Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/588

 . 16, 1861.] must not pride itself upon being a sufficient detective officer to the stomach. On the contrary, some of the very brightest water to be found among the bottles devoted to the surface-well waters of the Metropolis are positively the most deleterious. That sparkling bottle, to wit, from the celebrated Aldgate Pump, which absolutely tastes even better than it looks—so cool, sparkling, and refreshing—owes its qualities to the presence in it of the nitrates drawn from the neighbouring churchyard; that other bottle, so clear and limpid, is proved by Clark’s test to be, in fact, turgid with lime. Again, the purer the water the more open it is to another danger, the more apt it is to act upon lead and form a solution which entails the most deadly symptoms on all partaking of it, especially young children. Think of this, Paterfamilias, and of the leaden cistern you rejoice in, and remember that your filter is powerless against this deadly ingredient held by chemical action in your drinking water. When we consider that the human body is mainly built up of water, that, taking a man of 154lbs., 43lbs. of solids are held in a solution of 11 lbs. of the former element, we are tempted to ask how the great waste that must be going on of the aqueous element in the human frame is healthily restored, seeing that the drinking water in cities is so far from pure. No doubt, if the full measure had to be made up by libations of Thames or well-water, however purified, it would go ill with us; but, happily, nature distils the element for our use in the food we eat, which, like the human frame, may be said to consist mainly of water.

The cases of teas are worthy of inspection, if it were merely for the curiosities they contain. Some of the first-class teas—such as the superfine Flowery Pekoe—is never seen in this country; even in China it is worth fifty shillings a pound. The specimens here look much more like pieces of brown and grey wool than the ordinary tea of commerce, whilst some choice packets, once in the possession of Commissioner Yeh, might well be mistaken for bird’s-eye tobacco. Tea is fast becoming the great beverage of the human race. It is estimated that 400,000,000 of men now use it. As a nation, however, England is the great consumer: for, whilst we use an amount which may be reckoned as 35¼, the United States only consumes 16, Russia 4, and France 1. The teetotaller will be surprised to hear that tea contains a volatile oil which is narcotic and intoxicating. Its chief value, however, resides in its crystalline principle, which prevents rapid change or waste in the fleshy parts of the body, and so economises food. One often wonders how old women can manage to keep themselves alive upon their dish of tea, taken morning, noon, and night; but the mystery ceases to be so great when we see the chemical action it exerts upon the tissues; moreover, tea is more sustaining to the poor than the rich, for the reason that they use soda with it, which extracts the nitrogenous or flesh-forming principle of the leaves. Tea contains many other nutritious ingredients, but cocoa is greatly richer in these than tea. In a hundred parts of cocoa no less than 50 are butter, or heat-givers, and 20 of albumen or flesh-formers. The value of this article of food as a nourishing diet for hard workers in cold countries is thus conclusively shown. The plan of analysing the different articles of food, and of tabularising their results, as we find is here done in the various cases, is of the utmost importance, as it teaches the public the true worth of different articles of food. Any intelligent person, from a study of this department of the Exhibition, would, with a little care, be able to construct a dietary on the most economical and efficient principle. If in addition to these analyses of food, some statistics could be given of the nature of the alimentation of the different counties in Great Britain, and of different nations, together with the average amount of work the consumers were capable of, the instruction this department would afford to social science would be incalculable. For instance, the labourers in the north of England and in Scotland are capable of much harder work than those of the southern counties, and this is very justly attributed to the superior flesh-producing powers of oat-meal used by the former over that of the watery potatoe, which forms the chief food of the peasantry of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire. If it could be made clear to the farmer that it is to his interest to feed his labourers well, we should doubtless see a change for the better. He will give any price for manures to invigorate his land, because he knows his returns will be more than commensurate. Prove to him that by affording Hodge wages that would insure him a more highly nitrogenised food, and that, in consequence, he would be able to load two dung-carts where before he only loaded one, and the problem of elevating the labourers of the country would be speedily solved. It is asserted that an adult labouring man wastes 5oz. of muscle in the course of his daily labour. Some men—such as navvies—waste much more than this; but taking this as the average, we find a very interesting table given in this part of the Exhibition, which affords a good idea to the public of the relative value and cost of various kinds of diet necessary for restoring this amount of waste:

The reader will not fail to observe how wide this scale ranges both as to cost and as to the bulk of the food required to be taken to supply the normal waste of man. Whilst lb. 5 oz. of either peas or beans are sufficient for this purpose, no less than 201bs. of the watery potato are necessary to produce the same result. It is clear that the apparatus required to eliminate the muscle-producing elements from such a heap of potatoes must be stretched to more than its usual