Poisonous "Soft Drinks."
By Editor
A correspondent in Chicago has sent us a program of a meeting held in that city, entitled "The Chinese Christian Patriotic Meeting," and wishes us to give notice of the same. Now we think it is perfectly proper for Christians to thank God for the revolution which is taking place in China, because it is opening doors for the Gospel, and it looks in every way as if it would prove a real blessing to the millions of China; but why call it a Christian patriotic meeting? Why not let it be a simple Christian meeting, and praise God for His open doors? Christianity is a great deal broader than patriotism. Patriotism is love of one's own country, and love of that country against the world; but true Christianity has a heart to take in the whole world. John Wesley said, "The world is my parish;" and the apostle Paul recognized his debt to all men, not simply to the Jews, but also the Gentiles. So while the Christian would bid Godspeed to the new Chinese republic, would praise God for the greater freedom that will be given to His Gospel, and the hope that will be given to millions of hearts, he would do this solely because of his love for souls, and not for the particular establishment of any particular form of government. President John Craft, of the Alabama State oyster commission, protests against taking oysters right from the shell and eating them raw. He says they are still alive and full of feeling, and hence he draws a strong picture of the tortures and agonies they must suffer while being torn alive from the shell, salted, peppered, and treated with lemon-juice or vinegar, then stabbed with a fork, and slipped into the human stomach with but very little, if any, mastication. Altho a great lover of oysters himself, he threatens to bring the matter before the humane society, to see if he can not have the custom stopped of eating alive raw oysters. For ourselves, we think that the idea of swallowing a creature whole, entrails and all, is sufficiently repulsive to cause people to reject any kind of oyster, whether dead or alive, raw or cooked. Any one who will take the pains to examine carefully the oyster and its habits, will be able to see that the Almighty had a reason for placing it on the list of unclean creatures, in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus. It is a creature of the sea, and has neither fins nor scales, but it should have both in order to be classed as clean. Dr. Harvey Wiley, the Government expert, says: "The insidious soft drink has, perhaps, been given less attention than it deserves. Investigation at the United States bureau of chemistry, where we analyzed one hundred samples of the sirups used in the manufacture of these drinks, has convinced me that they contain a liberal percentage of caffein and marble dust, both highly injurious to the system. Caffein is a habit-forming drug. We have laws which compel manufacturers to state the formulae of their products. There should be suspended over every bar or soda-fountain where soft drinks are sold a sign bearing the inscription: 'These drinks contain caffein. Don't drink them unless you want to take poison into your system.'" He declared further: "The children should be taught to abstain entirely from these soft drinks. No parent should permit his child to drink the concoctions served at the soda-fountains. A rigid law should be made and enforced to prevent the sale of these drinks which contain caffein, and almost all of them do contain it. We are working for such a law, because our investigations and analyses have convinced us of its necessity." These words should be heeded. An Eastern paper sums up the expenditures of the war department of this peace Government between May 1, 1898, and July 1, 1911, aside from the expenditures of the Panama Canal, to the amount of $1,896,000,000. During the four years from 1892 to 1896, the total expenditures of the war department were only $206,000,000; but in the four years ending July 1, 1911, the total expenditures were over $585,000,000. The total enlisted strength of the army to-day is limited to 100,000; in 1896 it was only 25,000. And during this same thirteen year period from 1898 to 1911, the navy department spent over $1,250,000,000, increasing from $58,000,000 in 1898 to $119,000,000 in 1911. Army and navy together expended over $3,000,000,000. Add to this what has been paid for pensions from 1866 to July, 1911, $4,466,000,000, and the amount is simply staggering. It would seem as if common sense would dictate some other policy. There seems to be a demand for arbitrary executives, whether legal or illegal. For instance, Newport, Rhode Island, has been known as a very open town; but the governor has taken hold of it and worked right over the heads of the mayor and chief-of-police, closing up big gambling joints, and continuing even to the penny slot-machines. Saloons have been closed on Sunday, and the town generally cleaned up. But unless there is a local spirit, a disposition to maintain these conditions, it may be safely said that there will be a reaction. One of the necessary things in the reform of an individual, of a community, or a town, is that there must be not simply a desire for reform, but a disposition and principle to maintain it. A perpetual arc lamp has now been invented. There was one partially that before, in the mercury tube, but it was impossible to heat the mercury to a sufficient degree to overcome the green, ghastly light, because it was contained in glass tubes; but quartz is now used instead of the more easily melted glass, and the lamp, the Literary Digest tells us, is now available. It uses a continuous vapor arc. The Inventive Age says, "It keeps up indefinitely, condensing and vaporizing over and over again. The light is a beautiful whitish yellow, brilliant and powerful. With such a lamp, necessitating no renewals of the carbons and no cleaning of globes, the ideal arc seems at hand." A beautiful addition is to be made to the State University grounds of California, through the gift of Miss Jane K. Sather, of Oakland. She has provided $200,000 for a lofty bell-tower 36 feet square, 300 feet high, of white granite. 250 feet from the ground will be hung a chime of bells, for which an additional provision has been made of $25,000. From the belfry, open to visitors, will be a fine view of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate, Mt. Tamalpais, and the high range of hills in the rear.13 That about one in two hundred cases of pulmonary tuberculosis is due to bovine origin, is the statement of the Journal of the American Medical Association. One tenth of the fatal cases of tuberculosis are due to bovine infection. Parents ought to demand pure milk for their little ones. Mr. Bridges, the warden of Massachusetts State Prison, seems to have solved the matter of high prices in the feeding of his prisoners. He feeds them at a cost of about nine cents a day, gives them a fairly liberal menu, according to the reports of each day, and he says that "our guests thrive on what we give them." It is said that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs have agreed that $100,000,000 would not be an excessive figure to award the United States of Colombia on account of the damage done by the United States in the Panama revolution, if the matter were submitted to the Hague tribunal—an after effect of Mr. Roosevelt’s administration. The New York "World" calls the stealing of watermelons a "national crime." Men act as if the idea of private property in no way applied to watermelons. In other words, it is not wrong to steal that which so many long for. This idea of the habit of many justifying a crime might help out many other criminals. But it is just such things as these that are making a nation of criminals. "The Michigan plan" for solving the drink problem, it seems to us, will foster it. The problem is thus stated by the Detroit Alliance News: "How shall drunkenness be reduced to its minimum and the greatest number of people be made temperate, sober, righteous, and godlike in their drinking, as well as in all other habits of life?" A total abstinence pledge is presented, in which the signer pledges to abstain totally from "drinking whisky; brandy; gin; rum; fortified, compounded, imitation, and other adulterated wines; cordials; liquors; bitters; cocktails; highballs; and all other beverages and nostrums whatsoever containing distilled alcohol or distilled spirits in any degree;" all of which is good; but this is not all; it goes further: "Promising and pledging myself further—should I use alcoholic drinks at all—that I will confine myself absolutely to a strictly temperate use of natural fermented beverages only—such as pure and simple wine, beer, and cider." It won’t work; it can’t.