FOOD AND DRINK.
THE NATURE OF FOOD--THE ROLLER MILL--THE MIDDLINGS PURIFIER--
CULINARY UTENSILS--BREAD MACHINERY--DAIRY APPLIANCES--CENTRIFUGAL
MILK SKIMMER--THE CANNING INDUSTRY--STERILIZATION--BUTCHERING AND
DRESSING MEATS--OLEOMARGARINE--MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR--THE VACUUM
PAN--CENTRIFUGAL FILTER--MODERN DIETETICS AND PATENTED FOODS.
If called upon to name the most important of all factors of human
existence, that which underlies and sustains all others, even to life
itself, everyone must agree that it is _food_. A remarkable fact in this
connection is that all animal life lives and thrives by eating some
other thing that is or has been alive, or is the product of organic
growth. The vegetarian may pride himself upon his higher ideals of
living, but after all his fruit, vegetables, and cereals belong to the
great category of living organisms, and are to a certain extent sentient
and conscious, for even the plant will turn to the sun. The beasts of
the field and fowls of the air live by preying upon other weaker animals
and birds, these upon plants and grasses, and the plants and grasses
upon the decaying mosses and organic mould of the soil, and the mosses
upon still lower organisms. The big fish of the sea eat the little fish,
the little fish the small fry, and these in turn live upon worms and
animalcula, and so on all the way down to protoplasm. Omniverous man, in
spite of his boasted civilization and enlightment, not only eats them
all, flesh, fowl, fish, grain and plants, but lives exclusively upon
them. But he can _only_ live on that which has been produced by the
mysterious agency of life, and this furnishes a significant suggestion
for the philosopher, for it may be that life itself is only an
accumulated active power or unitary force regenerated in some
metamorphic way from vital force stored up in the bacteria of organic
food, and necessarily connected therewith in an endless chain of
reproductions, and if this be true, the hope of the scientist as to the
synthesis of food from its elements must ever remain a philosophic
dream, because the scientist cannot create a bacterium.
It has been said that when a man eats meat he thinks meat, and when he
eats bread he thinks bread, and when he eats fruit he thinks fruit. It
is not clear that the quality or character of man’s food is so closely
correlated to his thought, but that it has its influence cannot be
doubted. It would be safer to say, however, that when a man eats meat he
acts meat, and when he eats bread he acts bread, for the muscular energy
and aggressive potentiality appear to be much more closely related to
the quality of his food than are his thoughts. May it not be that the
powerful achievement of the British Empire was directly related to its
roast beef? Is not the listless apathy of the Chinese due to a diet of
rice? Is not the dominant and masterful power of the lion or the eagle
related to a carniverous diet, and the mild and placid temper of the ox
the reflex expression of his vegetable food? It is quite true that our
potentialities are largely represented by what we eat, and our food
therefore becomes a most interesting topic, not only by virtue of its
indispensable quality, but by reason also of the possibilities of
development in the betterment and elevation of the human race.
From the earliest times even down to the present day man’s food has been
the same--flesh, fish, cereals, fruits and vegetables. The development
of the present century has not extended this category, but it has been
directed to an increase in the supply, an improvement in quality, the
preservation against decay and waste, and its intelligent selection and
adaptation to the special needs of the body. Progress manifests itself
in the great field of agriculture, in improved processes and machines
for milling; in butchering, packing and handling meats; in preserving
and drying fruits; in the preparation of canned goods, in dairy
appliances, in cake and cracker machines; in the manufacture of sugar;
in the great advance in cookery; in the science of dietetics, and in
thousands of minor industries.
In agriculture the raising of grain has extended in the Nineteenth
Century to enormous proportions. More than ten thousand patents for
plows, as many for reapers, and a proportionate number of planters,
cultivators, threshers, and other implements and tools represent the
extent to which inventive genius has been directed to the increase of
the yield in the harvest field.
This yield in the United States for the year 1898 was:
Corn 1,924,184,660 bushels
Wheat 675,148,705 bushels
Oats 730,906,643 bushels
Rye 25,657,522 bushels
Barley 55,792,257 bushels
Buckwheat 11,721,927 bushels
Potatoes 192,306,338 bushels
[Illustration: FIG. 164.--ROLLER PROCESS OF MAKING FLOUR, WEGMANN’S
PATENT.]
