Filth and Food.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 6, 1 April 1909, Page 202

Filth and Food.

A summer morning. One of these recent summer mornings. The morning, you understand, of genial heat, with breeze enough to keep the dust lively. The City Council has a new streetsweeper, but it doesn't seem to have been along this street this morning. There is a generous litter of horse-droppings in the road — a litter which, as the sun dessicates it, becomes one with the breeze and the dust, intent on mischievous frolic. It is not at all a comfortable thing to think about, with the day so genial and the sky so blue. Call it plain dust. A morning, naturally, to tempt forth the ailing. Down the pavement comes a man with a hollow chest. A layman would guess that the hollow-chested man had what we call consumption ; but how should a layman know. The man is a law-abiding citizen, however you take it. He does not expectorate on the pavement. He walks to the gutter, and expectorates there, as a citizen should — -into a little heap or whirl of the plain litter of the road. The sun is strong.

are finnicking people, faddists. What does the public care ? And one or two expose their wares under running water, which makes the fish sloppy and tasteless. The public does not like tasteless and sloppy fish. Naturally not. If a fellow passes coughing up % tubercles, the public doesn't know. Naturally not. There are only one or two properly fitted butcher's shops in New Zealand. A properly fitted butcher's shop should have ill the meat under glass, securely kept away from dust and contamination, exposed only Lo a current of clean air. The sketch-plan will give you an idea. The shop would cost no more built that way than built in the ordinary way that the flies like. Why should butchers consider the public and cheat the flies, so long as the public doesn't care ? Why ? All bread, meat, fish, all food supplies, should be wrapped before delivery. There should be no chance of contamination between the shop and the consumer. And the wrapping should be of clean, wholesome, new paper. No newspaper should be permitted to enter into this scheme, whatever its shade of politics. The thing may sound

Another contribution to the breeze and the dust, another element in the mischievous frolic. Over the street there is a butcher's shop, joints temptingly displayed, open to the breeze and the dust, open to the flics — a clean enough butcher's shop, as such shops go in New Zealand — white tiles, white aprons, all the rest of it. And the meat looks tempting to the housewife, who has no thought of the plain dust, and the dessicated litter, and the hollow-chested man across the way. There is a baker's cart near by. It is open at the back. The loaves are exposed to the breeze and the dust — newly-baked loaves, warm and absorbent. The carter's hands are not immaculate. The dust whirls and eddies playfully. The hollow-chested man has turned a corner, and is keeping the law in another street. "Who cares? Generally speaking, all New Zealand butcher's shops are open to the dust like that, and all fishmongers ; and bread is generally delivered in just that way, unwrapped. One or two fishmongers are showing their wares under glass; but they

absurd to the conservative; but the public has every right to demand and insist that its food shall be supplied as clean as scrupulous care can keep it. No excuse should be permitted in expia^ tion of the offence of the butcher who serves tubercles with his chops. The remedy is really in the hands of the public; but as long as the public sleeps, the remedy will not be applied. The milk service is very much better in Wellington than it was; but it is still very far from perfect. Here, however, there is a hopeful sign. Eighteen or nineteen of the biggest vendors have joined in paying the salary of an inspector who is entirely under the control of the Health Department. He inspects their milk just as he inspects any other person's. He is in no sense in their employ. The milk supply should be as pure as scrupulous care can keep it. Impurity here strikes directly at the children. If the public realty cares about the children, there must soon be an end of this general apathy. Filth and food should be kept apart. They have nothing in common.