The spread of the bedbug is mainly due to its being carried from place to place in furniture and clothing. It has the power of resisting great cold and of fasting indefinitely. The eggs of the bedbug are very small, whitish, oval objects, laid in clusters in the crevices used by the bugs for concealment; they hatch in eight days. Under favorable conditions and slovenly housekeeping, their multiplication is extremely rapid. The greatest trouble lies with the housekeeper who allows the bugs to increase unchecked until they are so numerous in the floors and walls that it is nearly impossible to kill them off. It is useless waste of time to try to exterminate with Persian insect powder, or sulphur candles. These remedies have been recommended by the International Encyclopedia, but have not demonstrated their worth when subjected to tests by careful experimental methods, by the author. _Scientific Way of Extermination._ The only scientific and practical way to get rid of them is to clean thoroughly, religiously, and scrupulously the room and every article in it. Bedbugs are exceedingly difficult to fight, owing both to their ability to withstand the action of many insecticides and owing also to the protection afforded them by the walls and the woodwork of the room. If the mattress is old, it should be burned. The bed should be taken apart, the slats and springs taken to the bathroom and scalded, and then treated with a mixture of corrosive sublimate and alcohol, liberally applied, after which a coat of varnish should be given to the entire bed--slats, springs and all. The carpet should be taken up and sent to the cleaners. The paper should be scraped from the walls and sent to the furnace and burned, and the walls should be left bare until the bugs are exterminated. The holes in the walls and woodwork and the cracks and crevices in the floor should be filled up with common yellow soap. This is better than to fill them with putty; it is more practical and is easier to handle. Use the thumb or an old knife to put the soap into the holes; the workman should get the stepladder and go over the entire ceiling, getting the soap into every crack and crevice. After this is done, it will be impossible for the eggs to hatch or the bugs to get out. This is the most important part of the extermination of bugs. The floor should then be scrubbed, after which it should be well poisoned with the mixture of corrosive sublimate and alcohol. Every piece of furniture in the room should be washed and poisoned, and given a coat of varnish. _Treating the Mattress._