For converting the grain into flour, the inventors of the Nineteenth
Century have made revolutionary changes. Milling processes within the
last twenty-five years have been completely transformed by the
introduction of the roller mill and middlings purifier. Formerly two
horizontal disk-shaped stones or burrs were employed, the lower one
stationary and the upper one revolving in a horizontal plane and crudely
crushing the grain between them. In all modern mills these have been
entirely displaced by porcelain rolls revolving on horizontal axes and
crushing the grain between them. The first of these roller mills is
shown in pat. No. 182,250, to Wegmann, Sept. 12, 1876. (See Fig. 164).
The outer rolls _d e_ are pressed against the inner ones _a c_ by a
system of weighted levers, and scrapers below remove the crushed grain
from the periphery of the rolls. Many subsequent improvements have been
made, one type of which employs a succession of rolls which act in pairs
on the grain one after the other and reduce it by successive gradations.
[Illustration: FIG. 165.--MIDDLINGS PURIFIER.]
The _middlings purifier_, see Fig. 165, comprehends a flat bolt or
shaker screen _b_, of bolting cloth, arranged as a horizontal partition
in an enclosing case through which passes an upward draft of air
produced by suction fan D at the top. This air passing up through the
bolting screen lifts the bran specks and fuzz from the shaken material
as it passes downward through the screen, brushes K being arranged below
to keep the screen constantly clean. A representative and pioneer type
of this machine is seen in Pat. No. 164,050 to George T. Smith, June 1,
1875, from which the view is taken. The useful effect of the roller mill
and middlings purifier is to save the most nutritious and valuable part
of the grain, which lies between the outer cuticle and the white starch
within, and which breaks up in fine grains and is of a golden hue. This
portion of the grain was formerly unseparated, and was mixed with the
middlings and bran as an inferior product. Modern analysis has disclosed
its superior food value, and the roller mill and middlings purifier have
provided means by which it can be separated from the bran and
incorporated with the flour, thereby greatly adding to its wholesome
character and nutritive value, and imparting to the flour the rich
creamy tint which characterizes all higher grades.
Minneapolis, Minn., is the great center of the milling interests of the
United States. The Pillsbury Mills are located there, and the “Pillsbury
A.” which is said to be the largest in the world, has a capacity of
7,000 barrels per day.
In 1877-78 disastrous flour dust explosions at Minneapolis brought
about the development of the dust collector, for withdrawing from the
air of the mills the suspended particles of flour dust, which not only
invited explosion, but rendered the air unfit to breathe. Washburn’s
Pat. No. 213,151, March 11, 1879, is an early example.
The use of crushing rolls has also developed a great variety of new
foods, such as cracked wheat, oatmeal grits, etc. These crushing rolls
have sometimes been made hollow, and are steam heated, and as they crush
the grain they simultaneously effect the cooking or partial conversion
of the starch, and the product is known as hominy flake, ceraline,
coralline, etc., which furnish popular breakfast foods when served with
cream.
[Illustration: FIG. 166.--DOUGH MIXER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 167.--BRAKE, OR KNEADING MACHINE.]
In the field of cookery such activity has been displayed that the
average kitchen to-day is a veritable museum of modern inventions. Egg
beaters, waffle irons, toasters, broilers, baking pans, apple parers,
cherry stoners, cheese cutters, butter workers, coffee mills, corn
poppers, cream freezers, dish washers, egg boilers, flour sifters, flat
irons, knife sharpeners, can openers, lemon squeezers, potato mashers,
meat boilers, nutmeg graters, sausage grinders, and frying pans in
endless array; all patented and clustered around the modern cooking
range as a central figure, and all presenting points of excellence in
the matter of economy and convenience, or the betterment of result. The
most extensive application of inventive genius is to be found in the
large manufacturing bakeries, which make and sell the millions of pounds
of crackers and cakes that fill the bins and shelves of the grocery
store. In these manufactories the dough is prepared by a mixer, see Fig.
166, which consists of a spiral working blade revolving in a trough, and
capable of handling half a dozen barrels of flour at a time. It is then
put through a kneading machine, called a “brake,” shown in Fig. 167, and
is then ready to be converted into crackers or cakes on a great machine
25 feet long, which finishes the crackers and puts them in the pan ready
for the oven. This machine, see Fig. 168, receives the dough at A, where
it is coated with flour and flattened into a sheet between rolls. It is
then received on a traveling apron B, has the flour brushed off by a
rotary brush C, and is then cut into crackers or cakes by vertically
reciprocating dies D. At E a series of fingers press the cakes down
through the sheet of dough, while the surrounding scraps are raised on a
belt F and delivered into a suitable receptacle. The separated cakes at
B′ are then delivered into pans at G, the pans being fed on the
subjacent belt at G′. Such machines, costing nearly a thousand dollars,
produce from forty to sixty barrels of crackers a day, enabling them to
be sold at about 5 cents a pound at retail.
