when the juice is filtered or strained they can be pressed into a hard mass on the filter-cloths, and easily removed. This method of treatment increased the yield of crystallized sugar from 80 to 160 pounds per ton of cane. Studies were then instituted looking to the recovery of the alcohol, with the object of using it again and again. Experiments conducted on a laboratory scale showed that the alcohol, after having been used, might be recovered by distillation with a loss of less than 5 per cent., and often of not more than 1 per cent., and that the gums themselves might be fermented and made a source of the alcohol used in the process. The only difficulty in the way of using this process was the cost of the large amount of alcohol needed. This did not result from the expense of making the alcohol, which is slight, but from the heavy internal revenue taxes.

The legislation referred to above was intended to remove these taxes and to make the newly discovered process applicable to the practical manufacture of sugar; and it is reasonable to expect that it will at an early date lead to the establishment of a new sugar industry. This will belong almost entirely to the United States, for the sorghum can not be grown successfully north of us, nor extensively south of us. The growing of sorghum will not, like the cultivation of sugar-cane, be confined to a small district and to a small number of great planters, but will be profitable in the enormous semi-arid region, including the central part of southern Kansas, Oklahoma, and a large part of Texas. During the last summer and fall experiments have been made on an extensive scale to test the value of this process from a commercial standpoint, and a very important development is the fact that the sugar made is unusually pure. The refining of sugar is simply a process of cleaning or washing, by which impurities adhering to the crystals are removed. With canesugar this usually results in raising the percentage of pure sugar from a figure ranging between 90 and 95 before refining to 99.8 per cent. after refining. The raw product of the alcohol process is already about 95 per cent. pure, and will serve for many purposes as it is. This will make it possible for the producer of sorghum sugar to put a large part of his product upon the market without refining, will save the expense of that process, enable the producer and consumer to deal directly with each other, and by reducing the power of the refiners will decrease the danger of sugar trusts.

INSPECTION OF LIVE STOCK AND MEATS.

FOR many years our exports of live stock and meat products have been very much restricted by hostile regulations in foreign coun

tries. The reason assigned for these regulations was the absence of any United States government inspection of live stock and meat products to guarantee them free from disease. Two acts of Congress, one approved August 30, 1890, and the other March 3, 1891, authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to inspect animals and meats intended for export or for interstate trade. In compliance with the law he has established, through the Bureau of Animal Industry, an inspection of live stock for export and an inspection of meats.

The inspection of live stock is intended to detect all animals that are diseased or infected with disease, and to prevent stock from becoming diseased in transport. The veterinary inspection of neat cattle and sheep to be exported to Great Britain, Ireland, and the continent of Europe is made at a number of interior cities and at seaports from which stock are shipped. The cattle inspected at interior cities, when found free from disease and from exposure to contagion, are tagged and shipped to the port of export, where they are again inspected. Railroad companies are required to furnish clean and disinfected cars. Persons who ship live stock must give the name of the place from which the animals come and the name of the feeder, to enable the bureau to trace diseases to their origin. The inspector at the interior city, after passing cattle and tagging them, forwards to the veterinary inspector in charge of the port of export for which they are destined the tag numbers and a description of the cars in which the animals are shipped. At the port the animals are unloaded from the cars at the wharves, whenever possible; and when it is necessary to transport them to ocean steamers by means of boats, these must be cleaned and thoroughly disinfected, and must not receive more cattle or sheep than can be carried comfortably. No vessel with cattle or sheep for Great Britain, Ireland, or the continent of Europe can receive clearance papers until the veterinary inspector certifies to the collector of the port that the animals have been duly inspected, and that the law has been fully complied with.

As Great Britain has insisted upon the existence of contagious pleuropneumonia in American cattle when the United States Department of Agriculture claimed that infection did not exist, the Secretary of Agriculture, through the State Department, recently obtained permission from the British government for American veterinarians to participate with the British officers in inspecting American cattle landed at British ports. In August, 1890, three American inspectors were sent to England. Up to September 19, 1891, they examined 374,000 head of cattle with the most gratifying results. The English officers alleged contagious pleuro

pneumonia in only three cases, and in these cases the judgment of the American inspectors, who disputed the English diagnosis, was confirmed by the highest English veterinary authorities.

The Department also makes inspection of meats upon application of the proprietors of slaughter-houses or packing-houses. An inspector is appointed for each establishment. He must be given full and free access at all times to all parts of the building or buildings used for the slaughter of animals and the conversion of their carcasses into food products. He inspects all animals in the pens, allowing none to pass to the slaughter-room until inspected, and also makes a post-mortem examination. Any animal found to be diseased is condemned, and its owner must remove it from the premises, and dispose of it as required by the laws of the State. An owner who wilfully causes or permits any diseased animal to remain upon his premises beyond the time allowed for its removal forfeits the privilege of inspection, and is refused certificates for his product. Carcasses of dressed beef are marked with a numbered tag, a record of which is kept in the Department at Washington. Each package of food products made from the carcasses of the inspected animals is carefully marked with a label, which must bear at least the Department number of the establishment and the statement that the product has been examined. A copy of this label is filed in the Department at Washington, and becomes the mark of identification. In addition it is required that each package shipped shall have printed upon it the Department number of the establishment, the location of the factory, the number of pieces or pounds contained, the trade-mark, and in large letters the words "For Export" or "Interstate Trade," and shall bear a Department of Agriculture stamp. For each consignment of carcasses or their food products exported to foreign countries, the Department gives a certificate stating the number of the factory, the name of its owner, the date of inspection, the name of the consignee, the country to which the articles are to be exported, and the numbers of the stamps attached to the articles. The certificate is in triplicate, one copy being delivered to the consignor, one attached to the invoice, and one filed in the Department of Agriculture.

