Rutledge Rutherford, food expert and editor of a food magazine, declares that 250,000 children were killed last year by poisoned foods, and that more are killed that way in one year than the number engaged in the Spanish-American War, and the babies alone number more, by 60,000, than the total number of all the soldiers that were killed in all the battles of the four years of the Civil War. In the mad race to increase profits through cheapening the cost of production, recognized poisons are inserted in foods, in order to make use of poor grades of raw products. These poisons are especially numerous in candies, soda-fountain beverages, ice-cream products, bakery goods, and other cheap dainties devised to attract pennies from children. He declares that three million persons were ill in the United States last year, and charges the greatest responsibility to chemicals. Appendicitis, he declares, frequently results from consuming boracic acid, ptomaine poisoning from partially decomposed foods, especially milk and milk products, fish, and meat. When the signs of decomposition appear, they have been concealed by benzoate of soda, formaldehyde, sulfites, and other chemicals. Dyspepsia and indigestion are caused by the consumption of saccharin, saccharin being 550 times sweeter than sugar, and therefore much cheaper. Typhoid fever, Bright’s disease, headache, drowsiness, nausea, and other ailments, are charged to decomposed food, saccharin, salicylic acid, and benzoate of soda. The vilest, most malodorous factory refuse, we are told, may be made pleasant to the sight, taste, and smell, through magical effects of benzoate of soda, saccharin, and coal-tar dye. The coal-tar dye gives a clear, translucent appearance to the product, the saccharin sweetens it, and the benzoate of soda embalms it, so that it will keep for a decade without spoiling. These warnings are worthy of consideration.
Class Government Evil.
The San Francisco News Letter of September 16, referring to the probable election of Mr. Rolph as mayor, congratulates itself that class government is nearing its end. It declares that “class rule of the very sort and description that McCarthy vainly seeks to perpetuate has ruined some men, killed some, and put upon the city commercial, industrial, and in the civic sense the worst blight in all our history.” It well declares that when “one class rules a city, it is bad for all classes. It is destructive to peace, ruinous to prosperity.” Class government is always bad; class legislation is bad; class privileges, class prerogatives, are bad, granted by any government on the face of the earth. It matters not what the class is, or of whom it is composed. Every civil government on the face of the earth ought to be equally for all. Jefferson well expressed it in “Equal and exact justice to all, of every State and persuasion, religious and political.”
M. Marcel Roland, member of the French Institute of Science, has written a startling book of prediction concerning the future of this earth, beginning that awful future with the autumn of 1911, in which there will come a second deluge upon the earth. A little more faith in the divine revelation would have saved him the effort, and would have taken from thousands of people a fear which his book will arouse that there may come just such a thing as that. The promise of God is that the earth shall never be covered again with water. It is reserved unto fire and perdition of ungodly men.
An air-ship capable of lifting 26,000 pounds of air, having four huge motors, named the “Akron,” is built to cross the Atlantic.
Oklahoma will not build up her reputation for a law-abiding State if many more such exhibitions as have been recently witnessed there are allowed. Within two weeks, recently, two persons have been burned at the stake by mobs. Granting that both of these victims were criminals, still there is no excuse for the mob violence. If both of them had been innocent and the mob thought them criminals, they would have been burned just the same. Mob law is unreasoning madness. Whatever the color of a man’s skin, he ought to have a fair trial; and we believe that to be the sentiment of the best people in the South, as well as in the North.
A strange crime has been committed by the Shakers in Kissimmee, Florida. One of their community was a great sufferer, dying from tuberculosis; and to ease her final agonies, she pleaded that they should put her to death, and she was consequently chloroformed. Two of the community are under arrest, but have been admitted to bail. They admit that they did it, and tell the reasons why. It is a matter of curiosity now as to what will be the decision of the court. Suicide is not unlawful in Florida, and this has been called “assisted suicide.” It will be dangerous, however, if the court terms it that.
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, now making a tour of the West in the interest of labor unions
The governor of Oklahoma has adopted a strange attitude. The prohibition law is in force in that State; and now, utterly regardless of civil officers, he has placed the enforcement of that law upon the Prohibitionists, who must act without salary and without cost to the State. This brings them, to some extent, in conflict with the regular civil officers, and works hardship on many of them, who can not take their time for such purposes as that. It would naturally seem that a law placed on the statute-books of the State should be enforced by the regular officers of the State.
