Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-08-04
THE CASE OF DIR. WYL|E
Another Attempt To Shoulder The
General Costumes OF Living
Due to the Decorative Age
COMMON FOOD IN FANCY DRESS
The Consumer Obliged To Pay For
Artistry OF Boxes And Waste
Money And Time In Ordering
Food In Homeopathic
Doses.


Consensus of opinion seem to indi-
cate that DR.. Wiley's case is but the
attempt to shoulder the blame for the
gneraI costliness of everything onto
someone. The country has grown SUI
persensitive on the cost of living, so
anyone supposed to be even remotely
responsible quickly falls into disre-
pute. The public has long made a
practice of picking out some one per-
son to sacrifice when things go wrong
in the body polite, in fact the cere-
mony of the exile of the scape-goat is
almost as old as the giving of the law
in the Ten Commandments.
In the old days the scape- goat not
only bore the burden for others, but
carried it clear away from the haunts
of men; being public spirited ami
NAL that must have given him COM
fort on his lonely journey into the I'M
known. But now, although after half
life of service the public servant is
made to assume the role and is driven
into Punishment he has no such salts
faction, for he knows that the burden
will remain on the shoulders of his
fellows; his being fmartyr will not
cause the dinner pail to once more
| brim with good things, or cause food
stuffs to return to the old reasonable
level of cost.
We hatter ourselves in thinking
this practical age, it would be near
er the truth to call it the decorative
| age; ever since Oscar Wilde elevated
| the churn and sun flower to positions
among things beautiful, and set the
fashion in gilded legs for milking
stools, we have gone in for the artis-
| tic on the outside of the cup and plat
ter, without much noting the quantity
of the contents. To prove this whole
sale assertion, look into any corner
grocery, note the shelves radiant with
| cans, packages and bottles highly col
| ored as to brands, flowers, fruit, land
| scapes and figures having no relation
| to the contents, but looking smart.
Gone is the comfortable store of
| our younger days, where bulk goods in
barrels, and boxes were scooped out
while we waited in admiration of the
mass of sugar and boxes of dried fruit
| and raisins into which the obliging
| grocer would let us dip, if we were
| good-paying customers. Now the dried
fruit comes in handsome packages and
the punches of raisins have ribbon
bows on each stem. We pay for the
package and the bow and go short on
| the fruit.
| Time was when the natural craving
for sweets could be satisfied by bread
II ! L., e, 4 L.
substituted handsome tin with pat
ent top and gorgeous specimen of the
| photographers art with a true state.
ment of how little sugar cane juice is
within, and the price of the whole is
more than half gallon Of old-time mo-
lasses that would be drawn from a
hogshead while you waited-you Ger.
tainly did wait if the weather was
cold. There is hardly an article OF
food stuff that is not now put up in
package for, very convenient but oh,
so costly if the truth was known.
An old style water cracker, selling
at eight cents pound, dressed up in
fancy package five of them to the
pounds in common use, simple
sum but very convincing when it is re-
membered that each package costs five
cents. A sardine firm puts out tins
with extra tops, of course the con.
sumner pays for the tin and extra
| Workmanship by getting fewer sar-
dimes and poorer quality of oil, as
no one would let the fish remain in
| the can this new fashion is an alb
| solutely waste effort for which the
ultimate consumer pays. Spices and
| peppers come in the cleverest cans
with perforated sliding top, which can
| easily be dispensed with, and the
| money put into more of the article
| and less decoration, and so on, ad lib.
1t is probably more sanitary to have
things in small quantities, and ar
ticles such as coffee and tea deterior-
ate in great bulk, but this advantage
has to be paid for, and never again
it may safely be affirmed will the food
bill be moderate until the old order
returns, as the storeroom has been
eliminated from housekeeping and the
kitchen has shrunk to the dimension
of the kitchenette, there is no place in
the modern home for food stuff in
large quantity, so we will continue to
buy quarter-pound bundles and FIVE
cent boxes, wasting money and the
time in giving orders for such homeo-
pathic supplies. The condition is es-
tablished and so the poor scape- goat
will have been sacrificed in vain.
FRANCES. JAY.
sE Banking hours-daily 9 a. m. 70