, 1880-11-21

without further delay.
POISONING FOOD.
David praised God because, she declared,
man Is fearfully and wonderfully; made. "
Was the Psnlmist rejecting on the resistance
which the human stomach offers to the
| malign effects OF the vile compounds inl-
| posed upon 1t? Certainly in no respect Is
human endurance better atteeted than III Its
power to withstand the assaults OF the iend
of DISQUALIFICATION, whose nalne Is legion.
Man desires butter,-the essence SO to
speak, Of pure milk: lie is given conf
pound of lard, tallow, and other worse
grease. lie desires cheese: he is given q
horrible mixture Of buttermilk, SKINNED
milk. sour milk, clarified oil, and saleratus.
lie calls for coffee: he is given chicory,
| peas, rye, beans, and dozen other base
! counterfeits. lie asks for sugar: lie re-
ceives glucose and sand. lie orders barrel
of flour: ho gets compound of-nobody
| knows what. He calls for cup Of tea, aud
gets decoctlon Of tannin., Man Is nec-
essarily engaged in the occupation OF con-
stantly surprising his stomach, poisoning 1t,
| playing tricks upon it, disgusting 1t with
| practical jokes. But the stomach gets used
| to it; the man still lives. lie does not live
| to be Thousand years old, IS the Scripture
| patriarch did, but he lives forty, sixty,
eighty, or hundred years, and then dies
| from the effects Of adulterated food assls-
mated, as it were, by lis grocer. And the
grocer dies too. There Is some satisfaction
III this The mixer of villainous compounds
is no rcspecter of persons Ueis engaged in
carving ont the Malthusian depopnlation
theory, and he kills everybody, from the man
who retails his poisonous counterfelts to
the undertaken who boxes up his victims,
and the sexton who buries them out OF sight
And then the mixer dies. lie is bound to
take the cup of lemlock; for while he is
mixing one kind Of poison his neighbor
across the way is mixing another kind. The
present system OF food-poisoning may be
called the mercantile theory Of life. Tho
sole object Of the adultcratlon is to make
money. Said the Yankee to his son: Make
money, my boy; honestly, If you can; but
make money" And the boy went into the
wooden-nut1ncg and basswood-finm busl-
ness, He didn't poison anybody; he merely
cheated his customers; that's all 1t is,
/ however, only q step from cheating to
murder, as the food-adulterating fiends
have amply demonstrated. The first food
mixing cheat put only small quantity of
poison in his compound, with view OF de-
creasing the cost, and SO Of increasing the
profit When his heretofore honest neigh
Dor found he was being undersold, he put 4
little more poison in his compound In order
to undcrselI his brother cheat and poisoner
over the way. So the rascals went on conl-
pctlng Ill the business Of cheating and slow
poisoning until now they have made verlta-
BILE hell of the public stomach. and this Is
the mercantile theory OIL a gradually lm-
proving scale,-the theory Of the mixer, that,
as other merchants mix, and Cheat and poi
son their customers, he must do the same, or
fall behind in the race for fortune. The
crime of DISQUALIFICATION is several degrees
worse than that OF the footpad who
takes what loose change the travel
or has about him at the pistols muz-
zle, because tritling with the stomach
takes away the power OF earning money, and
eventually makes corpse Of the man who
owns the stomach. But the mercantile theory
knows no law but that of gain. And, as the
passion for gain grows by what 1t feeds on,
the proportion of poison to wholesome food
in the thing vended is ever on the increase
The chemist is taxed to the utmost OF Ills
scientific knowledge to keep up with the de-
mand for new tricks OF concealing deleteri-
rIous substances and insidious poisons under
cover of wholesome aud nutritious food
preparations. He tolls night and day over
lis crucible to invent new masks behind
which may be hidden the lying devices OF
the honest {?) merchant-devlces by which .
4 cheap poison may be made to assume the
appearance and take the place OF
some nutritious substance in universal
demand by the public. "Slngular that
the merchant should desire to as
sasinate his fellow-creatures," exclai,ns
the innocent reader. Bless your soul, he
doesn't desire to assasinate anybody. Bnthe
must, or lie and his family would die Of
starvation, or at least be reduced to the rank
Of paupcrs. ''rley all do it." One bold,
bad man having inauguratcd the custom of
adulterating food, all his competitors arc
compelled to follow suit or fail in business.
They all become dishonest fellows because
there happened to be at remote period Of
the past one black sheep in the flock. The
whole batch OF rogues make no more money
by the general system Of f0ol-poisoning
than they would were they all honest. But
if one of them should he struck by lightning,
and transformed into an honest man, as Paul
was that dark night, and turn refornler, rs
Paul did, lie would be ruined. Hence, they
continue to mix food and poison the stom
achs OF all mankind. And the pttblic-good
easy soul-continucs to eat and to die linger
ing death.
SUNDAY In SCOTLAND.
While tile Free Kirk Of Scotland is In.