The morning call., 1892-12-20
FROZEN FACTS.

Ice in San Francisco is not such neees-
silly as it is in New York or Chicago or New
Orleans. In those cities nothing will keep
without ice-neither meat, nor fish, nor
milk. nor butter. Water, unless it be fresh
from the spring, requires ice to make it
palatable. Here ice-water is only used In
hotels, bars and a few luxurious houses.
The normal San Franciscan drinks his water
without cooling it artifcially. lie does not
even resort to the device Of lowering its
temperature by evaporation, as the old Ro-
mans did, and as they still do in Mexico
and parts of Asia In weather such as we
are now having meat and fish will keep
several days in a cool place. and even In
summer the joint bought on Monday will
be fresh and sweet for Tuesdays dinner.
If necessary San Francisco could dispense
with the use of ice altogether
Yet it seems that We use in this city about
$4,000 tons of ice each year. 1t is not very
expensive luxury. The housekeeper pays
cent pound for the chunk which goes into
her refrigerator, bat the butcher, the fish,
monger and the hotel-keeper are only
charged So to So ton. The price is made
by the producers of artificial ice, who sup
ply one-half the consumption of the city.
The Union Ice Company. which is the prin-
cipal dealer in natural ice, has to follow
their lead. a few years ago ii used to get
$50 or SIS a ton, but the profits it made led
to competition, and now the price is gov
erned by the cost Of production. Wherever
the srtifieiai-ice makers establish a factory
they make the rates. Where they are not
found the natural-ice dealers charge all that
the traffic will bear. There must be good
many places of this last kind, for the COM
J, faf,.
calculate 10 harvest 10000 tons year,
$4,000 tons of which are used on the fruit
carrying refrigerator-cars which run to the
East. To the freight ON the fruit which
California ships East must therefore be
added at least $3.50, 600 for ice.
The value of ice in medicine and surgery
is not to be questioned. and its use for the
preservation Of pershable animal and vege-
table products is equally undoubted. But it
is not clear that the enormous consumption
of ice-water, which is prevalent in the East,
is free from Inconvenience and danger. Ii
has been stated that the pre-eminence of
American dentistry is due TO the more gen.
eral diffusion of dental disease in this
country than in Europe, and it is alleged
that our misfortune in this respect arises
from our habit of drinking ice-co,d liquids.
& medical authority has also stated that
certain disease germs which are expelled
from water by fltering are retained in ice.
and are absorbed into the body when ice
water is drunk. This assertion denies the
theory that frost is fatal to germ life.
IL ce-Water is a common source of tooth
ache, the malady ought to be less prevalent
here than in the East; is it? Dentists
ought to know The public would be glad
to hear from them on the subject.
In TINS climate a discovery that the use of
ice is pernicious would probably be fol-
lowed by reduced consumption in water
and lemonade. But In hotter meridIans il
could not be dispensed with. No medical
warnings could check the consumption OF
ice in the tropics. Fortunes were made by
the Boston merchants who first shipped ice
to the West Indies and Calcutta Until
quite lately Ice was worth in the latter city
SIS per hundred pounds. The first Yankee
captain who took a cargo of ice TO the
Islands Is said to have made money enough
to retire on. The late King was acquainted
with the virtues of rum and with the subtle
charm OF champagne; he was familiar with
the seductive merit OF a mixture of the two;
but " hen he was taught to give the CON-
pound an edge by pouring IL into goblet
OF cracked ice, he had his benefactor take
the finest of the royal plantations as the
fitting reward OF one who had added Joy
tn life