"Whither are
we drifting, and what is to be the condition of the coming man?" We can
not shut our eyes to the fact that mankind is passing through a great
era of change; even womankind is not built as she was a few brief years
ago. And is it not time, fellow citizens, that we pause to consider what
is to be the future of the American?

Food itself has been the subject of change both in the matter of
material and preparation. This must affect the consumer in such a way as
to some day bring about great differences. Take, for instance, the
oyster, one of our comparatively modern food and game fishes, and watch
the effects of science upon him. At one time the oyster browsed around
and ate what he could find in Neptune's back-yard, and we had to eat him
as we found him. Now we take a herd of oysters off the trail, all run
down, and feed them artificially till they swell up to a fancy size, and
bring a fancy price. Where will this all lead at last, I ask as a
careful scientist? Instead of eating apples, as Adam did, we work the
fruit up into apple-jack and pie, while even the simple oyster is
perverted, and instead of being allowed to fatten up in the fall on
acorns and ancient mariners, spurious flesh is put on his bones by the
artificial osmose and dialysis of our advanced civilization. How can
you make an oyster stout or train him down by making him jerk a health
lift so many hours every day, or cultivate his body at the expense of
his mind, without ultimately not only impairing the future usefulness of
the oyster himself, but at the same time affecting the future of the
human race who feed upon him?

I only use the oyster as an illustration, and I do not wish to cause
alarm, but I say that if we stimulate the oyster artificially and swell
him up by scientific means, we not only do so at the expense of his
better nature and keep him away from his family, but we are making our
mark on the future race of men. Oyster-fattening is now, of course, in
its infancy. Only a few years ago an effort was made at St. Louis to
fatten cove oysters while in the can, but the system was not well
understood, and those who had it in charge only succeeded in making the
can itself more plump. But now oysters are kept on ground feed and given
nothing to do for a few weeks, and even the older and overworked
sway-backed and rickety oysters of the dim and murky past are made to
fill out, and many of them have to put a gore in the waistband of the