[Illustration: FIG. 168.--CRACKER AND CAKE MACHINE.]
_Dairy Appliances_ have come in for a large share of attention at the
hands of the Nineteenth Century inventor. There are about sixteen
million milch cows in the United States, and their contribution to the
food stuffs of the day in milk, butter, and cheese is no insignificant
factor. There have been over 2,700 patents granted for churns alone, and
besides these there are milk coolers, cheese presses, milk skimmers, and
even cow milkers. The centrifugal milk skimmer is an interesting type of
this class of machine. In the old way the milk was set for the cream to
rise, which it did slowly from its lighter specific gravity. In the
centrifugal skimmer the milk is continuously poured in through a funnel,
and the cream runs out continuously through one spout, and the skimmed
milk at the other. An illustrative type of this machine is shown in
Fig. 169. A steam turbine wheel near the base turns a vertical shaft
bearing at its upper end a pan which rotates within the outer case. The
milk enters through the faucet at the top, and as the pan within
rotates, the heavier milk, by its greater specific gravity, is thrown to
the outer part of the pan and passes out through the larger of the two
spouts, while the lighter cream is crowded to the center and passes out
of the upper spout, which opens into the center of the pan. Patents to
Lefeldt & Lentsch, No. 195,515, Sept. 25, 1877, and Houston and Thomson,
No. 239,659, April 5, 1881, represent pioneer milk skimmers of this
type.
[Illustration: FIG. 169.--CENTRIFUGAL MILK SKIMMER.]
Closely allied to the dairy appliances are the incubator and the bee
hive, both of which have claimed a large share of attention, and for
which many patents have been granted.
One important and characteristic feature of the present age is the
conservation of waste in perishable foodstuffs. Fruits, vegetables, fish
and oysters were suitable food to our forefathers only when freshly
taken, and any superabundance in supply was either wasted by natural
processes of decay, or was fed to the hogs. To-day thousands of patented
fruit dryers, cider mills, and preserving processes save this waste and
carry over for valuable use through the unproductive winter months these
wholesome and valuable articles of diet. Even more important is the
_canning industry_, by which not only fruits are maintained in a
practically fresh condition for an indefinite time, but oysters, meats,
fish, soups, and vegetables are also put up in enormous quantities.
To-day the grocer’s shelves present an endless array of canned tomatoes,
peaches, corn, peas, beans, fish, oysters, condensed milk, and potted
meats, which constitute probably three-fourths of his staple goods. The
tin can is in itself a very insignificant thing, not entitled to rank
with any of the great inventions, but in the every-day campaign of life
it is playing its part, and working its influence to an extent that is
little dreamed of by the casual observer. It renders possible our
military and exploring expeditions; it holds famine and starvation in
abeyance; it gives wholesome variety to the diet of both rich and poor;
and it transfers the glut of the full season to the want of future days.
Perhaps no single factor of modern life has so great an economic value.
Simple as is the tin can, quite complex machines are required to make
it. Originally such machines were operated by hand or foot power, but
within the last 25 years power machines have been devised which
automatically convert a simple blank or plate of sheet metal into a
finished can. Of the many patents granted for such machines the most
representative ones are 243,287, 250,096, 267,014, 384,825, 450,624,
465,018, 480,256, 495,426, 489,484.
In the process of putting up canned goods the products are filled into
the cans, and the caps, or heads, are soldered on. These caps have a
minute hole in the center for the escape of air and steam in the process
of cooking and sterilizing, which is conducted as follows: A large
number of cans are placed on a tray swung from a crane and the cans
lowered into one of a series of great cooking boilers. The cover of the
boiler is then closed and fastened by lugs, and steam turned on until
the goods in the can are thoroughly heated through. During this process
the air and steam escape through the little vent hole from the interior
of each can. The cans are then removed, the vent hole closed by a drop
of solder, and the goods thus hermetically sealed in a cooked or
sterilized condition will keep for a long period of time.
