Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

The writer does not intend to say that the State Legislatures should not make their own pure food laws. On the contrary, every one of the laws so far has been successful (and about one-fourth of all the States have passed some pure food legislation in the last two years), and there are many subjects which the States can handle that cannot be reached by Congress for two general reasons. The law of Congress regulating the manufacture of food for consumption in the State where it is made would be a police regulation within the State and therefore void. In other words, the Congress can only pass laws regulating for police purposes the manufacture and sale of food products between the States.

This rule, of course, does not apply where the regulation of the food product is effected through the Revenue Department of the Government, as in the case of flour and butter. The violation of those laws would be a violation of the Revenue laws, whether the goods were sold in the same State or not.

There is a vast field for discussion under the head of "Sophistication"—including those articles of food which are simply cheapened by substances which are in themselves perfectly healthy, but frauds. If milk is diluted by water, the only danger to health is lack of nourishment, but it is also a fraud upon the consumer. If, however, it is preserved, as it is in some cases, by the use of acids, it becomes a menace to public health; and jellies and jams, when manufactured, as they are manufactured by the thousands of pounds, by the use of gelatine, vegetable dyes and natural acids, are simply a fraud; but when they are manufactured through dangerous acids, which have no place in the human economy, then a different rule should apply. Thousands of barrels of maple syrup and honey are sold that do not contain ten per cent. of maple syrup or honey, and yet the article known as glucose, and which is used to sophisticate goods, is regarded by the experts as a perfectly safe, healthy and nutritious food. This mixing or blending simply sells to the consumer what he did not intend to buy, but it does not endanger the public health. This is probably true of the adulteration of spices. From twenty to eighty per cent. of the ground spices and peppers, etc., that we get are made up of nutshells-certainly not a very desirable article of food, and yet the amount taken being so small it may not work a danger to public health.

Yet the fact remains that all these articles should be marked and branded for what they are, and a violation of that rule should

be punished by a national law. Every manufacturer should be compelled to put his own name and the date of manufacture on the package which contains his product.

The evidence is overwhelming that the goods which are put up in packages, bottles and cans that have been carelessly prepared, and the character of which the manufacturer is not willing to stand for, are marked and sold to the public under fancy and fictitious names. And the writer of this article will favor a law that every bit of prepared food exposed for sale must bear the name of the manufacturer so that the purchaser can see it when he buys. And further than this, the manufacturer who puts upon the market an article of food that is dangerous to public health ought not to be permitted to sell it, even though it is branded for what it is. Permitting poisons to be sold to the public, who have no time or opportunity to educate themselves as to the effect of poisons and drugs that are sold as foods, is simply legalizing a crime.

There has been a great desire on the part of the American public to eat and drink imported food products. Imported champagnes have been regarded as most desirable. The analyses and tests show that the genuine American champagnes that have been fermented in the bottle are superior to the imported. The same is true as to malt liquors. Among other reasons for this is the fact that the sterilizing process, invented by Pasteur, which is the mere heating of the beer in the bottle up to a certain degree to destroy the germ life, has been found sufficient to preserve the American product for American consumption, and the other producing countries of the world, which are very strict as to the manufacture of beers for their own people, do not demand the same rule and the same care if the beer is to be shipped here. The Pasteur process cannot be applied to the goods in casks, and it is not to be wondered at that the Government experts found more preservatives in imported than in the domestic goods.

Take coffee as an illustration. In Germany they select the good coffee and reject what are known as the dead or sour beans. The sour bean has a taste, but not a coffee taste. The sale of it is prohibited in Germany, but it is sold here in large quantities. It is called in the trade "black Jack," and it is mixed with our coffee and sold as coffee. This is but one article as illustration, but there are many others, and to-day I know of no country that is so strict in its food laws as to protect any but its own people.

Clearly the only remedy in this case is to prohibit the importation and sale of any article of food the sale of which is prohibited in the country from which it comes.

There has been a general awakening upon this subject throughout the United States in the past few years. Pure food congresses have met and public spirited men have joined a crusade in favor of pure foods. Legislation has been had in many States. Congress has passed some legislation. It is to be hoped that the agitation will continue until we have a system of laws which will absolutely prohibit the sale of dangerous and deleterious substances. as foods, which will prohibit the importation of unhealthy or dishonest food products from other countries, which will compel the marking of every particular bottle, jar, can, etc., with the name of its true manufacturer and also a statement of what it is.

