Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1870-02-03
Candy eresy.
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

|
that buying confectionery for children has
very greatly diminished within the past
few years Buy fruits and nuts if you like,
but by no means be persuaded into pur-
chasing any of the gaudy or glittering at
fairs that attract ignorant eyes in candy
shops. Such stuff may do to look at, but
if once taken home is quite apt to tempt
the taste, and if eaten produces dire effects.
| Parents who create in their children love
for candies, and foster that taste, do not
only foolish, but wicked thing. "-Er-
change paper.
If such pernicious sentiments as are
rashly expressed in the above paragraph
should gain currency, who can measure
the good that will be prevented and the
evil which will be produced
Not buy candy, not eat candy, not give
it to children! Well, what next? We
expect to live to hear good wheat de.
nounced, Indian corn prescribed, and
buckwheat cakes and molasses put under
the ban.
I call any boarding school Miss, and
every boy Of spirit that knows how to
smack his lips, and every jolly nurse and
sensible parent who has laid aside the hick-
DRY stick and taken up sticks of candy for
discipline, to cry out and protest against
this barbarous and most cruel crusade
against candy!
OF course, if the writer will lower his
crest, and say that he does not mean good
candy in general but only the " gaudy
and glitterlng affairs that attract Ignorant
eyes in candy Shops" meaning thereby
poor, adulterated candy, with poisonous
coloring matter, we shall accept his apol
ogies and let him pass. But even at that,
we shall solemnly admonish him not to
use language again capable of such dan
gerous misconstruction when treating
upon theme so momentous to the nur-
sery, the school, and indeed to the welfare
of all children from six to sixty years of
age.
| Good sugar is one of the most nutritious
elements of food. Pure candy is the pur-
est form of sugar Eaten in moderation
| it is injurious neither to the teeth, the
digestion, nor to any other interest OF the
human system. Here are the very peo-
pie who are superstitiouay afraid of candy
and with large-eyed wonder and domestic
horror protest against it, and take great
pride and praise to themselves for not al
lowing it in their families: "No; you
never saw me give child bit of candy,
and, thank heaven, if my reason is pre-
served, you never will p and yet these
very persons put saW4r into tea, and
coffee and chocolate; into gingerbread,
cookies and cake; into preserved ounce,
plum, apple and peach, they sift sugar
over strawberries, raspberries and black
berries; they put it into custards pud.
dings, sauces, various and infinite; and
children eat sugar-gents and boys-and
old folks est sugar, and middle-aged peo-
pie eat sugar, morning, noon and night
eat sugar, sip sugar, drink sugar, with rel
ism and benefit; and then upon prim &C.
casions, they wipe their mouths, and begin
to descant upon the evils of candy!-as if
candy was anything but sugar!
1t is true that there is great deal OF
sweetened paste called candy, and much
so-called French candy which is Wiley
compounded and colored, and some kinds
of chocolate candies, and taffy, and brandy
drops, and limitations of fruit, etc. In
other words, good candy is subject to vile
counterfeits, and 80 is bread, and cake, and
meat.
Let every virtuous man denounce bad
candy, and honor good, pure sugar candy.
II should not be eaten all the time. Like
fruit, or cake, and every other product OF
the field or the oven, it should be eaten
wisely, discreetly, moderately, at suitable
times.
Children can be KEPT in good health on
pure candy; and anybody who says nay
may thank his stars that we are not Pope,
for as sure as we could catch him, we
would make him recant, or smart for 1t
Poor, prosecuted Candy sweet saint of
the nursery, St. Saccharissa thine honor
shall never fail while there Is an ingenu-
GUS soul left alive to love children-a kind
old nurse, or reverend grandfather But
ali, saint or goddess whichever thou art
destroy all poor candy, that the reign
of good candy many no more be restricted
by the ignorance and superstition OF
foolish parents who think they are pru-