City Flyless Crusade
Starts This Morning

Minneapolis Children Ready for Campaign Against Disease Carriers.

Sub-Stations Open at 10 o'Clock to Receive Dead Pests.

Boys and Girls Devise Many Schemes for Trapping Victims.

Ten little flies all in a line;
One got a swat! Then there were Nine little flies, grimly sedate,
Licking their chops – Swat! There were Eight little flies raising some more –
Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Then there were Four little flies, colored green-blue;
Swat! (Ain't it easy!) Then there were Two little flies dodged the civilian –
Early next day there were a million! The great battle against the fly starts today. The opening gun of the war against the disease-carriers will be fired at 10 o'clock when sub-stations in the 13 wards of the city will open to distribute supplies for the youthful soldiers who are marching against the hosts of Mr. Fly. Flies spent their last peaceful day in Minneapolis Sunday. Without a thought of the war that opens today they hummed and buzzed in cafes, restaurants and houses. But it was the ball before Waterloo. They danced while Young America of Minneapolis was busy putting the finishing touches to fly traps and swatters. While the youth of the city were burnishing their arms, making last preparations for the march against the foe today, the fly bummed as merrily as ever.

Two weeks from today the enemy will have been exterminated. The campaign is starting with a rush this morning with the members of the troops of the Boy Scouts and the members of the Boys' club leading the fight. Thousands of Minneapolis children thronged the sub-stations yesterday attempting to secure supplies for their fight against the fly but all were refused. Supplies at Sub-Stations. At 10 o'clock this morning every child in the city who wishes to enter the contest should visit the sub-station in the ward in which he lives. There cardboard boxes made for the contest by the Standard Paper Box company, 301 Fifth avenue south, and given free to the children will be distributed by [the city's Department of Health. … Yesterday several clerks and employes of the department went over the card index system putting the cards in their place and arranging for a gigantic tabulation system by which the results of each day's battle against the fly can be kept. Daily records of the day's death toll will be kept. Each child's name will be put on a card as soon as a box of dead flies has been received at the department, bearing the name and address of the killer. The number of flies contained in the box will be entered on the card and as each day passes additional figures of the flies killed by that contestant will be added to the card. Totals of the entire number killed will be recorded each night and The Tribune will every day print the standing of the leaders in the contest. The names of all the contestants and their standing at the close will be printed in the Sunday Tribune of Sept. 3. Take Flies to Stations. The sub-stations will give out supplies until 11 o'clock this morning, opening at 10, and will be open again in the afternoon between 3 and 4 o'clock. Dead flies must be taken to the sub-stations before 1 o'clock in the afternoon. No flies will be received after that time. Wagons from The Tribune will make a trip around the city every afternoon, visiting each sub-station, collecting the dead flies and leaving new supplies. The first trip will be made this afternoon. If you have any dead flies be sure and get them to the sub-station before 1 o'clock this afternoon. Many are the schemes several small boys near Lake Harriet are resorting to to secure fly traps and places to set them. One lad Saturday called on four grocers in the Linden Hills District and asked where they kept their flies. "We have no flies – what do you want with them, anyway?" asked one grocer of him. "I want to catch your flies for you. Where do they congregate the thickest?" the boy asked. The grocer showed him. At the back door of the store thousand of the disease carriers were feasting on the remains of a crushed watermelon. The boy eyed them. Then he made the grocer this proposition: "If you'll give me 50 cents I'll catch al those flies for you, keep them away from you for two weeks and by the end of that time if there are still any flies around the door in any number I'll keep them away for two weeks longer for nothing," he told the grocer.

"Do you mean to tell me you'll stand here at this door every day for two weeks and brush away flies for the small sum of 50 cents?" asked the grocer, taken aback by the offer. "No, I didn't say that," returned the boy. "I said I'd catch the flies and keep them away; not that I'd stand here all that time. That has nothing to do with my keeping them away. I'll buy two traps with the 50 cents, put them here at this door with some bread and milk bait in them and before half a day has passed I'll have the traps filled twice. That will take away a larger number and I'll fill the traps every half day from then on for the rest of the two weeks. I will send the flies to The Tribune sub-station, get the $50 prize and you'll be rid of your flies, and I'll have enough money to last me all winter at school. Will you do it?" "Guess I will," the grocer said. The bargain was made and the traps will be set this morning. East Side Boy's Scheme. Over on the East side another boy went to the owner of a liver stable and asked permission to put some traps on the manure box at the end of the stable. The proprietor, bewildered, asked what kind of traps. "Fly traps, of course," said the boy. "Well, why do you want to catch flies for me?" asked the liveryman. "It's not for you," replied the boy. "It's for The Tribune contest, and because flies are disease spreaders and germ carriers that we want 'em. There are enough flies at the rear of this livery barn to win a contest if I could get them all by myself, but there will be so many kids here to see you and want to catch your flies that I'll have a hard time getting very many after the contest starts Monday." The liveryman helped the boy make a trap. The trap was made out of a half barrel. They adopted the principle of the little wire screen cage trap, which has an inverted conical inlet for the flies extending upward from the base, where a bait of sweetened water or bread and milk is put to draw the flies. Applying this principle, they took a common sugar barrel , replaced the top with a cover of wire screen, sawed a hole 12 inches in diameter in the center of the bottom and into this inserted a cone made of wire screen, having a diameter at the base equal to the hole in the barrel and an aperture at the smaller end about three-quarters of an inch across. When thus fixed and made fly tight, except for the inlet, the barrel was placed on supports which raised it from the ground a few inches so that the bait could be placed beneath to draw the first flies. When a good number of flies have been trapped the very buzzing will attract other flies from all directions.