The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1881-09-24

| An hour later, Mrs. Stickney anu Miss
1 Susan We're driving toward Lake Dun
more, rs Jolly pair as one wish to see.
81 AIN glad you settled it, Florence,
Mr. Stickncy whispered, as they stood
on the piazza previously 10 setting out.
| "No doubt" she replied. with a touch
of the old tone he had learned to sus-
pect. Yesterday. Hubert she added,
81 made discovery
''What is ito he asked.
! THAT You are very great coward"
she replied.
THE POOR MANS BREAKFAST
TABLE.
We hear, with no great amount Of skep-
,icism, of the impositions, in the subject
of food, that our European cousins ell
dure: and thinking of the perpetual wars
and rumors of war among them, We feel
it somewhat remarkable that they have
any food at all of their own. or find the
means to buy any of us. But when we
come to look at home, and consider the
immensely of the crops of our own coun-
try, and its unmeasured wealth. then it
seems marvellous that its people submit
to such rapacious robbery of their food
by adulteration as is of daily occurrence
submit with scarcely murmur. and
with scarcely an attempt to bring about
any thing different.
| Let Us take the mere question of bread.
which in the cities is often as largely sup
piled from bakeries as made at home.
One would imagine that from wheat
grown npon millions of acres all the peo-
pie of the continent would feed III plenty:
but, on the contrary, the act of adultera-
ton begins. we are told, in the simple
choice of flour. some bakers buying a
cheaper flour. made of "sprouted wheat"
in which the gluten has undergone such
a change that light bread can be pro-
duccd from il only by the use of chemi-
of these deleterious substances. it is de-
clared. is alum. and that used in an i'm
mense proportion to the tlour--a drug
which produces, when taken in any guam
tity purgins and vometing, heart burn,
and gripping pains. Doubtless Il great
deal of the American dyspepsia might be
traced directly to the bread thus TAM
| pered with. and the victim has reason to
consider himself lucky if the white spongi-
ness that he fancies in his loaf is pro-
duced by alum alone, and not by 4 little
blue vitriol also.
| Nor are we any more fortunate in our
tea. that stand by of the household. that
manstay Of the sewing girl and shop
woman, that comfort Of the weakly and
sustaner of the strong. To say nothing
of the cunning of those of our own peO-
pie who sell over again the once drawn
leaves bought of hotels and eating houses
and rctlried, no where and in nothing
does the heather Chinee practice more
| lamentable cunning than when coloring
black teas for us, as he sometimes does,
with preparation of black lead, or in
! giving the bloom and tint to his green
teas, not simply by drying the leaves on
sheets Of copper, but by stirring them up
with powdered gypsum, Prussian blue
and turmeric. half tea-spoonful of the
| destructive mixture being used to half
dozen pounds Of the leaves, and the hands
of the workmen being dyed in the pro-
| cess.
There is a cry going up among roliti-
clans every other year or so, when the
| time comes to agitatc the question of the
tariff. about laying a tax on the poor
man $ breakf fast table: but we see in such
| things as this the sort of tax that is laid
not only on his breakfast table, but on
his digestion and on his blood and mus
| Gle. His bread and his tea are rendered
not only innutritious. but hurtful, and
we all know that his butter was uneat-
able for il long time before sufficient sense
of the wrong gathered to make war on
| oleomargarine-a sufficient harmless sub
stance in itself. as every German house
wife knows who has been in the habit,
as her grandmother was before her, Of
| boiling her suet down. with little fresh
milk and sugar. and setting it away to
spread the bread of the childrens fore
noon luncheon. but which, when made
from unknown substances, tallows and
fats collected no one knows where, is an
entirely different thing.
| That the milk of the poor man 5 break
fast table should be no longer whitcned
and weakened with chalk and water is
something that town and city govern
ments are trying their best to bring about;
| but they still submit to terra alba in his
white sugar, and sand in his brown.
And not only the poor man, but almost
all the others have to put up with mus
tard whose asperity has been so softened
| by flour and turmeric that it will not
| draw blister. horse radish that will not
draw tear, cayenne into which corn
meal and salt have been sifted, cinnamon
| that is only cassia. and mixed with Ocher
at that, pickles made green by vitriol
and copper: and even the cunning Of the
bee among his blossoms is counterfeited
by the grocer in his jars of strained honey.
Yet of all the authorizations in the COM
mon food Of people there is not one that
equals in the enormity of its outrage the
colnring of candies (tlie ma. ioriiy of whose
consumers are our childrenl by the use
| of such absolute poisons as verdigris,
| sienna. gamboge. chromate Of lead, and
the quantity of the pigments employed
is but intinitesimal, but scientists claim
ing that they have. for instance. scraped
from one candy toy enough "Scheele's
green to kill a rabbit.
We neecd, i'll this connection. say but
| little If the toxicology 10y which strong
waters and other kindred drinks are
counterfeited. made palatable, and given
a resemblance to that which they pro-
fess to be and are not, rs they are hardly
to be called the constituents of daily food,
and are only to be regarded as such when
administered by the physicians, and then,
| if tempered with. coming under the head
of the adulteration of drugs, and the ac-
ton of the tiend who would do to death
the occupant of the sick-bed, less merci-
full dsease-an authorization worse than
that of food, for the injurious food finds
us at least in something like health, and