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Cool but Smelly

It was in 1873 that a Cape Cod newspaper declared during a spell of hot weather: “We pity the denizens of the city in their brick ovens, especially at night when they retire to rest nominally but in reality to kick and perspire. Despite the hot days, our nights here’ on the end of Cape Cod have been delightfully cool.”

But under another headline, the paper “referred to the sickening smell of the fish decomposing on the shore. Since the warm weather began, the stench has never been worse than this week, and if immediate measures are not taken to remove this pestiferous collection (decaying dogfish and other unwholesome stuff), the health of the community must suffer very much and diseases of various kinds must rage here, we shall experience an unhealthy summer, and our summer visitors will find this anything but a salubrious climate.”

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