THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY 'HORNING, JANUARY 26, 1903
1
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Sapping the Man-?
hood of the Nation
T IVAS'Christmas morning last Christ
mas morning.
In London, inll the large cities of
'England, in the palatial country residences,
in the luxurious homes of the well-to-do man
ufacturers and tradesmen, holly and mistletoe
hung; Christmas gifts and Christmas cheer
were everywhere; the library tables held the
brilliantly tinted Christmas issues of the
weekly and monthly magazines, while the
daily papers vaunted, in austere black, the
Christmas joy and merriment which the
magazines depicted in their flaring colors.
Assembled in the churches, from Lon-
tbey wr condemntd, ha discerned a real danger to
any atate In the elckly and atunttd condition of those
who bad not sufficient air to breath or room to move
In.
j . . .j i t r i . i . Numoers, no saio. were rejected ror service in
uuh lutncuiut tu iruni.ncucT a South Africa
cathedral, the well-to-do and contented listen
A
ed to lord bishops and other ministers intone
the services of the festive day.
But the fashionable congregation at the
Manchester cathedral was astounded, when,
Up into the pulpit stepped a man whom only
those closest to him recognized as Stewart
Gray, land law reformer, and recently super
intendent of the Manchester Poor Farm
Colony.
" am here," he thundered, "to forbid
you to celebrate the birth of the Saviour,
whose teachings you have betrayed. : There
can be no Christmas in England while the
land echoes the hollow groans of its millions
who are perishing of the misery and starva
tion which society does not relieve. Your
Christmas prayers are blasphemy. In the
name of the God you have forgotten, I pro--test!"
At that, having recovered their wits,
they stormed the desecrated pulpit, dragged
him to the cathedral door, and threw him into
the street.
ND NOT one amonf them remembered, while
they prayed afterward, the case of the old man
who, only a week previously, had been arrested
, In London for the ancient nd dishonorable
erlme of begrlnf.
It appeared that ha was a srood workman, dismissed
with high commendation from the place he had held
for fourteen years, solely because his employer had no
more work for him. For all the excellence of his ref
erence, thera was no work for him anywhere; so.
after an Interval, he began to starve.
He had starved for thirty hours, when he so far
forgot his position as one of England's hungry 20,000,-
000 people as to gather up the oats dropped In the
street from the nosebags of the horses.
It was suspicious, very. A London "bobby" po-
1 Iceman saw him do it. The man ate the dirty oats.-
That was more suspicious. The . "bobby", kept an eye
on him. Then the man rang doorbell and begged for
real food. That settled it, of course; the "bobby" "ran
him in." , , "
England hasn't forgotten Stewart Gray, If it did
forget the old man who ate oats.
' It could drag Gray out of a pulpit and throw him
out of a cathedral. But it could not drag out of Us
appalled hearing the memory of his burning words.
He had known his Englishmen too well whan he
invaded their solemn pulpit; and they knew too well
the awful, heart-sickening truths that underlay the
words they resented. . . .
AGHAST AT DECADENCE .
The starving workman eating the dirty oata has
returned to them now, the personification of the men
of England, sunk lower than the poorest of England's
beasts. The nation, which has not heeded the long
processions of Its starving women In London, which .
used its police to "keep In order". Its demonstrations
by hundreds of thousands of hungry workmen, stands
aghast before the spectacle of its complete decadence. -
The huge British empire, clutching continents in '
its far-stretched claws, mailed and armored more
heavily than any group of nations at sea, knows it
self shrunken and hollow and helpless within its shell .
at home . - 'v .- -
It exists-In hourly fear, maintaining its eternal
bluff of invlncibleneas. draining its life blood to
strengthen its armor shell in the navy, bartering its
ships to Japan for the soldiers It cannot muster in
England and trading what is left to France for the
sake of the stunted Inheritance or Napoleon's con-
luests for those undersized descendants of his gren
adier; who now, dwarfed as they are, still have the
from England's great towns as being
physically unlit
"And," exclaimed the lord bishop, "If the physical
effect is palpable and obvious, the moral effect Is no
less evident to those who have eyes to see."
But few, far too few, have had eyes to see; or,
seeing, have had hearts to feel, or most blighting of
allhave had minds to understand.
It has been a good many centuries since William
the Conqueror turned loose his noble retainers, and
told them they could keep all the land they were able
to hold. They slaughtered most of the natives, and
they starved, tha rest
Organisation of English' society, which was made
on that basis, has progressed along the original lines.
And, In the centuries, it has progressed so destruc
tively that the population, which at first had the
courage to fight, has now only the resignation to
starve.
