Clarke courier. [volume] (Berryville, Va.) 1869-1997, 1906-03-07

preservative" laws had been ADOPT
ed. and had decreased wherever the
use of preservatives had been per-
mitted. In North Dakota, in a
single year after the use of preser-
vatives had been stopped, the
number of deaths had increased
nearly sixty per cent. In Berlin,
Germany. under the same con-
ditions, the death rate inreased
seventy-two per cent. In Chicago,
where the use of preservatives is
steadily increasing, the death rate
has dropped from 707 per 10,OOO
population in 1890 to 347 per TO-
600 at the present time, more than
one half.
Preservatives are never added TO
food to adulterate it, nor to keep
1t while it is canned or bottled, as
the case may be. Their sole use is
to keep the food from developing
germs after the package has been
Opened and exposed to the air, and
IT this were not done everything
would become dangerous to health
unless used Immediately upon
Opening, A bottle of catsup will
often be on table for a month
after opening before being used
up. Without a trifie of benzoate
of soda 1t would soon become germ
infected and spoil. Nature realizes
this, for in every fruit and berry
will be found eithe benzoic or sail
cylic acid, and we have been eating
them for centuries without harm.
There Is no more reason why we
should object to ordinary preserva-
tives than there is for us To object
to common salt, for that is Just
what salt is and exactly what it is
used for, and there is not the
slightest scientific evidence i'm the
world that preservatives in the
quantities used injure our health or
bodies in the slightest degree, while
science has demonstrated that
properly used they save number
less live each year.
While 1t is true that the aver
age Democrat in Congress SHES
at the name of n ship-subsidy bill
like a moon-eyed horse at a black
stump because the last two bills
before the Congress were great
grabs and nothing else, they've no
right 10 shy at the one now before
the Congress and which recently
passed the Sentate and now is be-
fore the House. It ought to pass
in the interest of the merchants
and manufacturers and the farmers
of the country. 1t has no politics
in 1t and it has been indorsed by
almost every trade organization in
the country, notably by the cotton
growers associations of the South
ern states. We now are depending
on foreign ships TO carry 20 per
cent, of our transatlantic business
because those countries are ship
owning and shipbuilding countries
and they have built shipping in
terests by the use of subsidies.
Those countries require our cotton,
wheat, corns cattle and provisions
and they send their ships to our
ports for the goods they need, thus
incidentally providing facilities for
European import traffic, but when
we turn to our trade. with Asia,
Africa. Central ane South America,
and Australasia we find that condi-
tions are radically different. I'm
like the chief European nations,
they are not shipowning lands.
We require from them a great
quantity of imports, especially
articles of food and raw materials
for our manufacturers, and the
great bulk of these goods are on
the tariff free list.
But these countries, unlike Eu-
rope, have no ships of their own
to deliver all this needful merchan-
disc in our own ports, and, of
course, they do not supply the ships
that are required for the proper
expansion of our export commerce
to their own ports. For this SER
vice both ways the United States is
now dependent almost altogether
on the surplus or inferior shipping
of Europe. The European powers
grant liberal subsidies to maintain
great steam lines from their own
ports to Asia, Africa, Central and
South America, and Australasia,
but they do not, if they can help it,
allow any of their subsidies to be
utilized for the maintenance of