As cotton manufacturers are seared about the situation in the' Philippines, s large silk buyers of the United States are at present! evincing great interest in matter which will directly affect the trade of Japan, China and' India if it is proved to be a commercial success. I refer to the Possibility of making real silk from crab ang lobster shell.
Silk exporters who read this journal may a certain "Pi director of the Institute for fibre' chemistry, is claiming to have made a discovery' in Berlin which may mean that in the future the world can eat scarlet, lobsters one day, carry the shell and claws to a factory and later' wear garments of silk span from these at present waste products. The silk, be it noted, will be real. Ts will not be artificial silk. 'That is, it will have the same funda. mental composition as the cocoon of the silk worm. All silk men kaw that real silk isa form albumen, called chitin. 'To-day'
silk is cellulose, made mostly from wood pulp. Bat raw crab shells, lobster claws and beetle' wing coverings are also "chitin." The learned professor now an-sources that after long experi: mentati nhe has discovered a prac-' ical method of dissolving the rem: erican basis, I see that a large tax company in' Chicago estimates that, if it could save only two minutes on ch trip it would reduce its gasoline Neosts by over $100,000 per annum. But there are, of course, many, economic burdens that result from traffic congestion which it difficult to measure Consider, for example ice which thousands of citi-suffer through traffic delays—this is more marked in the rush ful American continent than any other, of cotirse—cor in attempting! to find parking places for their In this country, and in Asiatic countries also but to a less marked ut, one important factor in the high cost of living in large cities to be found in the amount of money which must be paid for the [delivery of goods. No wonder that we have "grocerterias," and ('"booteterias," and "hateterias" all over this country (these, for the benefit of the uninitiated must be explained to be places where you walk in, tend on yourself, pay your bill and carry your goods home)—and "cash and carry stores"—and "Pigely-Wiggly" and what not, all created for the express purpose of cutting down expenses creeping into all businesses which suffer from public traffic jams. In one city in the United States, for example, one ingenious person, freak ighly "minded in statistics, has discovered that it costs as much to deliver potatoes from the freight station to the consumer as it does {to bring the same potatoes a thi sand miles by rail, for it costs six cents per minute to keep a lorry fof average size on the streets, whether it ig running or not.
All business activities of a cit Ate adjusted to a certain speed with }which business can be transacted, and in this country, despite all fefferts to foresee public require-[ments, congestion has. stepped in to disturb this balance by. decreasing the speed of operation and consequently add to cost.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.