An important part of the regulations for meat inspection is the provision for a microscopic examination of hogs at the time of slaughter in order to detect any infested with the animal parasite called Trichina spiralis. This parasite is a small worm found chiefly in hogs and rats and occasionally in other animals that eat animal food. In Germany it is believed to gain entrance to swine through rats

that they consume. How it gains entrance to American swine is not known. The worms when eaten pass into the intestines of the host animal, where they multiply, each female giving rise to about 1800 offspring. The young pass through the walls of the intestines, and wander through the body until they reach the muscular tissue. Muscles, when divided into their last component parts, consist of long, slender bodies made up of a case and inclosed matter. It is upon this matter that the worms prey. They seldom prove fatal to swine, but when they attack the breathing and swallowing muscles of man in sufficiently large numbers, death quickly ensues. Cooking that causes pork to become heated in all its parts to a high temperature for a halfhour or more destroys the worms, and renders even highly infected meat quite harmless. To thorough cooking is largely due the fact that this parasite has caused comparatively few deaths in this country. But in countries like Germany, in which large quantities of pork are eaten nearly or quite raw, the danger is very much increased. In European countries, and especially in Germany, inspection has been made by the Government for many years, and they have objected to receiving American pork, which until very recently has been subject to no inspection whatever.

When the slaughtered hog is passed into the cooling-room, three samples are cut from the body, one from the pillar of the diaphragm, one from the tenderloin, and one from the shoulder. These are marked, placed in self-locking tin boxes, and sent to the microscopist. He or an assistant takes from each sample three small portions, making nine in all for each carcass. These are flattened out between two glass plates and subjected to examination under the microscope. The worms, if present, are easily discovered coiled in a spiral and inclosed in a cyst, or sack. Samples that are condemned by an assistant microscopist as containing trichinæ are again viewed by the chief microscopist. All carcasses that are found to be infected are removed from the premises by the proprietor, and disposed of as the State law requires. Up to the present time proprietors, according to agreement with the Department, have sent condemned animals and meat to the rendering-tank. The Department has, however, no legal authority to compel them to take this course, as the supervision of local markets is left to local authorities.

The cost of the inspection is borne by the Government. The Secretary of Agriculture, in his report for 1891, stated that the inspection of live stock for export had cost, for the ten months during which it had been in operation, $8500 per month, and that the meat inspection

United States he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power and it shall be his duty to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in such case and during such suspension duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of or exported from such designated country.

Then follow the duties: on sugar varying from seven tenths of a cent to 2 cents per pound; on molasses, 4 cents per gallon; on coffee, 3 cents per pound; on tea, 10 cents per pound; on hides, 11⁄2 cents per pound. This provision was intended to secure trade privileges in return for the free admission of products into this country. Under it there have been concluded treaties providing for reciprocity with Brazil, Cuba, and Porto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Salvador, Trinidad, Barbadoes, Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, British Guiana, and Jamaica, Nicaragua, Germany, and Honduras. To describe the provisions of all these treaties would require too much space. That with Brazil admits the following articles, products of the United States, free of all duties, national, State, or municipal: wheat; wheat-flour; maize and its manufactures; rye, rye-flour, buckwheat, buckwheatflour, and barley; potatoes, beans, and peas; hay and oats; salted pork; fish, salted, dried, or pickled; cotton-seed oil; coal; rosin, tar, pitch, and turpentine; agricultural tools, implements, and machinery; mining and mechanical tools, implements and machinery, including stationary and portable engines, and all machinery for manufacturing and industrial purposes except sewing-machines; instruments and books for the arts and sciences; and railway-construction material and equipment. In addition, the following articles are admitted at a reduction of

25% from the duties provided in the tariff now in force or from any which may be adopted hereafter: lard and its substitutes; hams; butter and cheese; canned and preserved meats, fish, fruit, and vegetables; manufactures of cotton; manufactures of iron and steel not included in the former list; leather and its manufactures, except boots and shoes; lumber, timber, and the manufactures of wood, including cooperage, furniture, wagons, carts, and carriages; manufactures of rubber.

The President has suspended by proclamation the free admission into the United States of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides from Colombia, Hayti, and Venezuela.

acknowledgment by the country that it is the This section may be taken as an express duty of the National government to make it possible for the farmer to find favorable mar

kets abroad.

COLLECTION AND DISSEMINATION OF

INFORMATION.

