100 Years Ago This Week: Jan. 15-21

From The Indianapolis News, Wednesday, January 19: Dr. Herman G. Morgan, city board of health secretary, personally led sanitary inspectors, nicknamed “spitz hounds,” in an ant-spitting campaign today and arrested thirty-two persons for violation of the anti-spitting ordinance. Attorneys, salesmen, merchants, and laborers were among those arrested and must pay the $1 (2014: $21.43) penalty and court costs for each violation of expectorating on the sidewalks. One violator claimed that he carefully wended his way to the curb to expectorate, but as he spat a gust of wind sneaked up from behind and blew the result right back onto the sidewalk as a “spitz hound” watched it alight. The city sanitary patrols will continue until the sidewalks of Indianapolis are made clean. This vicious habit, likely to cause the spread of disease, was particularly obnoxious during the gripe epidemic.