Reports from Portugal indicate that political matters are far from stable. Royalists are still working to put King Manuel back on his throne. Constantly there are evidences of great activity just without the republic. Recently a large quantity of guns and ammunition was seized by the Republican forces on the frontier. Portugal’s experience of the last half millennium has not been favorable to self-government now.
At the present writing, the great labor troubles of America are seemingly as far from settlement as ever. There is hope, of course, on both sides that settlement may be accomplished to the satisfaction of both parties involved. And surely the public, which in case of an extended strike would suffer more than either of the other parties, confidently hopes that this may be the case.
Secretary of Agriculture Wilson has been invited to preside at the International Brewers’ Congress in Chicago, and Secretary Knox has invited foreign nations to participate in the exhibit. Ministers of various denominations are strongly protesting against both.
The strike situation in the Old World is not over yet, while there is a prospect of settlement in England favorable to the workers. The results which English working men have secured have stirred up the labor element in Germany, and the authorities fear a general labor uprising all over the country—an uprising very difficult to deal with there, because they feel that the workers will not resort to any kind of violence, giving the government no opportunity to step in; and secondly, it is feared that the German troops, strong as they might be in facing a foreign foe, are greatly affected by Socialistic doctrines, and could not be relied upon to fire on their own countrymen and brothers. Already in the metal trades in Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg, thousands of men are on strike or locked out. There is difficulty with the employees of the Berlin street-car system.
It is marvelous what men are doing nowadays in the great iron structures of the country. Just recently an immense bridge has been opened across the Connecticut River, connecting the towns of Saybrook and Old Lynn in the State of Connecticut—1,800 feet long, and the draw span is 282 feet. The draw is opened by what is called the “Scherzer rolling lift,” which operates very quickly. 2,200 tons of steel were used in its construction. It is estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 automobiles will pass over the bridge in a year.
September 19 all Spain was declared by King Alfonso to be under martial law, the result of the general railroad strike. The government believes that this railway strike is part of a plot to dethrone the king and to declare a republic, and it will meet it sharp and short. The country teems with revolt and disorder. In the alleged plot several officials were marked for death, among whom is General Weyler. The situation is critical. And that is the condition in many countries.
A writer in the San Francisco Examiner declares that the Royal Arch, a liquor organization, is not fighting the suffragist cause, and it has no funds for that purpose. He says, “We long ago made a thoro investigation in the States where woman suffrage has been tried, and we learn that the liquor business has not been hurt the least by the woman’s vote.”
Germany has her Jingoes, as well as other countries. The organ of a German society of inactive officers of the German army declares that now is the time for Germany to strike, to draw the sword to punish French and English impudence. The Christian has one hope regarding this,—that the war spirit will be controlled until God has done His work.
A despatch from Washington, D. C., of September 16, says that official returns sent from China declare that the floods of the great Yang-tse River extend 1,000 miles, from Hankow to Shanghai, and the area devastated is much larger than that of the year before, affecting between three million and four million people. Because of the awful devastation famine is again threatened.
It is not a hopeful sign in Spain when ladies of the nobility are acting as judges at bull-fights, and actually fighting bulls in the arena themselves, and are asking on such occasions as that, if the contest is not fierce enough, “Is this the ancient sport of Spain, or an American parlor game?”
The second oldest firm of stock-brokers in the country, members of the Wall Street Exchange, failed recently for $3,500,000. It is said that enough is owing the firm, if it can be collected, to pay dollar for dollar and resume business.
A despatch from South Norwalk, Connecticut, dated September 12, declares that there were a score of toadstool poisonings in that vicinity during the week past. One woman died as the result, and several others are in a critical condition.
Judge Harvey M. Trimble, of Illinois, was elected to the post of commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic at the recent meeting in Rochester.
"Ingersoll. A Biographical Appreciation."
By Editor
By Herman E. Kittredge, The Dresden Publishing Co., New York.
The book shows Mr. Kittredge to be a worshipful admirer of Colonel Ingersoll. His "Appreciation" amounts practically to an apotheosis. Infidelity or skepticism is made to be the halo of Ingersoll's genius. Ingersoll's powerful invective, as with all the other great doubters, has been hurled at what they know about Christianity. Personally, they do not know the real Christ of the Bible, and hence what they dwell upon is the misrepresentations of Christ that may be found among any sect of believers that has ever arisen. Ingersoll was brilliant and witty, and hence could hold up to public ridicule in a very "taking" and entertaining way such unscriptural doctrines as the eternal, burning hell that so many Christian sects have insisted on trailing along with them—a doctrine that was never taught in the Bible, that was never successfully used for anything except to aid mercenary priests and "divines" in binding chains of superstition about their people in such a way that they would implicitly obey them instead of the Lord of glory. Mr. Kittredge makes a strong point in his book of the help he thinks Mr. Ingersoll was able to give to those who were in distress and even despair because of their belief in eternal torment in the fires of hell. But long years before Mr. Ingersoll was even heard of, individuals in many churches and at least one whole religious denomination, that has succeeded in pushing its work into every corner of the world, were teaching that the Bible gave no authority for the doctrine of an eternal, burning hell. This denomination has preached this all through the land, and has circulated multiplied millions of pages of literature bearing upon the subject.