_Sterilizing._--During the last quarter of the century, which has
witnessed the growth of the wonderful science of bacteriology, a class
of devices known as sterilizers has come into existence, whose primary
function is to kill the germs of decay by heat. This has had in the
canning industry an important commercial application. An example is
found in the patent to Shriver, No. 149,256, March 31, 1874. In some of
these devices the receptacles containing the food stuffs are in large
numbers placed within the heating chamber, and by devices operated from
the outside the cans or bottles are opened and shut while within the
steam filled chamber. A late illustration is found in patent to Popp _et
al._, 524,649, August 14, 1894.
_Butchering and Dressing Meats._--Chicago is the leading city of the
world in this industry, and Armour & Co. the largest packers. In the
year ending April 1, 1891, they killed and dressed 1,714,000 hogs,
712,000 cattle, and 413,000 sheep. They had 7,900 employees, and 2,250
refrigerating cars were employed for the transportation of their
products. The ground area covered by their buildings was fifty acres,
giving a floor area of 140 acres, a chill room and cold storage area of
forty acres, and a storage capacity of 130,000 tons. In addition to its
meat packing business the firm has separate glue works, with buildings
covering fifteen acres, where 600 hands are employed, their production
in 1890 being 7,000,000 pounds of glue, and 9,500 tons of fertilizer.
Since 1891 this great business has increased until to-day it is said
that the army of workmen employed is greater than that of Xenophon, that
the firm pays out in wages alone, half a million dollars every month,
that four thousand cars are required to carry the products of their
factory, and whose business amounts to the enormous sum of one hundred
million dollars annually.
[Illustration: FIG. 170.--KILLING AND DRESSING PORK.]
There are from forty to fifty million cattle raised in the United
States, and an equal amount of sheep. The number of hogs raised has
diminished somewhat in the past few years, but from 1889 to 1892 more
than fifty million were maintained. The process of slaughtering and
dressing pork, as practiced to-day, is a continuous one, and is well
illustrated in Fig. 170, in 13 operations. The animals are driven into a
catching pen at 1, where they are strung up by one leg, and secured to a
traveling pulley on an overhead rail. At 2 the animal is instantly
killed by a knife thrust that reaches the heart; at 3 he is dumped into
a vat of scalding water, kept hot by steam pipes, where the hair is
loosened (see detail view Fig. 171). A series of oscillating curved
arms, shaped like a horse hay-rake, dips the carcass out of the scalding
vat and deposits it upon the table 4 (Fig. 170), where it is attached to
an endless cable that drags it through a scraping machine at 5. This
takes off the hair, as shown in detail view Fig. 172. At 6 (Fig. 170)
the remnants of hair are removed by hand, and at 7 the skin is washed
clean. At 8 the carcass is inspected, and the throat cut across; at 9
the entrails are removed; at 10 the leaf lard is taken out; at 11 the
heads are severed and tongues removed; at 12 the carcass is split into
halves, and at 13 the sections are ready to be run into the cooling
room.
[Illustration: FIG. 171.--SCALDING TO LOOSEN THE HAIR.]
[Illustration: FIG. 172.--SCRAPING OFF THE HAIR BY MACHINERY.]
From 10 to 15 minutes only are required to convert the living animal
into dressed pork. Every part of the animal is utilized. The lungs,
heart, liver and trimmings go to the sausage department. The feet are
pickled or converted into glue. The intestines are stripped and
cleaned for sausage casings. The soft parts of the head are made into
so-called cheese, and the fat is rendered into lard. The finer quality
of bristles goes to the brushmakers, and the balance is used by
upholsterers for mixing with horse hair. The blood is largely used for
making albumen for photographic uses, as well as in sugar refining, for
meat extracts, and for fertilizers. The bones are ground for fertilizer,
and even the tank waters are concentrated and used for the same purpose.
