anti-spitting

Updated: June 5, 2025

Against tuberculosis the schools waged an anti-spitting war. A child who spat on the floor had to clean it up, which was considered a great indignity and gave great offence. Compulsory cleaning of streets to a population who regarded the street as the proper receptacle for all garbage was a further source of trouble.

M. E. (Mary Edith) Durham - Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle

So ridiculous has it made the Americans, so much has been written about it by such visitors as Charles Dickens, that the State governments have determined to take up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from $10 to $100 for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the "up-to-date" towns have passed anti-spitting laws.

- As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home