The devil that Mr. Ingersoll has so sarcastically denounced as a fiction, made a great master-stroke when he got the world to think it had to adopt and follow certain styles. Our clothing, our houses, and our eating and our thinking must be according to the prevailing style. And so most of the churches have adopted a style, and have tried to make this pass for the real Christianity of the Bible, which is the Christianity of the Christ of God. Ingersoll's mistake, like the mistakes of many another man, both in and out of the professed church of Christ, was in taking for granted that what passes as men's opinions of Christianity is the real article itself. Humanity at its best is loaded with mistakes, limitations, and inconsistencies; and any human interpretation of Christ and of His Word will have more or less of the imperfect in it. But Christ as He is revealed in His own Word and works is always perfect, and to that great fountain we may come and constantly drink with ever-increasing satisfaction. Mr. Ingersoll thought he studied the Bible until he was able to point out what he considered its inconsistencies. But he always studied it with the prevailing "styles" of Christianity in mind; therefore he never saw the beauty of that wonderful divine Life that is revealed in that divine Word. He never enjoyed the delights of tasting the real experiences of resting on the solid promises of God's Word. Mr. Kittredge makes a good showing, in his book, of the meteoric journey of Mr. Ingersoll through this life. It is evident, as you scan his book, that he mistook the "great agnostic," as he continually and affectionately calls him, for a genuine star. But he brings us to the end of his life's journey only to tell us that he still had no real hope of a life beyond, and like all other meteors his light turned into the darkness of a hopeless night. Such a book may amuse and even entertain some people; but how awful it is to try to get people to lead a life that is absolutely walled in by birth and death, with never a shadow of definite knowledge concerning the great eternity that spreads without a horizon on either side! How awful it is to try to shut men away from the salvation of Jesus of Nazareth! How awful it is to try to shut men away from the mine of promises in God's Word, which alone can bring comfort and contentment into the heart! And how it passes description to think of turning the minds of men away from the great and clear prophecies of the Bible, which throw a blaze of glorious light into the future! If one is seeking for a guide that will charm him with the idea of spending his life in doubt, so that he may end the journey unsatisfied and in darkness, this book will doubtless meet the desire; it can never feed the soul.
"A Text-Book of True Temperance." Edited and Compiled by M. Monahan, New York, United States Brewers' Association.
This book represents the strong and vigorous efforts put forth by the men who have a business to sustain, and who would rather see hearts broken, homes ruined, and hopes blasted, by training boys for the gutter, than have their business interfered with. The book is filled with absurd statements in regard to the "food value" of beer and the like, but it is utterly silent in regard to the lives that have been ruined by drink. It tells nothing of the crimes committed by men under the influence of liquor, the women beaten by drunken husbands. It gives never a picture of the besotted father dozing beside his beer pot in the grog-shop while his pale and ragged children in the fireless hovel are shivering with cold and crying for bread. It is perfectly apparent that the only object of the book is to build up and strengthen a business, regardless of the continual price that has to be paid in human life and human wo. The book is a fosterer of intemperance.
Underwood Standard Typewriter
QUALITY—NOT PRICE
In buying a typewriter the price should be the last consideration. There are many cheap typewriters on the market and many price cutters after business in the effort to survive. The UNDERWOOD is sold strictly on quality and is worth what you pay for it. It is a mechanical masterpiece, and in ease of operation, speed, accuracy and durability, is unequalled.
"The Machine You Will Eventually Buy."
133 Sutter Street
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
For Sale
Three lots well improved, with house well furnished. Near academy, San Fernando, California. Address Mrs. L. M. Downs, Chico, California.
Note These Fourteen Articles
By Editor
What Are We Coming To? (Why the increase in our death-rate.)
Effects of Home Water Treatment.
How to Cure Insomnia.
Autumn's Antidote for Physical Ills.
