N PURE FOOD SHOES By F. G. MOORHEAD O longer can the innocent consumer make the trip to the corner grocery store in shoes the soles of which are made of epsom salts and glucose and buy strawberry preserves made of coal tar products and timothy seed, in at least one State out of the forty-eight. The Federal Pure Food Law shuts down on the adulterated preserves, the Kansas State Law shuts down on the adulterated shoes. The announcement was made by the Department of Agriculture recently that no less than twelve million pounds of glucose and epsom salts are used by American tanners every year in preparing leather for shoe soles. The report was made by F. P. Veitch, Chief of the Leather and Paper Labo ratory, and J. S. Rogers, Assistant Chemist of the Bureau of Chemistry. Investigation had disclosed that sixtythree per cent of the leathers examined were weighted with glucose and epsom salts or with both. The quantity of loading varied from one to seven and three-tenths per cent of epsom salts, with an average of three per cent. The maximum quantity of glucose in the loaded. leathers was ten and four-tenths per cent and the average five and five-tenths per cent. The maximum amount of these loading materials found in any leather was sixteen per cent and the average where both were present was eight per cent. The experts significantly added: "The people have paid this year for not less than twelve million pounds of epsom salts and glucose, plus a profit to the tanner for working them into the leather, and have obtained nothing of value thereby." Not only does this adulteration add nothing to the value of the shoe, but it lessens the durability. Shoes made from such leathers are readily penetrated by water. The loading simply makes inferior leather pass for a superior quality, thus permitting still another fraud to be perpetrated on the long-suffering American public. But the fraud was detected in Kansas several weeks before the government experts made their report. Under the personal direction of Governor George H. Hodges, the Kansas legislature took up the question of "pure food shoes". A bill was introduced prohibiting the manufacture or sale anywhere within the State, of shoes made, in any part, from any substitute for leather, whether it was called leatheroid, fibreboard, leatherboard, or any other high-sounding name. Every adulterated shoe sold in Kansas must bear upon it, in plain view, a tag which states that imitation, or adulterated, leather has been used in its manufacture. Failure to sew in such a tag lays the manufacturers and the sellers liable to a fine ranging from twenty dollars to one hundred dollars for each offense and may even lead to imprisonment. "The measure was designed primarily to protect the farmer, for he is usually the first victim sought out for any scheme," explains Governor Hodges. "It is a good thing for every citizen, however. We have been imposed upon all too much by unscrupulous shoe men. Hereafter there must be pure food shoes just as much as pure food jams or any other commodity bearing the label." P EDWARD M. THIERRY re ITTSBURGH has been constructing itself. Where Nature went wrong, artifice served, and for the mammoth work done in 1912 and 1913 taxpayers will foot a bill of eleven million dollars. Directly bearing on these municipal improvements are building plans that will total twenty million dollars on property in the downtown section worth many times that amount. And this estimate does not include the mysterious plans of Henry Clay Frick. In the very heart of Pittsburgh, one short block from the intersection of its two principal business streets, are two great city blocks entirely vacant. They form an incongruous clearing in a forest. of skyscrapers. The real estate is worth approximately ten million dollars. Half of it has been vacant seven years, ever since the old Catholic Cathedral was torn down. On this block alone Mr. Frick has paid a couple million dollars of taxes without one cent of revenue. Last year, when the first half of Pittsburgh's "Hump" was cut away, the other block was cleared of a church and several business blocks. What are Mr. Frick's plans? That question has puzzled Pittsburgh for almost a decade. The question also interests other cities and a great railroad. Ten million dollars lie idle, while rumors fly of a great new station for the Pennsylvania Railroad, in which Mr. Frick is a power; of a huge hotel; of a skyscraper several times. larger than the twenty-story Frick Building, which is directly across Fifth Avenue from the plot. The Frick Building, the Carnegie Building-the home of the Carnegie Steel Company-the Allegheny County Court House, all look across the street toward the vacant plot. Nearby a combined court house annex and city hall, of the skyscraper type, will be erected at a cost of three million dollars. Across another street other big buildings are to go up. Mr. Frick pays taxes and waits, but it is said building operations are to begin on his property ere long. Millions of cubic feet of earth have been removed from the Frick property alone in leveling the "Hump". The city is cutting itself in the center of the business district, slicing away a hill that has interfered with progress. The cost of the work in 1911 was over one million dollars and it was only half completed. At the hill's highest point-corners occupied by the Frick Building, the Court House, and the vacant Frick property-the teen feet. Steam s streets and then attac while hundreds of t fully fourug out the vacant lots, s of dollars were spent to lower surrounding buildings or transform basements of skyscrapers into ground floors. The work has been mammoth and in comparison dwarfs the far-famed cutting away of hills in Seattle and other cities. In 1912, the public work completed. cost two million dollars and the work nearly completed totaled another two million five hundred thousand dollars, while that to be accomplished this year will cost over six million five hundred thousand dollars, making over eleven million dollars in all. million dollars in all. It has been, and is, a herculean task of grappling with "Humps", bridges, streets, and varied structures. It has kept thousands busy obliterating slums, tenements, and disease-breeding places, and providing breathing spots for various sections of the city, including playgrounds and park plots. The final touch in Pittsburgh's reconstruction period will be that of Mr. Frick. If rumored plans materialize, the beginning of a new year will look back upon the expenditure of between forty million dollars and fifty million dollars in making over a great city. BEAR SERVES AS TRAIL BLAZER CHILDREN BUILD MINIATURE AN unusual miniature railway has been ORDINARILY, the chief mission of The engines weigh eight pounds each. the black bear is to supply sport, excitement, and now and then a succulent steak, for the hunter, but on Graham Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Bruin performs a nobler duty by acting as trail blazer. Parts of Graham Island are covered with heavy salal brush and "devil's club", not to mention heavy timber. Bruin, as he grows amongst plenty on Graham Island, is fat and lazy. He, naturally, picks for his promenades the easiest and most nearly level routes, and has been doing this for years. The road crew which is opening up the country found, in one stretch, a trail eight miles long which Bruin had padded hard as a pavement. In building the structure the various types of bridge designs were demonstrated. The bridges are all properly proportioned and are models of modern construction. The third rail system is used throughout, the hundred-and-tenvolt house current being run through a transformer and reduced to ten volts. More than four months-at odd times -were consumed by the trio in building their wonderful little electric road. It was started as a plaything, with little idea of making it as complete as it has been developed. The father, an engineer, noted the efforts of the children and assisted them in working out some technical problems. Aside from that, the children are the sole builders. |