454 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



the gentlemea of the county, Mr. Frewen, has ah'eady 

 takea up his case. At the sale, too, a brother-farmer, 

 Mr. Allen, of ThurmastoD, ''wished it to be known 

 throughout the length and breadth of Leices- 

 tershire, that, if landlords treated their tenants 

 as Mr. Everard had been served, they should 

 not sport over his land. He did say this one thing, 

 that if his land lay adjoining to covers, and Lord Stam- 

 ford came upon it, he would send him ' right 

 about face.' He thought that was a sample of what 

 Engli-^hmen ought to do ! " Lord Stamford opens 

 another season in Leicestershire on this day week. 

 Another friend, Mr. Kirkman, proposed that a Farmers' 

 Fund should be raised, for conducting an action, to 

 which he himself would give ten pounds. But perhaps 

 the best commentary comes from Mr. Everard's two 

 brothers. One, a commercial man, said, " Fai-mers 

 should not suffer landlords to have modern rents and 

 feudal privileges." The other declared that "if farmers 

 were to keep pace with the times, they must have 



leases and tenant-right; and hero was a striking 

 instance of the need of such." 



We tell the story as a striking instance. Every tenant 

 farmer should be able to draw his own moral from it. 

 It only illustrates what we have said over and over 

 again. No one, in justice to himself and his family, 

 should put blind, helpless conBdence in another. It 

 creates a power that is twice cursed — alike derogatory 

 to him that gives, and to him that uses it. It is just a 

 fortnight since that we opened a leader with these two 

 suggestive sentences from Sir John Pakington's speech 

 at Worcester. They will come as appropriately as a 

 conclusion to this: — "The Agricultural Ques- 

 tion MAY BE SUMMED UP IN THREE EXPRES- 

 SIVE WORDS — Skill, Capital, and Security 



To ENSURE prosperity, A FARMER MUST POS- 

 SESS SOME SKILL, JUDICIOUSLY APPLY HIS 

 CAPITAL, AND HE HAS A RIGHT TO EXPECT SE- 

 CURITY, EITHER IN LONG LEASES, OR IN COM- 

 PENSATION FOR UNEXHAUSTED IMPROVEMENTS," 



REVIEW. 



"IS KILLING MURDER?" A KEY TO THE 

 ADULTERATION OF OUR DAILY FOOD. 



Compiled by Wm. Dalton. London, 1857. 



Such is the title of the little work before us : and, 

 certainly, its contents are enough to alarm every one at 

 all of a nervous temperament ; for, if we are to believe 

 the evidence adduced — and there is not the slightest 

 cause to doubt it — every article of food we purchase, 

 every condiment, every drug, is made the subject of 

 adulteration, some to an extent, and with such mate- 

 rials, as eminently to endanger health, and even life 

 itself. Men of the first character and standing, either 

 as practical chemists or in the medical profession, have 

 bestowed weeks and months of the most careful, delibe- 

 rate, and impartial investigation ; and have been driven 

 to the conviction that the majority of British tradesmen 

 have — whether wittingly or otherwise, is best known to 

 themselves— been dealing out disease and death, in 

 various forms, amongst the whole population of the 

 United Kingdom, but especially of the metropolitan 

 districts, by the adulteration of all the necessaries of life. 

 Nor is this confined to one or two of the tradesmen 

 in one or two branches of trade. Dr. Hassall and Dr. 

 Normandy (the latter a Professor of Analytical Che- 

 mistry) have gone to work in the most wholesale man- 

 ner, making a complete sweepstake of the tradesmen in 

 a neighbourhood — obtaining samples from each, of va- 

 rious articles, and finding them, by testing, all adul- 

 terated. Thus, of two lots of samples of bread of 25 

 each, every sample contained alum. Chalk, clay, potato- 

 starch, &c,, &c., are used by some of the bakers in the 

 low neighbourhoods ; and whitening has been known to 

 be used in large quantities in bread. The less pernicious, 

 but still fraudulent, practice of mixing barley, beans, peas, 

 and potato farina with wheaten flour, is also practised 



by the millers to an enormous extent. The testimony 

 of the two gentlemen we have named is corroborated 

 by F, C. Calvert, Esq., Professor of Chemistry at the 

 Royal Institution, Manchester ; Dr. W. Carpenter, 

 Examiner in Physiology in the University of London ; 

 Mr. Julian Rogers, Analytical Chemist ; and last, not 

 least, Dr. Letheby, Analyst and Medical Officer for the 

 City of London ; who all speak both to the facts and to 

 the deleterious character of the various ingredients put 

 into bread. 



We have placed this article foremost, because it is of 

 the first importance. But we must not stop here. Out 

 of 30 samples of oatmeal, 16 were adulterated with 

 barley-meal. Tea is almost universally mixed with in- 

 jurious ingredients, both in China before shipment, 

 and in England after arrival. Coffee, chocolate, cocoa, 

 undergo similar treatment. Out of 42 samples of 

 coffee tested by Dr. Hassall, only 11 were pure ; and of 

 another series of 54, only 5 were pure. Beer, of all 

 kinds, is adulterated ; but in all cases by the publicans, 

 and not by the brewers. The materials used by the re- 

 tailers is of a decidedly poisonous character, and dan- 

 gerous to health and life ; sulphate of iron and nux 

 vomica, coculus Indicus, alum, tobacco juice, grains of 

 paradise, &c., have all been detected by different che- 

 mists in liquors which ought to be malt liqMors. Spirits, 

 especially gin, are largely tampered with. " There can 

 be no doubt," says Dr. Hassall, "that whatever may 

 be the evil consequences of drinking gin, those conse- 

 quences are materially augmented by the use of these 

 mixtures. I think no human stomach could stand the 

 combined effects of alcohol and cayenne pepper" (p. 65.) 



Port wine, which never saw Oporto, is sold in abund- 

 ance by the London wine merchants. It is a composi- 

 tion of bad Italian wine, geropiga, elder berries' extract, 

 Lisbon grapes, brown sugar, brandy, bitter almonds. 