Our Inside Enemies (the bacteria).
How to Can Vegetables.
Vice in Large Cities.
How to Cook in Paper Bags.
What the Editor Saw at the Dresden Hygiene Exhibition.
The Danger of Flueless Heaters.
The Defense of Mr. Wiley.
Upton Sinclair on Fasting.
The Care of the Cellar.
How to Prevent a Cold in the Head.
And fifty-one others which we have not space to mention.
$1.00 a year; 10 cents a copy; 5 to 40 copies, five cents each; 50 or more copies, 4 cents each.
Please order through our regular depository, or
LIFE AND HEALTH
Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.
BOOK NOTICES
"The Evolution of Christianity, or Origin, Nature, and Development of the Religion of the Bible." By F. G. Smith. Price, cloth, $1.00. Gospel Trumpet Co., Anderson, Indiana.
This book is a good, sound, wholesome presentation of what Christianity is and what it has done in the world. It presents in a strong, courageous way the hopes and joys of Christianity in this life, and the glorious and desirable reward it holds before us for the future. The work shows an immense amount of well-selected reading and research in its preparation. Heathen poets, statesmen, historians, and philosophers, as well as the wealth of Christian literature, are all made to contribute to the purposes of the author in the presentation of his subject. It is written in a very readable way, interspersed with frequent word illustrations and narrative that lend themselves to the emphasis of the points presented. It is a book that will be both enjoyable and helpful to the layman; and the minister will find it full of suggestions, facts, and illustrations to aid him in setting home to the hearts of his hearers the great truths of the Word of God.
North Pacific Union Conference Session
By C. W. Flaiz
The third biennial session of the North Pacific Union Conference will be held in College Place, Washington, October 10 to 17. The first meeting will convene at 9 A.M. Besides its president, each local conference is entitled to one delegate without regard to numbers, and one additional delegate to each two hundred of its membership. Each conference should forward immediately, to the secretary of the union, a list of the delegates who are expected to attend.
C. W. FLAIZ, President.
LIFE AND HEALTH
By Editor
The October Number of
LIFE AND HEALTH
Special Autumn Number
Ready September 12
This magazine tells you how to keep well; how to get well; how to treat yourself at home without drugs; how to sleep, cook, eat, and dress for health. It is read each month by over 300,000 persons.
Cover design printed in three colors
The "Good Morning" Girl
THE various tenants of the big office building were sorry when Jack, the elevator man, left to take another position. Jack was so good-natured, so friendly, always ready with a cheery word, and willing to wait a moment at night for the belated stenographers who came hurrying down the corridors of the building.
His place was taken by a man of very different type. His face was dark and rather sullen, and he seemed to have no interest in his work or in the crowds who went up and down in his car.
"I don't like him!" said a pretty stenographer with a shrug. "Such a contrast to Jack!"
The girl's opinion seemed to be the general one among the office people of the different floors, and no one made any effort to be pleasant to the new man or give him a word of greeting, as they had always done with Jack.
This went on for a time, and then one of the girls on the eighth floor, who was a friendly little body, began to feel a trifle uncomfortable over it. "Suppose he does look sour and disagreeable," she said to herself. "Perhaps there is a good reason for it." The next day, as she stepped into the elevator, there was a pleasant "good morning" for the one at the cable. She was not sure that he heard, for apparently he paid no attention; but she was not easily discouraged, and each morning a fresh "good morning" entered the car with her.
"Eight," she said one morning as the elevator shot up the shaft. It was one of the complaints against the new man that he did not know where people belonged, and so made it necessary for them to call their floors. Jack had been especially good about that. So this girl was surprised beyond measure when on this particular morning the new man said suddenly: "You don't need to call your floor. I remember you. You're the 'good morning' girl."
That was all; but a kindly look was on the speaker's face that made the one giving the greeting glad that she had taken pains to be friendly. Others in the elevator, overhearing the words, wondered what it was all about, anyway.—Selected.
How Plants Climb
THE slender and apparently insignificant tendrils of the climbing plant exhibit movements that show the possession of instinct; at least, similar movements among the lower animals would be ascribed to instinct or to reason.
The general characteristics of tendril climbers may be best understood by citing the actions of one of the common climbers in the fields or the gardens—for example, the wild cucumber, known to botanists as Echinocystis lobata.
