COPENHAGEN MILK-SUPPLY COMPANY 87 



even worse than that of some of our own English towns 

 at the same period and later. The cows seem for the 

 most part to have been kept as an adjunct to distilleries 

 in Copenhagen, on the refuse of which they were fed. 

 Moreover, they lived in dirty stables without light or 

 air, where the veterinary never showed his face. Out- 

 side the city the conditions of cow-life appear to have 

 been little better. 



The distribution of milk also left much to be 

 desired. Generally it was treated with borax or 

 bi-carbonate of soda, or other preservatives calcu- 

 lated to prevent it from going sour and to conceal 

 its age, and hawked about "warm from the cow" in 

 buckets whence the vendor dispensed it with a dusty, 

 germ-infected ladle. It is needless to add that in 

 those times the infant mortality in Copenhagen was 

 high. 



On a certain day Mr. Busck, an exporter of tinned 

 butter in Copenhagen, noticed that one of his work- 

 men looked very depressed, and inquired the reason. 

 The man answered that he had a sick child at home 

 who, he thought, was going to die. He added that 

 if he could only get really good milk he believed that 

 its life might be saved. But where was that to be 

 found in Copenhagen ? Only that morning the dis- 

 tiller from whom he bought his milk, such as it was, 

 had refused it to his son on the ground that he, the 

 father, never came to drink spirits at his bar. 



This was the spark that fired Mr. Busck's imagi- 

 nation and resulted in his founding, with the help 

 of others, the great business which I am about to 

 describe. 



I am sorry to say that I forgot to ask what hap- 

 pened to the child in question. Let us hope that it 



