Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



495 



FRAUDS IN FOOD. 



Pt-arson's Ma,s;aziiie for November contains an 

 article on food adulteration, with suggestions as to 

 how the law could be amended in such a way that 

 food fakers might be much more severely dealt with 

 than is now possible. " Last year there were in Great 

 Britain (so I take it) 7,633 offences in the matter of 

 food faking, 3,235 prosecutions, and 2,408 convic- 

 tions." The fines inflicted, the writer contends, are 

 ridiculously small, so small that the food faker is soon 

 faking away again as merrily as ever. It is alarming 

 to read that 27 per cent, of the samples of potted fish 

 examined by the inspectors were condemned, and 

 40 per cent, of fruits in syrup. One sami)le of coco.t 

 analysed contained only 3 per cent, of the cocoa- 

 nib, i.e., lib. of the mixture contained only half an 

 ounce of pure cocoa. Modern technique and the 

 public demand for brown bread "enable the baker 

 to use up any kind of flour whatsoever." Even 

 margarine and cream are faked, while the faking of 

 butter is notorious. One method is to take a block 

 of margarine, coat it with butter at either end, in case 

 the customer wants to taste it, and then sell it as 

 " pure butter." It is, apparently, in the small shops 

 that the risk of buying unwholtsomely adulterated 

 fo3d is so great. These small shops often do not 

 keep standard makes, for instance, of potted fish, but 

 offer somebody else's, " which is just as good, if not 

 better." These less known makes of potted fish are 

 either manufactured under highly insanitary con- 

 ditions or are made of material in which the process 

 of decay has already begun, and merely been 

 arrested by preservatives. Jam is perhaps the most 

 wickedly f.tked of all common articles of food. As 

 for milk, the inspection of it has decreased the 

 adulteration in many towns and counties by one 

 half, but a tenth of the country's milk is still not up 

 to standard. 



It is often inipossible to tell by the eye which is the 

 adulterated and which the pure food. For example, 

 of two samples of coffee examined, one, sold as pure, 

 contained 36 per cent, of chicory ; the other, /coking 

 less good, was pure. A simple method of testing 

 whether the colour of jam is due to fruit juice or to 

 aniline dye is to put a piece of white wool in it; if the 

 slain washes out in water the colour is as it should 

 be ; if it will not wash out, it is due to aniline dye. 



The food adulteration of the present day, in fact, 

 constantly defrauding people of something for which 

 they have paid, and which they think they have 

 bought, amounts to a tax of id. to i Jd. in the is. on 

 all our food. This lax goes not to the Treasury but 

 to the f )od-faker. 



Wc all know what endless misdescription of goods 

 goes on, how Wiltshire bacon comes perhaps from 

 Germany, and Cheshire cheese from Holland. During 

 the dock strike many butchers were very hard put to 

 it to know how to su[)ply their customers with the 

 " good old English beef," which was the only kind 



they would think of selling. The good old English 

 beef, and doubtless the Southdown mutton too, was 

 all in the docks, and could not be unloaded. 



The writer suggests much more strict definition of 

 what adulteration or misdescription means, and that 

 the administration of the law relating to food adultera- 

 tion .should not, as is now the case, be chiefly in the 

 hands of the men against whom it is directed. One 

 London official actually secured convictions on charges 

 of food faking against eight shining lights of his own 

 council ! 



AN ARABIAN NIGHTS PRINCE. 



Ptanon's Magazine for November contains a fully 

 illustrated article on a person who might have walked 

 out of the Arabian Nights, the Maharajah of Baroda, 

 His Highness Sayaji Rao III. His wealth may not 

 be fabulous, though it is considerable ; but his jewels 

 and gorgeous apparel are certainly so. The howdahs 

 of his elephants, fifty in number, when he began to 

 reign, with 500 attendants, are of gold and silver set 

 with jewels, and the saddles and trappings of cloth 

 of gold. Witnessing elephant fights is one of his 

 favourite amusements, the animals being drugged 

 beforehand to make them intoxicated. When 

 holding durbars, the Maharajah wears a famous 

 diamond necklace, worth a quarter of a million 

 sterling, and containing a diamond weighing 125 

 carats, which once belonged to Napoleon. He has a 

 silver gun valued at ^100,000, and his precious 

 stones are worth almost _;^2,ooo,ooo. In spite of 

 the magnificence of his gold and jewelled robes, the 

 splendour of his precious stones, and the exquisiteness 

 of the treasures his fairy-like palace possesses, the 

 Maharajah of Baroda contrives to run his princely 

 establishment on only ^135,000 a year, though his 

 annual revenue is considerably more than a million. 

 He does a great deal besides watching mad elephants 

 fight, for his State is famous for the wisdom with 

 which it is governed, and for the educational 

 advantages offered to its inhabitants, which are 

 greater than anywhere else in Hindustan. 



The account of the Maharajah's days shows that 

 he lives quite simply for a person of high rank, and 

 does a great deal of hard work before hs retires to 

 rest on his huge gold bed. Several rooms are 

 required to house all his jewels and regalia and the 

 famous pearl carpets, originally intended as a covering 

 for the tomb of Mahomet. The Maharani of Baroda 

 was absolutely illiterate when she was first married, 

 but her husband has seen to her being well educated, 

 providing tutors for her at home and giving her the 

 opi>ortunity of much foreign travel with him. She 

 lias three sons, one of whom is at Harvard and 

 another being educated in ICngland, ami one daughter, 

 now the second wife of the ruler of Gwalior. Both 

 she and her mother are great readers, reading books 

 and periodicals being the chief occupation of 

 their lives. 