This climbing herb has large, three-lobed leaves, and opposite the leaves are slender, three-parted tendrils, seven to nine inches long. These tendrils are the arms by which the plant is to cling to its support. They begin to revolve before they are full-grown in search for a support on which to cling. Moreover, the upper two or three joints of the vine also revolve in little circles a few inches in diameter. This revolving of the stem causes the tendrils to sweep in a wider circle.
The circle swept by the tendrils is fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter, and it is completed in about an hour and a half. The tendril must, therefore, travel a little over an inch in two minutes. The tendrils revolve in such a manner that they must strike the main stem of the plant and be arrested were there not some provision for avoiding it. When the tendril in its revolution has nearly reached the stem it bends upward until the stem is passed, and then falls down to its original position.
This movement it repeats with accuracy in every revolution. The tendril revolves in a nearly horizontal plane. If the vine should be thrown to the ground, so that the tendrils should hang downward, they suddenly cease to revolve, and begin to bend themselves upward. When they have reached a horizontal position they begin to revolve again.
The tip of the tendril is slightly hooked, and the concave surface of the hook is highly sensitive to touch. As soon as this surface strikes a stick, the tendril begins to coil and to draw the plant up to the stick. This tendril may be readily deceived, for if we touch the concave surface ever so lightly with the finger it will begin to curve sensibly in one or two minutes. If the touch is rough, the tendril will, after a time, coil up into a complete spiral, and its motion will cease. The tendril will eventually discover its mistake, however, and will uncoil and begin again to revolve.
One of the peculiarities to be noticed in connection with the twining of plants is the fact that with very few exceptions all the individuals of one species always twine in the same direction. Most plants twine in an opposite course to the movement of the sun or the hands of a watch. Such twiners are the morning-glory, wistaria, wax-plant, trumpet-creeper, and many others. Among those which twine in the opposite direction the hop and wild bindweed, or climbing polygonum, are familiar examples.—Harper's Weekly.
Patient with the Living
By Margaret E. Sangster
Sweet friend, when thou and I are gone
Beyond earth's weary labor;
When small shall be our need of grace
From comrade and from neighbor;
Past all the strife, the toil, the care,
And done with all this sighing,
What tender truth shall we have gained,
Alas, by simply dying?
When lips too chary of their praise
Will tell our merit over,
And eyes too swift our faults to see
Shall no defect discover,
Then hands that would not lift a stone,
Where stones were thick to cumber
Our steep hill-path, will scatter flowers
Above our pillowed slumber.
Sweet friend, perchance both thou and I,
Ere love is past forgiving,
Should take the earnest lesson home—
Be patient with the living.
To-day's repressed rebuke may save
Our blinding tears to-morrow.
Then patience—e'en when keenest edge
May whet a nameless sorrow.
'Tis easy to be gentle when
Death's silence shames the clamor,
And easy to discern the best
Through memory's mystic glamour;
But wise it were for thee and me,
Ere love is past forgiving,
To take the tender lesson home—
Be patient with the living.
—Margaret E. Sangster.
"It Takes Two"
A LAD of seventeen was telling an older friend, recently, of an experience he had had that day. As the apprentice of a carpenter, he had been sent to a saloon to take the measure for a new counter. It was very cold weather, and he arrived with his teeth fairly chattering in his head, for his coat was thin. The saloon-keeper immediately mixed a hot drink and pushed it over the counter to him. "It'll cost you nothing," he said; "drink it down, and you'll soon stop shivering, my boy."
"He meant it kindly, too, and didn't think any harm," said the apprentice, as he told the story. "That's what made it harder to push it back, and I didn't want it."
"It must have been a big temptation," said the friend. "That saloon-keeper might have started you on the road to ruin."
"Well," replied the lad, frankly, "I'd rather have had it than some other kinds. You see, it takes two to make temptation. There's no saloon-keeper and no cold weather can make me drink when I don't want to. The temptation I'm afraid of is the one that I'm ready for before it comes, by hankering after it. I don't take much credit to myself for refusing that drink; and if I had taken it, why, I wouldn't have put all the blame on the saloon-keeper, as some folks do. It takes two, every time, to make a successful temptation."
It was an honest way to look at the question. Temptation is not all a matter of outward happening, but also of inner readiness. No outsider can be responsible for our sins as we are responsible. "He tempted me" only explains one side of the temptation. The other side—the personal side—we must answer for, and no excuses will save us. "It takes two," and one of the two is always our own responsible self.—Michigan Christian Advocate.
A Grudge Hurts Its Harborer
By Everybody's
A GRUDGE doesn't hurt anybody but the man who harbors it.—Everybody's.
