disturbed slumbers of the night, or after dinner as a restoration from the cares of .the day, and with maddening ingenuity will keep him from the desired boon, and bring him to a state where he is ready to accept the counsel of Job's wicked wife.

And what are the consequences of the life of iniquity pursued by this depraved insect?, Is there retribution adequate to *his offences prepared for him either in this world or the world to come p On the theological branch of this inquiry we shall not presume to offer an opinion, but we are sure that he never comes by; his full deserts here. ■ He is idle, dissolute, gluttonous, pestiferous, and tormenting, and yet he seems to pass his life gayly, free from care or trouble, and defiant of all laws, human and divine. He even defies the law of gravitation, and travels with equal ease in any direction or on any surface not smeared with some treacherous stickiness. Apparently, he enjoys complete immunity from the retribution which his conduct deserves, except when he is entrapped through his insatiable appetite into sloughs of poison cr intricate traps from which he never escapes alive. We believe it is a fact that he never dies a natural death. No one ever knew a fly to be stricken down by disease or to linger out a painful existence under medical treatment. Fevers ana headaches are to him unknown, and he breathes contagion with perfect impunity. He sometimes falls a victim to his invincible curiosity or insatiable appetite, and is scalded in tea, drowned in milk, or smothered in molasses, and occasionally he is crushed or slaughtered as a penalty for his temerity, but he. never dies of sickness or old age. Barring accident or violence, the fly is practicallyl immortal, a perennial nuisance, a standing example of total depravity, without, so far as we know, the eternal punishment which is its proper corollary.—New York Times.