An American diet specialist quoted in this journal yesterday, believes that people can get fat on water. By this he undoubtedly means that there is body-building sustenance in this cheap and humble commodity, and in these difficult days of low exchange and a rapidly increasing cost of living his message may cast a ray of sunshine on Shanghai for a time has come when household economies must be ex-excised to infinitesimal limits and it is pleasant to learn that water has food values. Some sections of commercial Shanghai are happily able to make adjustments to counter the increased cost of living, but to the greater majority of the community it is a question of accommodate ing income to a far higher expenditure. As Mr. Micawber expounded the fallacy of this school of economics last century it a serious question. of making the dollar go much farther than eve: before. As a challenge to the Shanghai housewife whose interest is not directly involved in the mechanics of exchange but who realize: difficulties by much more convincing signs such as the "butter barometer" and the "bread barometer," this period of emergency must produce the best qualities of fortitude and the highest degree of domestic acumen and marketing ability if she and her family are to weather: the storm. True, it is a poor philosophy at the best but it represents the only front Shanghai can show at present until conditions improve. It means everything must be utilized, and tht houseboy's perquisites must be reduced. Th: art of utilizing "left-overs," which has bee: highly developed in countries like the Unitea States since the depression, must become ever. more highly developed, and the whims of the master of the house must be subordinated to the resources of the larder. It may mean the adoption of forms of synthetic dishes on the "ersatz" model in Germany. During the Great War, when most necessaries of life were practically unobtainable or rationed in niggardly: manner, there were all sorts of experiment: to meet the situation. Semi-potato bread anc pastries for pies, meatless days, general vegetarianism and other forms of restriction were adopted. They were desperate devices but national health did not suffer much. In Shanghai, with the loyal and ingenious cooperation of the Chinese cook, there may develop an absolutely new form of economic food production excelling everything in the past—anc everybody knows what the Chinese cook cai. do with almost nothing at a pinch. These are gloomy-prospects but Shanghai has weathered worse emergencies and has emerged to laugh at the discomforts afterwards. Viewed in this light, Shanghai should be able to pass through this emergency.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.