the cost of other means of traction." "But about highpower traction," I asked, "and speed? Will the storage battery system ever be used for long-distance express trains?" The blue-gray eyes gazed further away than ever, as if they saw down the long vista of mile posts waiting future years. "Why not?" His finger-tips stroked back the white hair from his brow. There was another silence, then he repeated the words as if to himself. "Why not? New York to Philadelphia. There is nothing impossible in that. I shouldn't like to say what I have in mind on that subject. Perhaps it's only visionary." "But you believe in your visions; they must have been very real to you." The old man smiled and nodded. Then he brushed some laboratory dust from the sleeve of his blue serge suit and said: "On fairly level roads we could probably run fast express trains now, but it's going to be some work to perfect the system. Mr. Beach has devoted a lot of time in that way. He is a very capable man, and he has done remarkably well. We have worked together -he on the application of the power and the driving possibilities, I on the improvement of the batteries and the controlling principle, but there is a lot more to do EDISON IN THE STORAGE BATTERY CAR. before we get down to the big express train business." "Then perfection"I began eagerly, as the vision of what this meant opened before me. "There's no such thing as perfection," he said, "in science, art or anything. Take music. It isn't perfect. because the means of producing it are imperfect, even the highly trained human voice. But as for storage battery traction, I consider it far enough developed to say that for local passenger traffic in and out of cities or smaller places, it will probably supersede other means of traction. As for long-distance express service, we may have to wait a while for that. Time will tell what can be done in that line." But in the meantime please remember that the oft-derided Erie, the railway vaudeville joke of America, is to be the first line in this country to run regular storage battery trains. And meantime there is little Cuba with her three-car train, the first in the world. Let's give her credit, too. So here for the present the narrative stops, but it is by no means ended. The inventors had spoken with an enthusiasm that even scientific caution could not quite suppress. One had only to supplement their words with the bright glow in their eyes to understand that they had tremendous hopes of accomplishing a remarkable thing. THE FERRYBOAT By BERTON BRALEY HE haughty liner swaggers by and hoots her scorn of me, THE For she will buffet combers high and cross the open sea, And she's "the grandest thing afloat" as all the world may know While I am but a common boat that shuttles to and fro. Back and forth, back and forth, Morning, noon and night, Clumsy to the sight, Keeping up the city's life Work and love and fight! The tug-boat scutters 'round about in search of work to do, They know adventure now and then; the new, the quaint, the strange! I only serve the need of men with never turn or change. I carry forth the human host to labor-or to spoil! syrup and honey used every morning on OW much sugar do you eat in too much sweet, and a fine, large assort- Travelers from across the Atlantic are amazed at the amount of sweets we consume. And it is no wonder that we set them staring, for our annual per capita consumption of commercial sugar is said to have reached eighty-five pounds, or nearly five times that of the average European, not taking into account the seem are trying to assimilate more than our four-ounce allowance per day, which, Science says, is a physical impossibility, for just as the human organism will absorb so much iron or so much sodium, so will it absorb so much sugar. Now, as the per capita consumption of sugar in this country has jumped up nearly six fold since 1865, when it was only eighteen pounds annually, and as it is increasing by leaps and bounds every year, it certainly would look as though our national sweet tooth, which modern dentists say is anything but a sound one, is getting the better of us, like a drunkard's thirst. One has but to note the enormous increase of the candy trade in this sweetgorging country to be assured of our OUR GREAT SUGAR DEBAUCH 517 sugar intemperance. Indeed, it is more than mere intemperance. It is a debauch. Folk who dwell in big cities are the worst transgressors against the excess sugar laws. It is estimated that our urban population consumes from 100 to 125 pounds of sugar per capita each year. Take New York as an ex It ample. Here is a city which, with less than one-twentieth of the total population, consumes over one-tenth of the candy eaten in the United States. would have taken fifteen thousand freight cars to carry into New York the candy it consumed in 1911, or six trains of fifty cars each every week of the year. But New York makes nearly all its own candy. And what stacks of it, and what an enormous increase in those stacks every month! Last year one confection ery concern in JAMES H. POST. PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL SUGAR COMPANY, WHOSE THREE PLANTS HAVE A CAPACITY OF 25.000 BARRELS A DAY. that city, making 150,000 pounds of candy a day, doubled its capacity and is now turning out over 200,000 pounds a day. Other cities are increasing their candy output amazingly. In St. Louis, In St. Louis, a confectionery company, lately capitalized at $9,000,000, has big new factories in Chicago, Louisville, Buffalo and fifteen other American cities and is turning out thousands of tons of sweet stuff to satisfy our morbid and inordinate taste. A visit to a big modern candy factory opens the eyes of one who has witnessed only old fashioned hand methods of confectionmaking. Most of the work is now done by huge machines the daily output of which staggers the imagination. The grinding out of chocolate drops, marshmallows and caramels and the array of sweets in sight is truly prodigious. One gets such a surfeit of sweets and of sweet smells as to last a month. And yet the girls employed in such places seem to be eating candy all the time. As a rule, they are not a healthy-looking lot, and, though plump enough, are pale of cheek and listless of eye-sugar inebriates all, with bad stomachs, and bad livers. PHOTO UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOCO, N. Y. Insidious is the growth of the confection trade, fostered as it is by all the lures of the clever ad. writer who knows how to appeal to the lover of sweets, as the whiskey advertisers know how to appeal to the lover of liquor. Here is a lump of wisdom from a street-car placard I saw the other day: LAUNCHING RAW SUGAR ON THE DOCKS AT NEW YORK. "I consider," said a New York dietetic expert to me the other day, "that the candy store in the middle of the block does more harm than the two saloons on the corner." An extreme statement, perhaps, but there are years of observation in an extensive medical practice behind it. "Children Must Eat Candy. "Grown-ups Should Eat It, Too. "Candy is a Valuable Food." Now, as a matter of dietetic fact, Children Must Not Eat Candy, that is, the kind of candy generally exposed for sale in the average shop. Of 250 samples of such candy bought in the open market for examination by government chemists, not one was found to be pure, and nearly all had either aniline or coaltar colors, glu cose or terra alba in them, while many had all of these "valuable food" elements. Even if all candy were pure-that is, if it were composed wholly of sugar, mixed or coated with other edible constituentsit would be unsafe for the average child to gorge himself with it, and it is difficult for the average child to keep from gorging if he is permitted to buy his own candy. Natural love of sweets must be gratified? Yes, but not with cane or beet sugar between meals. Your child is likely to get more of that kind of food at table than is good for him. Let him eat freely of the inverted and easily assimilable sugars afforded by such foods |