It is the verdict of history that this system of special-diet kitchens saved thousands of lives. During the last eighteen months of the war, over two million rations were issued monthly from this long line of special-diet kitchens, established, many of them, almost under the guns.
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC—ITS GLORIES AND ITS DANGERS.
THE remarkable growth of the American Republic is without a parallel in the history of the world.
A hundred years ago she was a feeble nation—in her infancy, and scarcely recognized by the other nations of the earth. Now she stands foremost among the governments of the world, and leads the nations in almost everything.
Her territory is extensive and contiguous, lying between two great oceans, and bounded on the north and south by navigable lakes and seas.
Her resources are almost boundless. She gluts the markets of the world with her silver and gold. Her iron and copper ores are rich and abundant, nearly all the metals needed for the use of her people may be had for the digging, and she may bedeck her children with the jewels gathered from her own fields.
She can produce an abundance of cotton, wool, flax, hemp, and silk. She is already the chief competitor in the cotton markets of Asia, and from her own looms is clothing her people in muslins and fine linen, and her daughters in royal purple from her silk factories. Her food supply is immense. Her grain-fields are broad and rich enough to supply bread to the millions of her own people, and to meet the needs of the needy nations of the earth. Her meat supply is so large that she is glad to share it with all the world. Her fruit yield is ample, sufficient in variety and abundance to meet the needs of all. Only a few luxuries are denied her. She could shut herself in, and live luxuriously on her own products. There is not one thing that comes from abroad that her people could not live comfortably without. Tea, coffee, spices, and tropical fruits are not necessary to human life.
Her woods are abundant and fine, equal to any reasonable demand. Her furniture goes to the ends of the earth.
Her building material is abundant and of superior quality. She has granite and marble in variety, nearly all kinds of valuable building-stones, and clays of almost every description. Her potteries are now doing credible work, and her china and glass wares are attracting attention in other lands. The new process by which glass china is produced is a marvellous success.