New-York tribune., 1876-06-16
A .JIrNE CENTENNIAL.

Tn the third week oe June. 1776, Duniops
Veekly Packet, published in Philadelphia, con-
tanned brief advertisement to the effect that
the city cart for broken victuals made its
rounds every evening. and hOuseholders were
urged to contribute, as the need OF the prisoners
was great Our exchanges for the same week
In 1876 contain the briefcr announcement that
the wheat crop of the West promises TO be
fair. 1t is worth our while to look into the
meaning Of the two notices. The prisoners
were in truth near starvation, their allowance
being half of a fourpenny black loaf per diem;
for all else they were dependent on the refuse
from, kitchens, collected each day in bar
row. Prisoners in England at that date were
worse of, being chained in cages and left TO
beg loudly for food from passers-by. Fifteen
wears later,s during Washngt0n's admlnlstra-
ton, the need of the poorer classes in the cap
tal of the new republic was so great that
foot pads attacked men on the principal
streets In London, hangings of the purloincrs
of loayes of bread were frequent The
rich as well as the poor lived on
oats and barley, and they were scarce
enough. "Only wealthy family" says
Eden in 1897. could afford in Cumberland
Christmas. Not penny white loaf was to bc
"found in towns as large as Carlisle Meat
was luxury almost unknown to the English
and French peasant. In short, there was not
enough food in the civilized world for ITS IN
habitants. The cravings of hunger drove as
many emigrants to our shores as did religious
persecution; and if Louis XVI could have
filled the empty stomachs of the Jacqueric,
there is every probability that he might have
died comfortably in his bed. Ame.ica brought
very little food then into the worlds market;
the narrow strip of soil rescued from the
forest, along the sea-coast barely sufiiced to
feed her own colonists, and that so scantiiy
that the influx Of small number of troops
into n province produced famine. In Asia,
the need of new producing fields was felt more
sharply then than in Europe; and it has increased
with every year since. 20 near to famine
does the ovc:crowding of population bring the
poorer classes of China, that their practice Of
infanticidc pleads a horrible sort of quasi JUS
tification On the ground Of humanity. Thou
sands of families live the year round on the
yield of Il scanty rice field.
Now let us see what it means to this long
hungry world when we say that "our wheat
these hundred years we have helped feed every
nation under heaven a. it never was fed be-
fore The wheat fields alone which failed to
supply the troops at Valley Forge with bread,
throw into the European market every year
go, 100000 bushels; the expectation from
Chicago, which began in 1888 with 7S bushels,
increased in "a years to 23,0OO,OOO bushels.
40 rapidly were the vast fields OF the West
opened and planted. We take wheat only as
a gauge for the whole fo0d-pr0ducirg power
of the cOuntry,-a power so enormous and
steady that, even in the spasm of the civil war,
when an enormous proportion OF the male
population of both sections was withdrawn
| from agriculture for five years, no famine
ensued. Taking an average of the five years,
never were armies so vast so well fed.
Next month the attention of the world will
be directed to our political and social progress
| in the century, and the effect we have had on
the liberty, thought, and civilization Of the
world. But in this abundant Summer month
! it is worth our while to look at the cattle
upon our thousand hills, at the fields blooming
! for the harvest from sea to sea, where in
! 1916 was gloomy, impenctrable wilderness.
Not only have the hungry peoples Of Europe
| emptied themselves into these welcoming
| fields, but the abundance of provisions in for
| eign markets caused by our exports has made
a wholesome change in the very minds and
temper of the poorer classes. Revolutions lose
much of the element of brutality when the
rebels are well fed. There will never prOba-
bly, be guillotines in the streets of Paris as
long as bread can be had for sou or emf
| grafton is cheap. IF thine enemy hunger
"feed him." is u maxim as polite as it is
! Christian. We have done our share toward
feeding the lean and hungry Cassiuses of the
world in this last century, and 80 blunted the
edge of many instructions. We might take
the yield of cotton and wool, and show what
we have done toward clothing the world.
But our readers can look into these matters
themselves. The more closely they look the
more they will be convinced that it is in the
most practical as well as theoretical work
that the Republic has contributed to the
| "a nf creation