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قراءة كتاب Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896
Mohammed bin Seyyid. Khalid is spoken of as "a rash and willful young man of twenty-five," and Hamid as "an elderly gentleman, fifty or sixty years of age, respected for his prudent and peaceable conduct, acceptable to the better class of Mussulman townsfolk, and trusted as a ruler likely to preserve the traditional policy of the realm." Immediately upon the interment of the late Sultan, however, which took place two short hours after his suspicious death, Khalid proclaimed himself ruler. He gathered the palace guards together, placed barricades in the palace square, trained the guns upon the British warships, and awaited developments. They came the next morning in the shape of an ultimatum from Admiral Rawson of the St. George, a first class cruiser of 7,700 tons, which, together with four smaller cruisers and gunboats, lay off the city in the harbor, summoning Khalid to surrender, leave the palace, and make his soldiers pile their arms in front of it. If he failed to do this, the palace would be bombarded within two hours after the dispatch of the ultimatum.
As Khalid's reply was to further strengthen his defense, at the appointed time the bombardment began. Meanwhile the loyal Zanzibar troops, with a detachment of British marines and seamen, attacked the barricades. The palace was knocked to pieces and set on fire by the shells, and Khalid, driven from the shelter, fled to the German consulate for safety.
Hamid was proclaimed Sultan by General Matthews, Mr. Cave, the consul, and Admiral Rawson, and order was at once restored to the city.
At the time of the bombardment it was freely predicted that the annexation of Zanzibar would speedily follow; but it now appears that the government considers that no advantages are to be gained by such a step, the cost of a direct administration being much greater than the native administration, which under the present protectorate is working satisfactorily.
We are indebted for our illustrations to the Illustrated London News and to Black and White.
ERRORS IN OUR FOOD ECONOMY.
Scientific research, interpreting the observations of practical life, implies that several errors are common in the use of food.
First, many people purchase needlessly expensive kinds of food, doing this under the false impression that there is some peculiar virtue in the costlier materials, and that economy in our diet is somehow detrimental to our dignity or our welfare. And, unfortunately, those who are most extravagant in this respect are often the ones who can least afford it.
Secondly, the food which we eat does not always contain the proper proportions of the different kinds of nutritive ingredients. We consume relatively too much of the fuel ingredients of food, such as the fats of meat and butter, the starch which makes up the larger part of the nutritive material of flour and potatoes and sugar and sweetmeats. Conversely, we have relatively too little of the protein of flesh-forming substances, like the lean of meat and fish and the gluten of wheat, which make muscle and sinew and which are the basis of blood, bone and brain.
Thirdly, many people, not only the well-to-do, but those in moderate circumstances, use needless quantities of food. Part of the excess, however, is simply thrown away with the wastes of the table and the kitchen; so that the injury to health, great as it may be, is doubtless much less than if all were eaten. Probably the worst sufferers from this evil are well-to-do people of sedentary occupations—brain workers as distinguished from hand workers.
Finally, we are guilty of serious errors in our cooking. We waste a great deal of fuel in the preparation of our food, and even then a great deal of the food is very badly cooked. A reform in these methods of cooking is one of the economic demands of our time.
Cheap vs. Dear Food.—We cannot judge of the nutritive value of food by the quantity. There is as much nutriment in a pound of wheat flour as in 3½ quarts of oysters, which weigh 7 pounds. There is still less connection between nutritive value and price. In buying at ordinary market rates we get as much material to build up our bodies, repair their wastes, and give strength for work in 5 cents' worth of flour or beans or codfish as 50 cents or $1 will pay for in tenderloin, salmon or lobsters.
Round steak at 15 cents a pound is just as digestible and is fully as nutritious as tenderloin at 50. Mackerel has as high nutritive value as salmon, and costs from an eighth to half as much. Oysters are a delicacy. If one can afford them, there is no reason for not having them, but 25 cents invested in a pint would bring only about an ounce of protein and 230 calories of energy. The same 25 cents spent for flour at $6 a barrel, or 3 cents a pound, would pay for nine-tenths of a pound of protein and 13,700 calories of energy. When a day laborer buys bread at 7½ cents a pound, the actual nutritive material costs him three times as much as it does his employer, who buys it in flour at $6 a barrel.
Illustrations of the prejudice of people, especially those in moderate circumstances, against the less expensive kinds of food are very common.
Mr. Lee Meriwether, who has given much attention to this special subject, cites a case in point, that of a coal laborer, who boasted: "No one can say that I do not give my family the best flour, the finest of sugar, the very best quality of meat." He paid $156 a year for the nicest cuts of meat, which his wife had to cook before six in the morning or after half past six at night, because she worked all day in a factory. When excellent butter was selling at 25 cents a pound he paid 29 cents for an extra quality. He spent only $108 a year for clothing for his family of nine, and only $72 a year for rent in a close tenement house, where they slept in rooms without windows or closets. He indulged in this extravagance in diet, when much less expensive food materials, such as regularly come upon the tables of men of wealth, would have been just as nutritious, just as wholesome, and in every way just as good, save in the gratification to pride and palate. He was committing an immense economic blunder. Like thousands of others, he did so in the belief that it was wise and economical.
The sad side of the story is that the poor are the ones who practice the worst economy in the purchase as well as the use of food. The Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, in collecting the dietaries above referred to, made numerous inquiries of tradesmen regarding the food of the poor in Boston, meaning by poor "those who earn just enough to keep themselves and families from want." The almost universal testimony was, "They usually want the best and pay for it, and the most fastidious are those who can least afford it." The costliest kind of meat, the finest flour, and very highest priced butter were demanded, and many scorned the less expensive meats and groceries such as well-to-do and sensible people were in the habit of buying.
I have taken occasion to verify these observations by personal inquiry in Boston markets. One intelligent meat man gave his experience with a poor seamstress, who insisted on buying tenderloin steak at 60 cents per pound. He tried to persuade her that other parts of the meat were just as nutritive, as they really are, but she would not believe him; and when he urged the wiser economy of using them, she became angry at him for what she regarded as a reflection upon her dignity. "My wealthy customers," said he, "take our cheaper cuts, but I have got through trying to sell these economical meats to that woman and others of her class."
I am told that people in the poorer parts of New York City buy the highest priced groceries, and that the meat men say they can sell the coarser cuts of meat to the rich, but that people of moderate means refuse them. I hear the same thing in Washington and other cities.
One-sidedness of Our Dietary.—I have said that our diet is one-sided, that the food which we actually eat has