And all who are not going hungry have so lost the
spirit of self -preservation , that they unite In abject
laudation of the system of nobility which deoms them
to ultimate extinction.
In England, half a century ago, one-third of the
population of 11,000,000 people were supported by agri
culture. Today, the population has fairly doubled,
while there are over a million fewer people engaged in
husbandry than there were flrty ysars ago.
There are 11,000,000 acres of land going to waste
in Great Britain, with pheasants, grouse and rabbits
for their Inhabitants. The humans, by the system of
government and ownership, have been driven to the
large cities.
There they have shrunk and shriveled and starved.
Whole families have grown to maturity who never had
enough to oat In all their lives. They have been half
starved not merely from the hour of their birth, but
during the months before they came Into the world.
George Bernard Shaw has found that, year In and
year out, in London, II per cent of the working pop
ulation live "below tbo poverty line" live on less than
15 for the provision of all necessaries of life for a
family of six.
There are in London nearly 100,000 tenements
omitting the dome of heaven, which shelters 1700 of .
the absolutely homeless nightly that oonsist of only
one room.
6atfterrrg
Statistics which would be considered obsolete In the
face of the present misery proved that 11,000 of those
"tenements" th weird' used for describing homes for
families contained three people; mora than 11.000 con
tained four; over 7000 held five; mora than-1509 held
half a doseni S50 held seven, and III bald sight And
the rest contained as high as a doien and mora par
sons In one room.
"If," remarked the -lord bishop of London, "tha
physical effect is palpable and obvious, the moral af
fect is no less evident"
And these people, starving by the million, paying
rents that are the acme of extortion, gasping for air In
single rooms, where the windows are stuffed with
papers, have not revolted yet
The metropolis, almost in Its entirety. Is owned by
seven noble landlords, and the land, even compared
with Improved land as exploited for revenue by Amer
ican municipalities, is practically exempt from taxation.
7HE7MEW CULT of foe CJCTUS 4TER
I- ' '
o
Theft
aLufrerur
C
I ACTUS for breakfast, cactus for luncheon,
cactus for dinner; cactus to eat, cactus
to drink; cactus cooked and raw. This,
for two weeks, was the diet of Dr. Leon
Elbert Landone and bis secretary, Frank Waters
ton, of Lps Angeles, California.
We have heard of the hashish eaters, and
know the method in their madness. Having par
taken of tht Oriental drug, they saw wonderful
visions. But the cactus gives no such result, and
the cactus' eaters have no such end in view.
Dr. Landoqe ate cactus to prove that human
being could subsist on the plant. He has demon
strated this. Therefore, thero is no longer any
danger of man starving in any desert where cactus
grows. The spineless varieties of the plant, evolved
by Luther Burbank, will be introduced into the
desert as a food for cattle and men.
D
R. LANDONE began his cactus-eating test on
December 1 last and ended it on December 14
with a banquet, given to his friends, . the ma
jor portion of the menu of which was com
posed of various preparations of the cactus plant
At the dinner Dr. Landone declared that during his
experiment ha had felt no fatigue, and had gained one
half pound in weight -
"Eat cactus, lettuce, spinach and asparagus if you
ao not wisn to gee urea out oy tne ordinary flays
: worn,-
he told his friends.
and peas help to repair wasted tissues and are
right
tare to
1 London today a million people are hungered; in
1. twenty minions are nungerea. as far baclc
the lord bishop of London, Arthur Foley Win-
:onraa
- In
England, twentj
is leoi
1 In sr ten
3ethnal Green, and could testify' to the Dhvslcal. muni
ind spiritual effects of the conditions prevalent In tha ,
:apltal of Great Britain.
- In, addition to- those who annually died as Infants
!rom overcrowding In the fearful tenements to which
igton-ingram, declared he nad nimseif lived in
Meats, nuts, cereals, beans
asted tissues and are of
value, but the very best way to repair the body Is to
. preserve u mo inai mue repair is necessary.
.At the dinner Dr. Landone looked happy and
healthy, as well fed as could be. He had proven, he
. said, without doubt, that the cactus, among the plants
of which men had starved In the desert was a nutri
tious article of food. Tha cactus he used, however,
was the spineless variety evolved some time ago by
Luther Burbank, the California plant wizard.
1 This cactus is entirely lacking in spines, the needles
. being reduced to a mere bud on the hide. It is Mr.
Burbank's plan to distribute the cactus through the
deserts of the West, where It will serve as a fdod both
ta cattle and man. Tha Importance of this work may
be realised wften one considers that of the 8,600,000
square miles of land in tha country thera are 1,000,000
equare miles of arid territory.
