The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1896-09-30
A pI FA FOR PLAIN FOOD.
Hints That May save Many Doctors Bills
and as.luable Lives.


1t is not a generally understood fact,
INT a fact nevertheless, that some OF the
veaIthiest aid most luxurious appear
inc Deople live on the plainest food.
There are children in the families OF
,uiIliouaires who would no more be
narujtted to partake Of such meals as
IRE given to the children Of many Ia
loring man than they would be allowed
10 use articles that were known TO be
poisonous. Many a mechanic little
ones live On meat. warm bread, all the
butter they want, and that OF an lnferl-
1r quality. coffee as much as they
choose. and cheap bakers cake. which
Is in itself enough to ruin the digestion
of an ostrich.
The children of one family make
their breakfast of oatmeal C some 9th
er cereal and milk, with bread at least
II hours old, little, very little, butter,
sometimes none at all The breakfast Is
varied bv corn bread, well done, little
Zyyieback and sometimes stale bread Dip
ped in egg and cracker crumbs and
Drowned with butter. A fresh egg is
often the only article outside OF farlna-
ccous food that they are allowed For
dinner. which is the middle of the day,
they have some well cooked meat, one
or rwo vegetables, a cup Of milk If they
like it, or weak COCOA, with plenty OF
bread and butter and a simple dessert
Supper, which is very light meal, fire.
ouently consists Of graham crackers or
brown bread and milk or the pudding,
eaten with a little molasses or maple
sirup
A few days ago, in a call at the house
of a workingman, there were five chill
dren seated at a table, on which was
large dish of meat, swimming with
gravy. in which potatoes had been cook
ed. These potatoes were saturated with
fat and almost impossible Of digestion
by any person of ordinary constitution.
! There were hot rolls, soggy looking
and smoking from the oven; parsnlps
| fried in lard and reeking with the
grease. A pile of cheap cakes, sufficient
10 fill a good sized four quart measure,
| stood on one corner of the table; also
1 two pies, with crust containing 50 much
| lard that they looked absolutely greasy.
| There was coffee, dark and rank look
ing and worse smelling, and this the
children were indulging III quite as
much Is they pleased. They ate like lit
| tie wolves, with an unnatural and fero-
| cious appetite. Two of them had pasty,
unhealthy looking complications; one
was evidently suffering from some skin
| disease; the elder of the group had an
| ugly looking eruption on his face and
| ears, and the entire lot were living eX-
| ampIeS of the results of a mistaken sys-
| TEN Of feeding. IT was no surprise 10
| the visitor to hear, a few days later,
that two of them were very III, one
hopelessly so, with cholera mOrbus-
That the death rate among such peO-
pie does not increase with frightful IA
pidiry Is the one thing that the thought
fuI persons and philanthropists never
1 cease 10 wonder at
The parents of these children would
undoubtedly have said that they gave
| the little ones the best they could af-
| ford, but this was Just exactly the
| cause of all the troubles. They gave
them too much and too expensive food.
| ( proper diet would have cost a third
| Of the money and would have saved
health and doctors bills, TO say nothing
of their iiyes.-New York Ledger.