Herriman Saturday: April 9 1910

 

April 9 1910 -- Justice Ling of California has become the go-to guy regarding the freshness of chicken eggs. A short while before this cartoon ran there was a lawsuit between a grocer and an egg supplier regarding the freshness of the eggs they were offering. The shipment of eggs in question, dubbed "fancy fresh eggs", were found to have been laid over two months before in South Dakota before being shipped to California and arriving at the grocer's business. 

So is a 2+ month old, very well traveled, but always chilled, egg fresh? That was the question put to Justice Ling. After a great deal of research and expert opinions sought, Ling decided to throw the suit out of court, even though he agreed that the supplier was surely stretching the bounds of "fresh". He decided that candling the eggs is the most foolproof method of determining freshness, and that's what the grocer should have done before accepting the shipment. Solomonic? Pretty darn close, I'd say. 

So I had to say all that to explain this cartoon, which is a follow-up to that legal drama. An inventor is now seeking Justice Ling's attention, because he claims to have a method for keeping eggs fresh almost indefinitely. He proclaims that the wonder of the age, electricity, is the key. An electric shock to the egg, to kill the forming chick inside, will keep the contents of the egg from degrading. 

Unfortunately, neither Justice Ling nor common sense will propel our inventor to hobnob with the likes of Edison and Marconi. It seems not to have occurred to him that the vast majority of hen fruit are unfertilized because wholesale egg producers don't keep roosters around, considering them a waste of space and feed. And yet, those eggs still degrade, don't they? And even if they are fertilized, the chicken inside will not develop unless the temperature is kept at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a very unlikely temperature at which eggs will be stored.