Out Back in Mississippi

The late Chic Sale (The Specialist") would have been delighted with what the State of Mississippi has done, out back. All over the State, in the last six years, bright new privies have gone up. Each privy is a three-holer (big, medium and little). By last week, the State could boast 156,706 new outhouses--approximately one for every 14 citizens (not counting some 800,000 flush toilets).

Sponsored by the State Board of Health, the privies are built with WPA labor. In most cases, the owner provides land and materials--pine lumber, concrete for floor and pit, corrugated iron for the roof. Total cost: $34, divided equally between material and labor.

Since the privy program started, -- 1935, health officials have noted a "gradual decline" in filth-borne diseases such as malaria and hookworm, a marked decline in the typhoid death rate. Said Mississippi's Sanitary Engineer Herbert Andrew Kroeze last week: "The privies are saving many lives."

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