Often men get lost In the deserts .and wander for
days, suffering . excruciatingly -from hunger and
. thirst. When the spineless cactus is .grown' this dan
ger will pass; the hot sandy plains will lose much of
; their terror. -.- - .?. j.-.
Caotus is a food this is what Dr. Landone deolarea
he has proven it to be. AitoT In doing so he demon
strates the truth Of the claim of Burbank, who robbed
the thorny cactus f its forbidding spines. ;
.'. However, if prepared after the method devised by
the Lot Angeles physician, thera IB little doubt that
It must be palatable. ' For instanee, among tha things
on the dally menu during tha experiment appeared
cactus soup, fried cactus leaves, salad made of cactus,
cactus juice as a drlnk-and cactus fruit aa a dessert ,
In tha meals tha order observed was as follows:
Cactus for breakfast,-cactus and celery for lunch, cac
tus, a few nuts and celery for dinner.
During the two weeks of the test Dr. Landone
worked eighteen hours a day. His purpose was to
f trove that the body could do the maximum amount of
abor with little loss of energy if cactus were eaten. '
The brain, he declared, became less fatigued when the
body was nourished on the ungainly plant of the des
ert than when fed by other food.
Fried or raw, the cactus resembles eggplant Cook- ,
ed and flavored It is s&'.d to be quite palatable.
DOCT.ORS LIKED IT
When he completed his experiment, Dr. Landone
invited six fellow-physicians to dinner, apd they, too,
had a ehance to eat cactus. One and all said It was
delicious. Among the things provided for the table
was cactus sherbet.
Dr. Landone seoured the cactus leaves and fruit
during his experiment from Mr. Burbahky who Is rais
ing the cactus at Santa Rosa. From a commercial
standpoint the diet t present would be an expensive
one, aa the value of one of 'the thornless leaves is 1500.
In producing a spineless cactus. - Luther Burbank
sOored a final victory against one of the most formid
able fighters of mankind in the vegetable kingdom.
Centuries" ago, when tha Intelligent caotus found that
it was likely to be -eaten and exterminated by the ani
mals roving In the desert, it took on itself an armor
of sharp spikes and needles, so that thereafter the tall,
grotesque plant was safe from animals and birds, ,
Some specimens assumed a sword-like loaf, others
covered themselves with sharp spikes, while others
grew tough, thin thorns. Every speciesand there are.
said to ba about 1000 adopted soma sort of armor, so
that when he was lost In the desert man never thought
. of trying to extract life from the unsympathetic and
intimidating plant.
Mr. Burbank worked on the cactus for fen years.
He found that whereas the cactus which grew on the
open plains was formidably armed, the varieties that
grew high up on rocks and In crevices took less pre
cautions to safeguard themselves. Mr. Burbank se
lected some of the varieties which nad discarded most
of their spines, and began a. process of selection and
recrossing.
After ten years of effort he evolved a leaf which Is
as smooth as an apple. Mr. Burbank claims that the
thornless cactus is almost as nourishing as alfalfa,
and will enable men to raise cattle in heretofore arid
territory.
Dr. Landone's experiments may possibly make cac
tus an item on the menus of our fashionable hotels
who can tell? Who knows but a new cult of esthetic
people will make cactus their diet? For Dr. Landone
claims it gives nutriment to the body and brain, en
abling a man to do mental work for eighteen hours
with out fatigue.
You may laugh. But It is pointed out by those in
terested that both the tomato and potato were regard
ed as curiosities when first evolved.
While Dr. Landone in California was living on the
cactus, Dr.-T. J. Allen, of Aurora, III., was living on
peanuts. On December If Dr. Allen finished a food test
extending over sixty days, during which time he ate
only peanuts and drank lemonade. -
During this time tha dootor lost twelve pounds, but
at the and of the test he said he never felt better in
bis life. He calculated that his "board" had cost him
at the rate of 16 cents a dav.
It pays the duke of Westminster $8,250,000 a yean
It pays the earl of Cadogan H.000,000. It pays tha
dukes of Portland and Norfolk, respectively, $3,500,600
and M.000,000. i ; , ,?