_Oleomargarine._--About 1868 M. Mege, a French chemist, commissioned by
his government to investigate certain questions of domestic economy, was
led into the study of beef fat, and to make comparisons of the same with
butter. He found that when cows were deprived of food containing fat
they still continued to give milk yielding cream or fatty products. He
therefore concluded that the stored-up fat in the animal was then
converted into cream, and that it was practicable, therefore, to convert
beef fat into butter fat. Physiology taught that in the living animal
the change was wrought through the withdrawal of the larger part of the
stearine by respiratory combustion, while the oleomargarine was secreted
by the milk glands, and its conversion into butyric oleomargarine
effected in the udder under the influence of the mammary pepsin. In the
process of making butter by the ordinary method of churning the cream,
the finely divided butter fat globules are united into masses,
containing by mechanical admixture from 12 to 14 per cent. of water or
buttermilk carrying a fractional per cent. of cheese. This buttermilk
contributes somewhat to the flavor, but at the same time furnishes a
ferment which ultimately spoils the butter by making it rancid. It is a
purely accidental ingredient, and one not at all desirable. To some
extent the same may be said of the soluble fats which give to the butter
its variable though characteristic flavor. They are unstable compounds,
decomposing readily, and furnish the acrid products which make “strong”
butter. M. Mege sought to imitate the natural process of butter-making,
which was first to separate from the oily fat of suet the cellular
tissue and excess of stearine or hard fat; second, to add to the oil a
sufficient proportion of butyric compounds to give the necessary flavor,
and third, to consolidate the butter fat without grain, and to add at
the same time the requisite proportion of water, salt, and coloring
matter, to make a compound substantially the same in composition,
flavor, and appearance, as butter churned from the cream, and all this
without adding to the original fat anything dietetically objectionable,
and without submitting it to any process capable of impairing its
wholesome quality. These objects were fairly obtained in the product
known as oleomargarine, the United States patent for which was granted
to Mege Dec. 30, 1873, No. 146,012.
The process in brief is to take fresh beef fat, which is first chopped
up and thoroughly washed. It is then placed in melting tanks at a
temperature of 122° to 124° F, and the clear yellow oil is drawn off and
allowed to stand until it granulates. The fat is then packed in cloths
set in moulds and a slowly increasing pressure squeezes out the pure
amber colored oil, leaving the stearine behind. This sweet and pure
yellow oil is then churned with milk for 20 minutes until the oil is
completely broken up, and a small quantity of annato, a vegetable
coloring matter, is added to give a yellow color. The product is then
cooled in ice, and after a second churning with milk it is salted and
finished like butter. Chemical analysis shows oleomargarine to have
substantially the same constituents and in almost the identical
proportions of pure butter. It is equally wholesome, and while it does
not have the same rich flavor, it has the advantage that it keeps
better, and is not so liable to become rancid or strong. The
oleomargarine industry is closely related to the beef packing industries
of the United States, and its growth has been enormous. Notwithstanding
the stringent laws on the subject, much of the oleomargarine made is
sold for, and by the average purchaser is not distinguishable from, pure
butter. In 1899 there were 80,495,628 pounds of oleomargarine made in
the United States, or more than a pound for every man, woman, and child
in the country. The internal revenue tax paid on it was $1,609,912.56.
The exports for the year 1899 were 5,549,322 pounds of the artificial
butter, and 142,390,492 pounds of the oleo oil prepared for conversion
into the complete product by simply churning with milk.
_Sugar._--Sugar-cane, beets, and the sap of the maple constitute the
sources from which sugar is extracted, but the cane furnishes by far the
largest supply. When crushed between rolls it yields 65 per cent. of its
weight as juice, and 18 per cent. of this juice is sugar. It is
concentrated by evaporation at a low temperature, the crystallized
portion being known as “raw” or brown sugar, which is subsequently
refined, while the uncrystallized portion forms molasses.
[Illustration: FIG. 173.--VACUUM PAN FOR EVAPORATING THE SYRUP TO
PRODUCE SUGAR.]
In the process of refining, 2 or 3 parts of raw sugar, with one of water
containing a little lime, ground bone black, and the serum of bullocks’
blood, is heated by the passage of steam through it. The albumen of the
serum coagulates and rises to the surface in a scum which entangles the
impurities and bone black, leaving the syrup light in color. The latter
is then filtered through bone black until it is colorless and is then
evaporated in the vacuum pan, which is the important invention of the
century in sugar making. Heat has the effect of converting the
crystallized sugar into the uncrystallized variety, and hence the
evaporation must, to prevent this, be conducted at a low temperature.
