CITY MILK SUPPLY. 333 



ADULTERATED MILK. 



In view of the fact tLat the trade in fresh country milk for the single 

 market of Xew York represented, in 1871, a yearly gross income to pro- 

 ducers of 8^1,170,000, -while the entire expenditure for city consumption 

 exceeded 815,000,000, it will be perceived that fraudulent and deleterious 

 enlargements of the volume of supply serionsly affect the interests of 

 agriculturists while bearing more directly on the consumers. As concern- 

 ing the latter class, the adulteration of milk is attractingincreasing solici- 

 tude in the larger cities of our own country as well as those of Europe. 

 IMilk inspectors and chemists, acting under direction of boards of health, 

 have repeatedly called attention to the current depreciation of this impor- 

 tant article of human food, and the injuries resulting to the public health, 

 especially in increase of infant mortality. The ills of adulteration fall most 

 heavily on the poorer classes who constitute the mass of city population ; 

 but medical testimony has shown that they aflect the young life of the 

 higher ranks of society to a much greater extent than is commonly under- 

 stood. The apathy consequent on an imperfect appreciation of these evils 

 has much imiieded the execution of State and city laws concerning watered 

 and impure milk. Experience has also shown that a common tendency 

 has been to embarrass the statute by unwise qualifications. Boston, a 

 pioneer in the matter of milk inspection, tried the proviso of "guilty 

 knowledge '' on the i)art of sellers at intervals of several years, and the 

 results induced the State legislature to return in 1869 to the unqualified 

 liability of the person selling or intending to sell, with heavy penalties 

 for infringements of the law. 



ACTION OF THE PRESS. 



1 



London is at the present time sufieriug under a like qualification 

 afi'ecting the milk clause of the food-adulteration act, passed somewhat 

 hurriedly at the close of the parliamentary session in 1872, but the defects 

 of this statute have been in some measure remedied by journalistic vigi- 

 lance. One periodical publishes not only names of venders of depreci- 

 ated milk, but also lists, revised monthly, of venders of the genuine 

 article, and the combined action of law and the public press is having a 

 visible eftect in that vast metropolis, which for generations has experi- 

 enced the injuries of adulteration. It is but a few months since the 

 British Medical Journal published the results of an investigation into 

 the character of the milk furnished to Loudon hospitals, showing that 

 the supply of the thre elargest, Guy's, St. Thomas's, and St. Bartholo- 

 mew's, was very largely depreciated, that of the latter being nearly one- 

 half water and one-half milk. 



A marked instance of the power which a leading journal can exert in 

 exposing to general notice abuses aliectiug the public welfiirc was ex- 

 hibited in the issue of the Xew York Tribune for May 21, 1872, contain- 

 ing material which had been collected during several days by a corps 

 of employes of that paper, assisted by a few city officials. These employes 

 visited the depots of milk-receipt at railroad termini in Xew York and 

 Jersey City, stores of milk dealers, and a portion of the "swill-milk" 

 stables of Brooklyn and vicinity. At the depot of the Erie road, in 

 Jersey City, the depot of largest sujiply, the milk was delivered between 

 midnight and 4 a. m. Specials sent to this point reported that 

 -watering was freely carried on while tlic milkmen were crossing 

 in the ferry-boat to Xew York, and additions of salt, saleratus, chalk, 

 &Q., were observed. Samples purchased of thirty-four named venders 