Thera are 100,000 little shops, little dwelling and
Insufferable slums In the Southwark and Lambeth, dis
tricts; they pay the earl of Northampton 11,000,000 .
year. The duke of Bedford, the marquis of Caradea,
Lord Xlehester and Lord Northbrook all take their toll
nd one-sixth of London gasp for air and, hungers
for food. " , ' 1
And where there Is work, the very factories em
ploying young girls are Invaded by tha modern liquor
clubs, that compel Innocence ana decency to debauch,
itself, a in Birmingham, where the factory operative
have been ruined In moral and unfitted, to bear chil
dren by the curs of drink. fi :, ,J
Jack London, when ha Investigated London's pov
erty, declared that mora than 10 per cent of the pop-
ulatlon depended on charity for support: that nearly
1,000.000 were always on the ragged edge . of want,
and that, In the United Kingdom, starvation not mere,
annoying hunger, but killing starvation continually
confronted 8,000,000 pinched bodies and despairing
souls. . -
England, for twenty years, aver since tha mob In
vaded May fair and howled for food, has been, trylngf
to forget it, and knitting woolen socks for the worthy,
poor. "
But her statesmen this year fear they may be com
pelled to recognise the grim alternative; reform or rev
olution, i,
A Quaint Little Island That C
Produces Salt
FF the west coast of France I tha little Ile-de-Re,
eighteen miles long and varying In width from
seventy yards ' to two' miles. It contain, fewer
square yards than the city of Paris. '
During the summer salt making is one ot the chief
Industrk-s of the inhabitants. The salt boards are formed,
in largt squares, separated from each other by low
ridges. These are overflowed in the springtime, and aa
the water evaporates the deposit of salt la 'raked Out
with a long narrow board attached to a pole and piled la
heaps ready to be taken to the refinery nearby.
The peasant women work with the same case a tha
men in the salt and oyster beds, at the Catching of
shrimps and also in the fields. While engaged In theaa
labors they wear baggy knee-breeches, loose waists and
light-colored eunbonnets. The sabot of tha winter havo
been put aBlde and the feet are left bare, although the
legs of old stockings are often drawn up as far as tha
knee as a protection from the heat and insects. It ia
indeed a country of trousers. Nor does It stop with hu- .
manity, for many of the donkeys, a well, wear long
striped red and white or blue and white coverings on their
legs. These are to keep off tha swarms of file and mos
quitoes. - .-i:.: .":V I
Wedding costumes on the inland are rather singular,
viewed from our standpoint. The gown of tha bride 1
always black, in velvet or satin for the well-to-do and I
woolen for the poorer classes, but the. fichu is of whli
muslin trimmed with wide lace, which is oftentimes n 1
heirloom, and has a broad white ribbon bow In front
reaching to the bottom of the dress.- ,..-' --y'l-.--
The long bridal veil is attached to graceful folds t-
her sugar-loaf shaped coiffure, which had ita high jH'aK
adorned with several garlands of artificial orange blos
soms, and a long necklace and the bouquet are also of.
the same flower. ' -
Ample opportunity is given: for displaying all
finery, for the bride nd groom,' followed by their rela
tives and intimate friends walking, by couples, go on fuoc
to and from the church. Then again, after the marHa t
feast, the -whole wedding party promenade two or t)ir
times about the town, oftentimes to the unmelodlou
. accompaniment of a flute and a shrill cornet After thu
there Is a supper and dance, and if the family are i
properous circumstances the festivities are continued th
next day. " - , ' ? , ; ..... .
gome of ths customs of these simple folk are tn--t
primitive. They have their own original manner of thic n
ing their barley. The street in front of the owner's hou
is carefully swept, and the sheave ara unbound m. l
spread in a thick layer ovkj-th road.- Then a large (,
roller is drawn back and forth over It for several hour",,
followed by threshers with long flails..
After the kernel have been extracted by this tdlom
process, the straw Is swept up and the barley Is swm t
into heaps and shoveled into boxes. As carts and fnoi
passengers have passed continually through tha nt-
during the day one cannot help questioning thry clean, 1
ness ot tha barley, thus produced. . ,
s, ' u hi 1 ,,W x':t :- i ..
, A Children's .Hotel
A"t on ot the English beaches they have a ehfidrt-n'g
hotel. At first it seemed strange almost bmiiu,,
to the mothers, but when they found that t
fresh from tha cow, new laid eggs," homemaj j j.i- 1 1
'cake and other appropriate' food that they r"
obtain at places of residence - dtgne4 primar.
Dr. Allen declared that considered the peaaut an grownups wer supplied In abundance at ti. .
Ideal food. He said It was palatable and satisfied one, ; hotel, they hastened to move them lrst it with
-that It improved the skin gave one a lovely complex
ion and made tha hair srrow.v Durinsr his test the doo
tor ate sixty pounds of peanuts, at the rate of one
pound day. , . -.
governess or other attendant.
v The hotel has the best situation on the t trh.
arranged end furnished la the wuy t -i u-. it,
aWn'a peed. ;,'
1