Contact with the air is also objectionable. These conditions are
provided for by conducting the evaporation in a vacuum, which lowers the
evaporating temperature and avoids contact with the air. The vacuum pan
was the invention of Howard, an Englishman. (British Pat. No. 3,754, of
1813). As constructed to-day it is an enormous vessel (see Fig. 173),
capable of holding 7,000 or more gallons, and yielding 250 barrels of
sugar at a strike. In this a vacuum is maintained by a condenser, the
vapors passing from the pan to the condenser through the great curved
pipe rising from the top, which pipe is five feet in diameter. A gentle
heat is applied through internal steam-heated coils which connect with
an external series of steam inlet pipes on one side, and a corresponding
series of steam outlet pipes on the other. A large discharge valve for
the concentrated syrup closes the bottom of the pan. After concentration
the crystallized sugar is separated from the syrup by a centrifugal
filter, in which the liquid is thrown from the crystallized sugar by
centrifugal action. The first centrifugal filter is shown in British
patent to Joshua Bates, No. 6,068, of 1831. This, however, revolved
about a horizontal axis. The present form of centrifugal filter is a
cylinder revolving about a vertical axis, the sides of the cylinder
being formed of filtering medium, through which the liquid is thrown by
centrifugal action, while the sugar is retained within. This was the
invention of Joseph Hurd, of Mass., U. S. Pat. No. 3,772, Oct. 3, 1844;
re-issue No. 607, Sept. 29, 1858, which patent was extended for seven
years, from Oct. 3, 1858. The diffusion process, which extracts the
juice by cutting the cane in slices and soaking in water; the bagasse
furnace, which dries and burns the expressed cane stalks as fuel, and
the manufacture of glucose and grape sugar by the reaction of sulphuric
acid on starch, are interesting allied features of this industry which
can only be briefly mentioned. Most of the sugar consumed in the United
States is imported, much raw sugar being imported and refined here. The
imports for the year 1899 were 3,980,250,569 pounds, and the per capita
consumption in 1898 was 61.1 pounds a year.
_Aids to Digestion._--It is only during the last part of the Nineteenth
Century that the world has learned how to live. “What is one man’s food
is another man’s poison” has been a trite old saying for many years, but
the reason why has only in late years been fully understood. The
physiology of digestion, the relative digestibility of different
articles of food, and their nutritive values, have received of late
years the earnest attention of physicians and students of dietetics and
have contributed much to the quality and kind of food, and a knowledge
of when and how to eat it. We know that the starchy foods are digested
by the saliva, which is an alkaline digestion; that meat, fish, eggs,
cheese and the albumenoids are digested in the stomach by the gastric
juices (pepsin and hydrochloric acid) which is an acid digestion, and
that the remaining portions of starch, the sugars, and fats are digested
in the intestines, and that this is also an alkaline digestion, and this
has helped to solve the problem for us. We also know that starch is an
excellent food, provided the vital powers are sufficiently stimulated by
fresh air, sunlight, and exercise to digest it, as do the horse and the
ox when they eat corn, but we know furthermore that the sedentary
occupations of modern life leave many stomachs in a condition unable to
assimilate starch, and so bread, oatmeal, potatoes and such simple
staples, instead of nourishing the body, ferment in the enfeebled
stomach, produce acids and gas, and lay the foundation for serious
chronic diseases. The student of chemistry and dietetics knows to-day
that one part of diastase will effect the conversion of 2,000 parts of
starch into grape sugar, as a preliminary step to its digestion, and so
by treating starchy matter with substances containing diastase (derived
from malt) a partial transformation is effected which will materially
shorten and assist its digestion. This fact has been largely made use of
in the preparation of easily soluble or pre-digested foods, examples of
which are found in patent to Horlick (malted milk), No. 278,967, June 5,
1883; to Carnrick (milk-wheat food), Dec. 27, 1887, No. 375,601; and
Boynton and Van Patten (cereals and diastase), 344,717, June 29, 1886.
_Beverages._--Pure water, nature’s own gift, has ever supplied every
legitimate need of the human race, but civilized life has greatly
extended its list of drinks, much to its own detriment. Soda water,
whiskey, beer, ginger ale, tea, coffee, and chocolate represent enormous
industries, and probably all do more harm than they do good. Much
inventive genius in the Nineteenth Century has been bestowed upon the
soda water fountain, on stills, and processes for aging liquors and
processes for brewing beer, on cider and wine presses, on bottling
machines and bottle stoppers, on devices for carbonating waters, and in
coffee and teapots. The trend of the times is shown in the following
figures, which represent the per capita consumption of beverages in the
United States for 1898: tea, .91 of a pound; coffee, 11.45 pounds;
wines, .28 of a gallon; distilled spirits, 1.10 gallons; and malt
liquors 15.64 gallons. The largest per capita increase since 1870 has
been in malt liquors, and the next in coffee. In tea and distilled
spirits there has been a decrease, while the consumption of wines is the
smallest of all and has varied but little.