It is believed by those who have given the matter careful attention that then we will encourage the honest manufacturer and protect him from dishonest competition, we shall protect the consumer, who will know in each instance what he is buying; we shall, by establishing a reputation for a high standard of food products, increase the demand for our goods all over the world, and also, what is more important to all, we shall raise the standard of the purity of goods that go into the human stomach, and by the use of better foods, make a better citizen.

"The destiny of the nations depends upon how they feed themselves."

WM. E. MASON.

JOHN RUSKIN.

BY PROFESSOR CHARLES WALDSTEIN.

WITH the death of John Ruskin a noble life has ended. His life was, above all, noble in being true to itself. There is a singleness and harmony in such lives which make them stand out as complete and clearly perceptible entities, dramatic types on the world's great stage, to which future ages can always turn back and learn their lesson in clear and striking examples-to be admired and followed when noble, condemned and shunned when ignoble. Ruskin was one of those men who dared to live his thoughts. "And if we should feel that there are inconsistencies in his life, these do not arise from the usual cause of such inconsistency, namely, the discrepancy or contradiction between practice and profession, between the actual course and the theory of life: when mystical, ascetic, and other-worldly preachers shine in the ball-room and speculate on the Stock Exchange; when philosophers, historians and scientists, whose vision penetrates down to the principles of all things, soars over countless ages in the history of nations, and traces the links that bind things animate and inanimate together, crouch before an ephemeral prejudice or fashion of a petty locality; and when economists and social reformers pen the gospel of socialism over oysters and champagne. If Ruskin's life appears inconsistent, the contradictions are to be sought for in his thoughts and theories."*

But Ruskin has not merely lived his thoughts, he has expressed and perpetuated them in monumental prose; and, apart from his living personality as an example, he stands before us as the writer of thoughts, the man of letters, the philosopher and teacher. And now that death has crowned his life with victory, we are

*See p. 7, "The Work of John Ruskin, etc.," by the present writer. New York, Harper & Bros.; London, Methuen & Co., 1894.

justified in asking: What will actually live in his life-work, when the memory of his striking personality has faded and the continuous charm of his refined genius can only be recalled by the tradition handed on from the lips of those who knew him? The stupendous versatility of the man, as reflected in his numerous works, makes an answer to this question all the more difficultwhether all his work will equally live, or, if not, what part of it; whether he will live as a writer on the theory of art, or as a critic and historian, or as a philosopher and moralist, or as a writer on social, economical and political questions, or as the founder of the art of observing nature-or chiefly as a great prose poet? Is his lasting greatness to be found in the teacher, or in the poet, or in both combined?

The difficulty which has been felt in the minds of his numerous friends and admirers with regard to the choice of his last restingplace may be permitted to serve as an illustration for the answer I would propose to the question I have raised. The choice lay between Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey and the rural churchyard of Coniston, in the very heart of the English Lakes, where Nature in all her purity and beauty reigns supreme, uncontaminated by the hand of man as he interferes with her serene peace in the endless search for material subsistence. Both these resting-places in death appear to me to indicate clearly the sphere in which Ruskin's work will gain for him immortality. He will ever live in the grateful minds and hearts of the English-speaking world, both as the greatest of prose poets and as the truest exponent of nature's beauty. This, truly, is enough for one man to have attained, for one life to have achieved.

If Milton has rightly defined poetry as "simple,* sensuous and passionate," the prose of Ruskin amply fulfils and illustrates. these characteristics. It is the imparting to the human mind of the world without, as well as the world within, by means of language which should be so completely in harmony with the thing described that this very harmony becomes a thing of beauty in itself. But, more than this, the language is not only to be in complete accord with the object it conveys, but it is to respond fully to the harmony of our own feelings and passions, so that the whole

"Simplicity" here means naturalness, appropriateness and absence of affectation. It is not found, as is so frequently supposed, in plainness, commonness of thought or diction, in the affected and unnatural choice of short Saxon words and short sentences, the inappropriate obtrusion of vernacular phrases.

« ElőzőTovább »