44 



other in weight and density. Presumptively, therefore, not the most digestible ar- 

 ticle of diet known. 



Now, sir, what would be your inference, if told by the proprietor of one of these sap- 

 onaceous quarries, as I have been, that he finds a ready sale for all the "soapstone 

 flour" that he can grind? And who are your customers? Chiefly commercial mill- 

 ers and sugar refiners. 



Mine, sir, was that the information tallied with what I had previously seen in 

 print, that the vile stuff enters largely into our tea, coffee, toddy, sweetmeats, and 

 daily bread. Sir, it behooves those who hear to ponder well. Steatite may be an 

 excellent lining for stoves. I doubt its coequal fitness for stomachs. Hot " biscuit 

 for breakfast, " "light bread for supper, " was wont to gladden my heart in younger 

 days, for in the house of an honored uncle who raised me, "corn bread" as a rule 

 was the staple staff of life. 



Think you that biscuit for breakfast or light bread for supper (Heaven save 

 the mark, how could it have been made light ?) would have been as palatable as ash- 

 cake or johnny if one of the descendants of old Job's comforters had kindly volun- 

 teered the information that they were to be made out of nice, white soapstone flour 

 instead of the glorious golden grain grown on the broad acres around me? 



It is safe to assume, Mr. Speaker, that were the question put to the leading medi- 

 cal men of the country a large majority of them would decide that the alarming in- 

 crease of late years in nervous, cerebral, and kidney diseases is directly traceable to 

 the cause assigned, namely, adulterated drinks of all kinds, including vinous, malt, 

 and distilled. Is not insanity fearfully on the increase, as evidenced by the over- 

 crowded bedlams of the land amd the mania for self-destruction? Then seek for rea- 

 son why and find it, too, no less in poisoned beverage than in the growing passion 

 for wild speculation. 



But I were derelict to my subject, my constituents, and myself did I close without 

 some allusion to like vicious practice in the make-up of medicine ; for, sir, human 

 depravity, with utter disregard of human life, has even dared invade the sacred pre- 

 cincts of the pharmacopoeia, to lift the tops of the mystic jars on shelves arranged, 

 and to infuse base substance in their portentous contents, where oft the difference of 

 a feather's weight may involve the mortal life of immortal men. Medical skill is im- 

 potent to act and powerless to grapple with fell disease in critical juncture, because 

 by base admixture with rnedicinals it is at loss to know what measure to prescribe 

 to compass the end desired. 



I broadly, boldly make the charge and challenge the refutal of investigation. A 

 distinguished physician told me some years since, in a neighboring city, that proba- 

 bly more deaths resulted directly and indirectly from that source than would from 

 disease if left to itself. Almost every leading government in Europe has stringent 

 laws against adulteration. Of these England has perhaps the most perfect and com- 

 plete system, and yet it is only of yesterday's growth. Less than thirty years ago Dr. 

 John Postgate, a country physician, seeing the abuses perpetrated by adulterators 

 of every class, took the matter in hand and after years of persistent effort, beginning 

 with only one supporter in Parliament, Mr. Scholefield, and with all the large manu- 

 facturers and dealers in Great Britain hounding and denouncing him, succeeded at last 

 in having his ideas adopted as embodied in the adulteration acts of the last decade. 



The Hon. Mr. Laird, in his able report presenting bill No. 11266, 

 to the House of Bepresentatives, said : 



The work is assigned to the Department of Agriculture for the reason that it is 

 germane to certain work already in progress there. 



Then, after referring to the Bureau of Animal Industry and the work 

 of the chemical division of the Department, he adds : 



A more important reason for this reference to the Department devoted exclusively 

 to the interests of agriculture lies in the fact that the producer of the food supply is 



