FIRE-WORKS. Grocers and country dealers are often tempt ed by the prospective profit in fire-works to put them in stock about the 4th of July. They detract from the attention to the regular business of a store, are very dangerous in themselves and unless covered by payment of an extra premium in advance de stroy any policies of insurance that may stand on the stock or building. Laws are gaining ground against their use and every year it becomes more difficult and less profitable to handle them.
FISH (as food.) There is some danger, says the Lancet, of the fish question falling out of memory. This is not to be tolerated after the interest which has been excited, and for some time maintained, in connection with this important phase of the food problem. Whatever may be the nutritious value of fish as food— and we believe that to be very great—it must be evident that a full and cheap supply of fish would react so as to produce a low ering of the price of butchers' meat. This is manifest on the face of the facts ; but what may not be equally apparent, though it is scarcely less noteworthy, is the consideration that nervous diseases and weaknesses increase in a country as the population comes to live on the flesh of the warm-blooded animals. This is a point to
which attention has not been adequately directed. " Meat " using that term in its popular sense—is highly stimulating, and supplies proportionally more exciting than actually nourishing pabulum to the nervous system. The meat-eater lives at high pressure, and is, or ought to be, a peculiarly active organism, like a predatory animal, always on the alert, walking rapidly, and con suming large quantities of oxygen, which are imperatively neces sary for the disposal of his disassimilated material. In practice we find that the meat-eater does not, live up to the level of his food, and as a consequence he cannot, or does not, take in enough oxygen to satisfy the exigencies of his mode of life. Thereupon follow many, if not most, of the ills to which highly-civilized and luxurious meat-eating classes are liable. This is a physiological view of the food question, and it has bearings on the question of fish supply which ought not to be neglected.