435] ADULTERATION AND OLEOMARGARINE 



Food Products and their Chief Adulterants 



211 



A very adequate presentation of the extent of adultera- 

 tion of food products in general, is given by Prof. H. C. 

 Adams in his report as Dairy and Food Commissioner of 

 Wisconsin in 1902. 1 It is as follows: 



Men cannot be made honest by law, but law can make dis- 

 honesty pay a penalty when it steals the livery of honest pro- 

 ducts to serve a dishonest purpose. In every civilized land, and 

 in a few where civilization is not as radiant as in our own, 

 fierce competition and unbridled greed have undertaken to 

 profit by the adulteration of nearly every article of food used 

 by the human family. As in every other department of human 

 effort, there has been wonderful progress during the last half 

 century. The clumsy wooden nutmeg of Connecticut, that 

 even a policeman might detect, has given way to artificial eggs 

 which no hen would recognize and to artificial butter that never 



1 Page 56. 



