The record-union., 1897-12-25
WASTED TEARS.

REQ TO the lOWermoSt bowels of sorrow
because people prefer European and
Eastern fiavor-on the labels-in jams
jellies, sauces and table oils, and the
bottled and canned products of fruits,
While those goods themselves are largely
spurious, harmful and mere concoctions
| from vile bases. Here in California we
have the genuine, pure, heaven-favored
bases, it says, in the form of rare fruits,
fine vegetables, luscious olives. ETC., yet
the make up of these home goods grows
dusty on the shelves, while fraudulent
goods with European labels sell like hot
cakes to our own people.
All true, esteemed neighbor. But what
is the use of borrowing trouble about it?
Such murmuring never healed a wound
or eased a pain. If the people who use
these fraudulent goods and want the
foreign flavor in the label, prefer to do
and suffer and die, why let 'em. Time
will right it all. The laws against adul-
terations, fortifications and mixtures in
furious to that abused coat of the stom-
ach, mans worst enemy under unfair
treatment, will some day be enforced.
Our contemporary must know that
there is sweeping, all sufficient, drastic
and complete law upon the statute books
Of California already that would hold up
beyond the Sierras every pound and pint
of these miserable frauds If only our
people had the courage to enforce 1t.
Happily neighbor, neither you nor others
are compelled to buy these cheats in
jams, jellies and fraudulent bottled and
canned goods. Happily for you and our
selves, esteemed exchange, there are
still some of us who prefer the home
product and the pure article. Some Of
US who have good, old-fashioned wives,
by the way, who have not lost track of
the domestic arts by association with
that other spurious article, the new wo-
man, and can still put up ketchup from
the tomato and the mushroom, without
aid Of sulphuric acid; can make jams,
jellies and such of all grades, without
use of glucose, glue, flour and mucilage
color-ing fluids and make believe ex-
tracts.
The new woman has not wholly
crowded the genuine housewife, who has
regard for the stomach of the family,
from off this earth. She may some day,
| more's the pity. Neither need you nor
we, nor the other fellow submit to the
imposition of the grocer, since he, bus
| iness-like fellow, will furnish the pure
goods IL only we ask for them and insist
upon having them. No, the "1ndepend-
ent's" tears are unavailing and waste,
pure waste Of bodily humidity. Let
those who wish to eat and drink poi
| sonous food do so, and the sooner rid
the world and California of their pres
ence, giving place to those who will
have pure food, out of respect for their
maker and their stomachs, and know
how and where to get it.
But returning to the proposition that
| we have an all sufficient law unto the
evil, will our Stockton contemporary tell
US, if it can, why it is not enforced? We
confess to inability to answer the ques-
| tion so far as this county is concerned,
We're adulterated and impure food goods
glut the market, and daily fraud is dealt
out over the counters of suppliers in
open and notorious defiance of a law,
which San Francisco has discovered,
may be enforced and will hold water.
| With the incoming of every winter
there always has been, and there always
will be, a stacking up Of certain indus
activity in still others. Thus cotton
mills run light in winter and some close
down or shorten hours. In iron working
establishments less machinery is turn
ed out in winter. while bicycle manu-
facturers invariably check their activi-
ties in the winter season for obvious
reasons, while for certain lines of vehi-
cles there is increased activity among
manufacturers. Ship building comes
almost to a standstill in winter while
numbering and woolen manufactures
are little affected by inclement
| weather. In short, the approach
of winter is always disturbing among
some industries, in a way not manifest
by the opening Of any Of the other
seasons. But as the news of the
changes consequent upon the advent of
the winter season comes in the opposi-
tion press and parties begin, as might
have been expected, to howl against the
Republican administration and roar,
rs this an example of your boasted
prosperity, and this, and this?" as they
point to news notes of the closing of an
occasional factory for the winter clean
up, or Of reduction of working forces
| in another, as trade demands for the
article produced slacken. We do not,
| however, hear single word, or see a
| single line OF comment from these
sources when the starting up of new
factories is announced, and when en-
largement Of industrial activity is re-
ported. To all these things the oppo-
sition is deaf and blind.
A Pittsburg murderer condemned to
die was reading his Bible in his cell
| the other day when the Sheriff called at