January 10 2008

Text By Meera Sethi

As 19th-century American cities swelled with migrants from the country, stretching already poor sanitation systems to their limit, garbage became an increasingly odoriferous—and slippery—problem. Public wastebaskets were still an innovation waiting to happen, and fruit-stands lining the sidewalks meant that tasty snacks soon turned into decomposing litter under the feet of the city's hurrying throngs.

In what seems to have been a widespread campaign against irresponsible littering, children reading an earnest Sunday School pamphlet in 1861 were told a moral tale of a man for whom a tragic banana-peel accident led to a cascading series of events that cost him his job, his house, and his wife.

Quite clearly The Red Lantern missed the boat—but not the floor—when it comes to good banana peel disposal training.