OLEOMARGARINE. 571 



cent of the oleomargarine sold tlie person receiving it knew precisely 

 what it was. The writer referred in that letter, as I understood it, to 

 the hotel keeper, the restaurant keeper, the boarding-house keeper, the 

 mine owner, the lumberman, and that class of men, who buy in bulk 

 large quantities of oleomargarine from the manufacturer direct, some- 

 times through the intervention of a wholesale dealer, possibly, and that 

 this was over 40 per cent of the entire product. 



Now, this proposed substitute would not aifect at all that class of 

 trade. It does not reach it at all, because while they are obliged to 

 carry it into their camp into their hotel, if you please in this pack- 

 age, and have its stamp put upon it, yet it is not sold, and so the pro- 

 vision which the gentleman read in closing would not apply. That 

 provision relates to the retailer alone. 



Mr. WADSWORTH. That is what I said. 



Mr. GROUT. Exactly; that is the provision in your substitute. It 

 relates alone to the retailer. It does not touch this large class which 

 handle probably two-thirds of all the oleomargarine that is put out. It 

 is through tbe hotel man, 1 repeat again, and the restaurant keeper and 

 boarding house keeper that it is worked off upon an unsuspecting public 

 more than in any other way. 



Senator WARREN. May I ask you a question? 



Mr. GROUT. Certainly. 



Senator WARREN. You do not propose to prevent the use of oleo- 

 margarine in the boarding house and in the hotel in cooking and in 

 every other form except where it is placed before the boarder to be put 

 upon his bread 1? 



Mr. GROUT. We do not propose to prevent its use at all if sold in a 

 form to apprise the person using it what it is. 



Senator WARREN.. You assume they will go on using it for that 

 purpose ? 



Mr. GROUT. All the bill before you aims at is to have this stuff go 

 on the market and be consumed for just what it is. That is all the bill 

 we ask. We do not prohibit the use of it for cooking or anything else. 



Senator WARREN. As far as the consumption of it is concerned, the 

 individual sale at the hotels, if a hotel desires to use oleomargarine, no 

 matter whether it is colored or not, the guests will each one be a tank 

 for oleomargarine to some extent, through the cooking and otherwise. 



Mr. GROUT. Yes, unquestionably; but the color of butter will not 

 show as in the chicken hash which a gentleman ordered in my presence 

 in an eating house in this city not long since while we were lunching 

 together. I am just as morally certain that it was cooked in oleomar- 

 garine as I could be of anything, and he became satisfied of it, too. It 

 will, I say, not carry the color of butter if you will pass this bill. 



Mr. WADSWORTH. How did you satisfy him? 



Mr. GROUT. By comparing it with a specimen on the table which we 

 knew was oleomargarine, in color, as contradistinguished from a lump 

 of butter on the table much less highly colored. 



Mr. WADSWORTH. In color only? 



Mr. GROUT. Yes, sir; because the color of the article in the hash 

 corresponded exactly with the oleo before us. 



Mr. WADSWORTH. That comparison was only by color? 



Mr. GROUT. That is all. I will not say that it was absolutely con- 

 clusive in that case, but we were entirely satisfied. 



Now, not to be diverted from the point I was making, what is there 

 to prevent the hotel man from cutting this up in little stringlets as 

 wide and half as long as your finger, putting it upon your butter plate, 



