Arizona weekly citizen., 1881-09-25
Butter.

I U DutlcT cOulAllutS lD dQNdllCC III prlce
 at the present rate of progress it Is to be-
 feared that nothing will ultimately re-
 main of this originally delicious table
 article of diet but a grease spot-that
 stssteless, odorless product of his majesty
 sthe hog called lard. Unfortunately the.
 stemptation to adulterate is in the ratioI
 3Of the profit derived from the cheat. .1Hence as butter becomes scarcer andI
 dearer more and more lard will be usedI Fin the compound of which butter is thel
 .base-the base growing smaller by de Agrees and beautifully less. It seems to'
 be a fit time to write the obituary of. .fbutter, to give the date as near as mayI
 be of its birth, the prominent accidents .[of its career, dwelling lovingly upon it's
 sweetness" referring with not tod , 3much acerbity to the strong" points
 Bin its character, as is the custom inl speaking of the dead, and dropping al 8" wheyey tear of sorrow over its grave a The Scripture translatOrs use the wOrd| 'fbutter frequently, but the better opiniOnI is that the translation is erroneous, that the Hebrew word chamea signifies milk For cream, and that neither Isaiah norI < Samuel nor Job ever knew the taste Ofl
 butter, notwithstanding tha passages 'S" She brought forth butter in a lordly, s dish; He shall not see the rivers, the'
 floods, the brooks of honey and butter; T 1" Butter and honey shall he eat that he' may know to refuse the evil and choose.
 the good" Butter, however, had reached a great ' age when the adulteratOrs seized 1t andl , began to break down its constitution
 and ruin its digestion by stufiing 1t with
 hogs lard. It was contemporary with e HerOdotus, who was born 4S4 B. C., fOri s that illustriOus historian says of the Scy1
 thians: These people pour the milk of , their mares into wooden vessels, cause it- B to be violently stirred, or shaken by!
 stheir blind slaves, and separate the part. i that arises to the surface, as they cOn-s sider 1t more valuable and delicious.
 than that which Is collected below 1t.
 HippOcrates confirms HerodOtus, saying ! 'Ihe Scythians pour the milk of theiri s mares into wooden vessels and shake it. . violently; this causes 1t to foam, and the,
 fat part, which IS light, rising to the sur, 5 face, becomes what is called butter \ How old the subject of this obituary no-i
 tice was in the time of HerOdOtus andi Hippocrates will never be known, sinces ~those writers omitted to state the fact,' , even if they were informed of 1t. Butt 3 i may be assumed that butter was bOrn,l ! or first churned, which to all intents andl j purposes Is the same thing, in Scythia,'
 probably among the horde described as;
 the agricultural Scythians, "whOse post 2 sessions extended toward the fertilei
 banks of the Bog and Dnieper." :, Prob-'
 ably Darius got a taste of the Scythiani
 butter when he invaded the cOuntrys
 about 800 B. C., as XenOphon and hiss ] Greeks did a hundred years later, in thati
 great retreat from Persia. A Hippocrates' mention of butter Is ac-y counted for on the ground that it wasss used in his time as a medicine. But it! swas also used as table dehcacy, and; z had found its way among the Thra-s fcians, for in the description of a grandy
 wedding of the daughter of the King of
 Ihrace the poet AnaXandrides, who lived,
 soon after hippocrates, says the Thra-s
 cians ate butter, referring to the delicacys
 as part of the wedding entertainment. tIt was through Ihrace, by the way oii E Greece, that butter became better knOwnl Ito the Romans, for ThTacia was merged' sin the Macedonian kingdom about 36i < 5. C., and on the fall of that kingdom, lUS B. C., passed under tine dominion Oil < Rome.
 K Butter became well known in ROmeS sduring the first and second centuries of fthe Christian era. DioscOrides says t 2"GOOd butter was prepared from the fat ftest milk, such as that of sheep or goats, sby shaking 1t in vessels till the fat was He adds also, and Beck ! Tman says he is the first writer who makesl Al n s.N. n. l.. -l.s sr .sbe melted and poured over pulse andE svegetables instead of oil, and that itI Knight be employed in pastry in theI Broom of other fat substance" It may bel s,said that butter was becoming civilized. rlso to speak. But 1t was still used in theI Fart of medicine-"a kind of soOt like s,Wise was at that time prepared from but liter for external applications, which was. .'used in curing inflammation of the eyesl Hand other disorders" It was also em- siployed in the toilet. Plutarch says thatl sf.'a Spartan lady paid visit to Berenice. sthe wife of Dejotaras, and that the OneI 4smelIed so much of sweet ointment and! s.the other of butter that neither of theml 'could endure the other" tl Galen remarks that "cows milk pro- q Tduces the fattest butter" says that, "heI z has seen it made from COWS milk, andl sthat he believes it had thence acquired, ! its name" Thus butter emancipatesi fitself from its first low estate as a pro- duct of mares and goats milk, andI sstarts on the road to the dignity which. sit reached m its old age as the fruitage,. sas it were, of the beautiful Jersey COW. 9But Galen had but poor appreciation 50f the delicious qualities of butter, of it's q grand future, or its tragic end HeI .;thought of 1t only as applied to its most. T iiegrading Uses. Butter" says he, "mayl Zoe very properly employed for Oint- sments: and when leather IS besmeared! 'iwith 1t the same purpose Is answered asl sswhen 1t Is rubbed over with oil. Iu' %cold countries which do not produce OIl,' E butter is used in the baths; that 1t Is al
 real fat may be readily perceived by itsl
 catching the fire when poured over;
 s3urning coals" Pliny says that "the' lancient Germans made butter which, ,i-hey used as most pleasant kind of. si0f fOod,' but other writers of great, m fnot equal, authority deny the fact, al s leging that the only product of milk .iyith which they were acquainted was. s;cheese. Whether Tacitus' reference to: .i-the most common food for the Ger
 mans," in the word "lac-cOncretum, .sneans butter or cheese, Is not, andi fznever can be, known. Butter may bel
 said to have had a hard struggle Tn it's zs7outh. To have been "used as hair. 'zOil,7 mixed with honey, to be rubbed -iover childrens gums for ulcers in thel
 smouth, "fOr amounting the bodies of. 'echildren to render them pliable,' "foTI Srubbing inhamed eyes, etc.-these were i3not offices of honor. Indeed, So little
 did the ancients appreciate the merits
 of butter that they left enough whey m .it to prevent it's being "balled. For sthOusands of years butter was not ad-
 svanced beyond the consistency Of OIli
 1t hoated about, a greasy, yellow fluid, -unsuseceptible Of that lndlvlduaht! iivhich the mOderns gave 1t in the sym tmetrical pat of the tea table dellcacy
 which caused the mouth of the eplcure 7 tO water with the anticipation of pure sdelight. But If the youth of butter was Sfull of misfortune, its age was Over- sswhelmed with disgrace. To lose its lden- Kitty. to be smothered in grease-hog s i7grease-tO be mauled, and pounded, and :. make to hide tasteless, Odorless foreign sccompound. to be disguised and sent into Ethe world under a false brand, to be tssnifTed at in disgust and pushed aside supon the discovery of the fraud-these ;sindignities not only ruined the health
 sof butter, but robbed it of the last poor
 sIemnant of self-respect. What wonder isthat this accumulation of misfOrtunes ss Brought its victim to the grave?-Chica- Ego Tribune.
 % TIE New York Economist well says: C. sI. l