TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 13999, 23 March 1911, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

No doubt a pretty School vigorous discussion is Exclusiveness. proceeding in the London papers on the decision of a London school to forego a grant of £3000 because the boys and their parents objected to associate with scholarship holders from lower social grades. The whole question of class feeling in English education was raised a few weeks ago by Mr G. S. Street. who, Avriting in the "Daily Mail," declared that in his opinion a far greater mingling of classes in the secondary schools of the country would he an excellent thing. "There is a certain snobbishness in the class implication of 'he's a public school man,' a part of the general snobbishness Avhieh is a blight over this country." Headmasters of public schools are divided in their opinions on this question. Some stoutly contend that the English public school spirit does not moan snobbery and that the atmosphere of great schools is domocratic On the other hand, there are headmasters who frankly admit tlie existence of the spirit that is costing this school £3000 a year. "I should Avelcomo anything which made for the abolition of this feeling which people have that they want to bo 'select.' It is a great pity that this exclusiveness pervades all English, life . . . Tho "result of forcing the lower classes on the socalled upper classes will always be that the upper classes will remove tlieir sons to other schools. It ought not to be so. Ido not think it is tho boys' fault, liut it is tho general spirit of exclusiveness among the parents." A headmistress says that as a result of taking in scholarship girls at her school, the numbers decreased, and -.vent up again so soon as it was decided not to admit scholarship holders. However, this spirit of exclusiveness is not an English monopoly. It can be found even in New Zealand without much difficulty. Report has it that the headmistress of a certain girls' school in the Dominion requires her pupils to bring their mothers' visiting lists for lier inspection, and instructs her pupils that they are not to know any girls who are not within the confines of these lists. The pure food law of tho Food United States, which in its Poisoning, solicitude for the health of the 'community, keeps out so wholesome an article as New Zealand butter, is declared by a writer in "Hampton's" to be practically a dead letter. .Some years ago we gave some rather, horrifying tacts as to the adulteration of food in America. From one pot of jelly enough aniline dye Avas extracted to colour a square yard of cloth. Then came the pure food law of 190(3, amid great rejoicings in the reform camp. But we are told that, by methods too devious to be described here, the "interests"' have got round the law, and the game of slowly ■poisoning thc people koes on merrily. "Hampton's" tells the story of how one H. P. Cassidy conquered tlie food-adulterators of Philadelphia. Cassidy used to get up before daybreak and purchase milk from the milk carts. He was too careful to purchase it himself, but employed a young woman who posed as a housewife. Having obtained analyses of 1000 specimens, Cafesidy published the results, and dealt a smashing blow at the milk trade. More than half the milk and cream sold contained harmful preservatives. All this time there had been fifteen city milk inspectors at Avork, but they had done little to check the evil. When in 1909 Cassidy took -1000 specimens of milk and cream, only one case of

"dope" was revealed. Cassidy saAV sold os freshly-killed birds chickens that he knew had been two years in cold storage. He bought one, and it was in such a state of collapse that even his dog refused to eat it. By mixing -with packing house Avorkers he discovered that harmful preservatives wer© freely used to make old meat presentable. He discovered that half the candy in Philadelphia contained a dangerous preservative, Avhich by law could not bo used in the manufacture of food. Glucose is used in the manufacture of candy, and Standard Oil, which had control of the glucose trade, had found that to employ this preservative to improve the apjtearanc© of glucose put very many dollars into its pockets. Cassidy's prosecution of Standard Oil for this breach of the law cost tho Trust over half a million dollars. Cassidy discovered, too, that Philadelphia bakers Avere using 8000 dozen rotten eggs a day, that half the "olive oil" used iv the city had never seen an olive tree, that Communion wine used in churches came from no vine, and that furniture glu© and anilino dyes were used in the manufacture of ice creame. He found out many other things; the above are only a few samples. A Cassidy is worth many times his weight in gold to a big city.