The United States has a Pure Food Department, but I think it might learn a great deal that it does not know if it were to send a commission to China to study life in the Buddhist monasteries, where only sanitary, healthful food is consumed.
It is always a surprise to me that people are so indifferent to the kind of food they take.

Public health officers are useful officials, but when we have become more civilized each individual will be his own health officer.
Some of the well-known Chinese dishes are very relishable and should not be overlooked by chefs and dinner hostesses.

I refer to the sharks' fins, and birds' nest--the Eastern counterpart of the Western piece de resistance--the terrapin.

From a hygienic point of view sharks' fins may not be considered as very desirable, seeing they are part of the shark, but they are certainly not worse, and are perhaps better, than what is called the "high and tender" pheasant, and other flesh foods which are constantly found on Western dining tables, and which are so readily eaten by connoisseurs.

Birds' nest soup is far superior to turtle soup, and I have the opinion of an American chemist who analyzed it, that it is innocuous and minus the injurious uric acid generated by animal flesh, the cause of rheumatic and similar painful complaints.
The "chop suey" supplied in the Chinese restaurants in New York, Chicago, and other places, seems to be a favorite dish with the American public.