AMONG the most important acts of Congress touching the welfare of the farmer are those which provide for the establishment of institutions of learning which are to give special attention to agriculture and the sciences related to it; for the maintenance of agricul tural experiment stations which are devoted to the scientific investigation of agricultural problems; and for the elevation of the United States Department of Agriculture to a cabinet department. All these acts will be sufficiently noticed in other articles in this series. These three educational agencies, the colleges, the stations, and the Department, are the most important ones now at work for the betterment of agricultural matters, for nothing can benefit the farmer so much as a knowledge of the best methods of farming for the region in which he may live. A. W. Harris.

It is

Responsibility for Political Corruption.

T is the habit of many persons who deplore the existence of corruption in American politics to place the main responsibility for it upon the ignorant voters. "If we had not such a large ignorant vote, a great deal of it foreign," they say, "we should get along much better. We should not have so much money used corruptly in carrying elections, or in influencing the course of legislation." Is this an accurate diagnosis of the case? Let us consider the chief forms of corruption, and see whether it is.

To begin with national politics, the chief method of corruption is the use of large sums of money in carrying Presidential elections. A great deal of this money is used for legitimate purposes, but a great deal more of it has been used in the recent past for the direct purchase of votes. This was conceded to be the case in the campaign of 1888, when both political parties raised unprecedentedly large campaign funds, each making excuse that it must do so to counteract the other. The corrupt purpose of these rival funds was disclosed by the fact that they were raised during the final days of the campaign, when the legitimate work of electioneering had been finished. There were no more documents to be distributed, no more halls and headquarters to be hired, few or no more parades to be organized or mass meetings to be held.

Who supplied the money for those funds? Did it come from the ignorant and foreign portion of the electorate, or from its intelligent, native, and more respectable elements? It is unnecessary to answer these questions. Did not the contributors suspect that their money was to be used for corrupt purposes? If they did not, what other use did they think would be made of it? If they did suspect, why did they, as reputable citizens, upright and honorable members of society, contribute it? Simply because they had become so interested in the campaign, so desirous of partizan victory, that their moral sense was blunted to practical extinction. They shut their eyes and consciences at the same time; gave their money, asked no questions as to its use, and got ready to toss up their hats with joy at the victory which they hoped it would bring. Yet if their money went into the hands of a professional corruptionist, who distributed it among his agents, which agents went with it into the slums of great cities and bought with it the votes of ignorant and foreignborn electors, thus debauching the suffrage-upon whose head rested the responsibility? Which was the more guilty in the sight of God and man, the poor, ignorant wretch who yielded to the temptation of the man who went to him with the money in his hand, or the respectable, intelligent, honorable member of society who supplied the temptation?

Partizanship is not the only motive for such giving. Positions of honor and profit in the public service, legislation of great value to private business interests, are bought and sold in advance of election, the goods to be delivered in case of success at the polls. Here again the authors of the corruption are the men who VOL. XLIV.— 62.

supply the money, not the men who are tempted to take it at the sacrifice of their honor.

When we come to State and municipal politics, we find the same evil of corruption in elections traceable to the same sources, and we find an even greater one in the buying and selling of legislation in the legislative bodies. It is a matter of common knowledge that all the great railway and other corporations, all the banks and chartered institutions which have large vested rights and interests to protect, are obliged to keep close watch by means of hired agents upon the law-making bodies of the various States, to guard themselves against hostile legislation, or to promote the passage of favorable measures. In many instances large sums of money are devoted each year to this work in the legislatures. It is disguised under some such term as "legal expenses," but the managers of the corporations and institutions who authorize its expenditure know what its purposes are. It is admitted, indeed, by many of them that the money is used for corrupt purposes, but it is claimed that such use is an absolute necessity for the protection of the property which is in their charge. They argue that so long as legislative bodies are constituted as they are at present, with venal elements frequently holding the balance of power, direct bribery is the only method for warding off injurious legislation, or securing desirable legislation.

Before inquiring as to the responsibility for this kind of corruption, let us see to what it leads. It has brought into public life a class of men known as legislative "jobbers" or "strikers." Frequently, in order to get elected, these pay sums several times as large as the salary which the office affords, their object being to get into a position in which they can traffic in legislation. They introduce measures designed to injure corporate and vested rights, in order to be "bought off" from pressing them. They organize "cliques" and " combines," and require payment for the votes of this organized gang of plunderers for or against any measure in which they think there is "something for them." These men would never have thought of going into a legislature had not the business of paying for legislation been encouraged and built up by the corporations and other aggregations of capital.

Is there any doubt about the responsibility for this kind of corruption? Does it rest upon the miserable creatures who have been attracted, like flies to offal, by the bribes offered in the halls of legislation, or upon the men of character and standing in the community who as presidents, directors, and managers of corporations and institutions furnish the bribes? What would happen if these presidents, directors, and managers, from one end of the land to the other, were to come together and declare that henceforth not a cent would they authorize for use in influencing legislation of any kind? What would happen if they were to agree that in every instance in which a demand were made upon them by a legislator or his agent for money as a price of legislation, they would make public exposure of the same, and do their utmost to have the guilty person punished? Would not the whole nefarious and demor

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