any great distance from the source of power. With the efficiency the same, the electric pump can be operated much more economically, owing to the small loss in power experienced in transmitting electricity as compared to the loss in transmitting steam an equal distance.

The advantages of the electrical system of power distribution in regular work has been shown to be as follows:

It permits the utilization of water-powers situated at distant or inaccessible points. In the absence of water-power, electric transmission renders a concentration of steam plants possible. Small, expensive and perhaps troublesome steam plants are done away with, and in their place is a large, wellequipped and economical central station from which the required amount of power, with small loss, is conveyed to the different motors, wherever placed.

The PRESIDENT. Does any one wish to discuss any point of this paper?

A MEMBER. I would like to inquire about the safety of electricity in and about our mill yards, and as a representative of the insurance companies is present, and we are all his humble subjects, I will call on Mr. Atkinson.

Mr. ATKINSON. Mr. President, I will remark that when the electric light was first introduced it became apparent at once that it was one of the new risks that we were obliged to take into account. The first electric light company, zealous and eager, and perhaps justified in their eagerness, set up their plants in the worst manner. Twenty-three fires in the first year, fortunately without great loss, have made clear to them, as well as to the underwriters, the danger of being over-hasty. That plant has been made safe. The first installation of electric power for other purposes was made in a dangerous manner. It was first proposed to introduce a single trolley track, and one plant at least had to be completely altered, and there appeared the same prospect of danger from the single trolley track that had appeared from the naked wire in the electric lighting. It is clear that the transmission of power by electricity is one

of the coming powers which the underwriters will be called upon to adjust themselves. It will become expedient and necessary in your mills and may be made entirely safe, but I caution you all not to go too fast, and be sure that every point has been investigated and that your plants are adjusted in the right manner. Certain rules have been established as the result of experience, and I have no doubt that the Thomson-Houston Company and other companies will adjust their plants to those rules, but I give you one caution: not to permit a single trolley track to come into your mill yards, but if there is a single trolley wire near your mills be careful that none of your wires that have any connection with your mill yards come anywhere near that wire. That is all I can say at present, but I will say that you will find it profitable to use electricity and that it can be used safely, but you must be careful and not proceed in accordance with the eagerness of those who fail to see all the hazards but see all the profits.

Mr. HUSSEY. There is one thing I would like to ask Mr. Atkinson, and that is this: From what particular point in an electric overhead system does he apprehend danger from fire, particularly when the load itself is entirely out of doors, the wires are entirely separate from any buildings, and further, where by the methods of insulation to-day used by all first-class electric companies in case of a short circuit, that is, in the case of a broken wire of a trolley, that the instruments and fuses are so made as to blow out and immediately shut out all possibility of the current running to the machine? I will agree that in mill inside work it is perhaps better to have a thoroughly insulated system, because of the danger which I stated, of the liability of sparking the current between the rails. With a thoroughly insulated system I cannot see how there is any more danger from sparking or fire than from the use of gas or oil, or anything that is used now in a mill.

Mr. ATKINSON. I shall be prepared to answer the question when the matter has been so long investigated that it will be no longer necessary for the electric companies to

take the precautions to overcome the known dangers. I can only now caution you not to incur unknown dangers without investigation. I cannot answer the question here without a discussion of the whole subject, only I express the profoundest distrust of the single trolley system. I do not know that you have disregarded the danger. It is not necessary for you to aid them by experiments in your mills. When we are sure it is safe, then I will answer the question. At present I do not think the safety of the single trolley wire is assured, and I want you to keep your telephone and trolley wires as far as possible from any single trolley wire as a mere precaution.

The PRESIDENT.

The next remarks will be by Mr. Atkinson, on "Food and Feeding in Relation to Wages."

Mr. ATKINSON. I have not come here to inflict a long paper on you. There is one thought that has occurred to me which I will present now. Well-prepared papers are of extreme value, as thorough and as complete as those that have been submitted to-day, but on the first reading they make little impression upon the mind, and I would therefore suggest that such papers might be called for to be submitted to the Board of Government a month in advance of the meeting, and be printed and distributed and made a subject of interesting discussion at the meetings, rather than to have a complete reading, and I think that will add life and interest to the meetings, which I know by experience cannot be excited by merely reading a paper, however thorough it is. I have learned long ago where I could trust myself to do away with the manuscript and to speak instead of reading.

Now I have prepared, as I thought it better to prepare, my own report of this subject, which I believe is one of very great importance. I do not propose to read it. I shall simply give you a digest of it and then give you something to digest afterwards, and which will prove the most appetizing will be proved afterwards, after you have been subjected to both treatments. I will run hastily over these points and turn over the manuscript to the reporters.

FOOD AND FEEDING CONSIDERED AS A FACTOR IN MAKING THE RATE OF WAGES OR EARNINGS.

BY EDWARD ATKINSON, BOSTON, MASS.

It is fortunate for the people of this country that in treating the food question we may deal with waste rather than with want, with abundance rather than with scarcity; yet I am far from certain that the evils which ensue from the waste of food are not greater than many of the evils which come from scarcity, if that scarcity falls short of absolute want. Scarcity is a good school-master. It tends to right methods. of nutrition. Witness the economy of food and the nutritive quality of the food in France. Scarcity tending to an approach to famine, like that which now prevails in some parts of Italy, is to be deplored, especially in view of the fact that it is due to the enormously excessive taxation rendered necessary in order to maintain the liberty of the kingdom

The evils coming from scarcity which falls short of want may be remediable under the pressure of necessity, but the evils which come from the waste of an excess of food may require one or two generations for their remedy.

You may observe that the nutrition of animals of horses, cows, beeves, sheep and pigs-is pretty well understood. You may remark that when beasts get out of condition we treat them mainly by altering their diet; but when a man gets out of condition he is apt to treat himself with pills. Perhaps the surest way to make a great fortune is through the concoction of quack medicines, provided the quack is a master of the art of lying and possesses enough capital to give a wide circulation to his first batch of lies and of false statements of the cures that he claims to have accomplished.

I remember hearing Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once make a remark, which has been a comfort to me all my life, to this effect: "The law of nature is to cure and not to kill, provided you will help her." Then he went on to explain how much injury was done by false attempts to help. He had taken the statistics of the sales of medicine by apothecaries with the results that about twelve and one-half per cent. were on the prescriptions of physicians; about eightyseven and one-half per cent. were doses which men ignorantly took on their own motion, or at the prescription of quacks. When the simple facts about the art of nutrition shall become a part of the common knowledge of the people, we may hope that the compounders and vendors of anti-bilious pills and other noxious nostrums will speedily become bankrupt.

I was led into this study a few years ago by the compilation of the statistics of the cost of living. When these figures disclosed the fact that the mere cost of the materials for food, even in this land of huge abundance, absorbs onehalf the income or more, of nine-tenths of the people, I was greatly startled. I suppose that I then knew about as much as most people about what food is.

What is it? Suppose I put that question to you. What is food? I doubt if there are five persons in this room who would give an answer to that question that would possess' even an approach to accuracy, except by chance. If you answered seriously, you would reply, Why, of course, meat, grain and vegetables are food. So they are in one sense, but not in a true sense. Is raw meat food for man? Is unground wheat food for woman? Will you feed your children on raw potatoes or turnips? Food material is no more food than raw cotton is cotton fabric.

Now when you have brought cotton, wool and dyestuff's into your works what do you do with them? Do you not convert them by the finest and most scientific processes of mechanism known to you? Do you not apply heat under the most careful regulation? Do you not attempt to control the humidity of the atmosphere? And when you have woven