MODERN DEGENERACY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue II, 11 July 1896, Page 60

MODERN DEGENERACY.

BY SAM WALTER LOSS. I’ve just been reading in a book I think is gospel true. That men are now degenerate. Well, that is nothing new. I’ve been aware for several years the race is going to grass; I’ve prophesied it night and day—and now it’s come to pass.

Now, I’ve sold milk for forty years, and I can truly say, Before men grew degenerate the milk trade used to pay ; A man who had good business sense and honest business ways Could make a fortune out of milk in those old honest days.

I loved my customers—l did—a love that was divine ; No milk to ever injure them came from a can of mine, A cow is a most ignorant beast, with small supply of brain. And no mere unassisted cow can give good milk, ’tis plain.

My intellect supplied the lack of the unreasoning cow; I finished her unfinished milk—my reason told me how. An unassisted cow gives milk too rich for men to drink ; A man must supplement the cow, for he knows how to think.

I made a study of the thing, and well I understood A cow’s raw undiluted milk’s too rich for human food; And so I toned its richness down and mellowed every can To the digestive calibre and wholesome needs of man.

And my astute discernment as to what man could digest, My prudence toward my customers, my kindly interest. My interference with the cow in the behalf of health— All helped toward my prosperity and my increase of wealth.

But those were undegenerate days. Though God made man upiight. He has sought out vain inventions and has reached a sorry plight. A creamery started in our town, and in these modern days Does that monopolistic shark gulp all the milk we raise.

And it runs it through a strainer then that separates the cream. And they just pay us for the cream—a most outrageous scheme— And all the water you put in is industry misspent ; For all the water in the milk you don’t receive a cent.

We live in base, ignoble times, we’re fallen on evil days; I cannot modernize myself to these degenerate ways; . The vain inventions of our time fill me with righteous rage. There is no place for honest men in this degenerate age.