36 OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTERINE. 



Nebraska contents herself for the present with guarding against the use of impure milk. 

 In New Hampshire an attempt has been made to throw the responsibility for using oleomar- 

 garine on the consumer. The law requires it to be colored pink, and then it leaves everybody 

 at liberty to buy the substance or leave it alone. In case of prosecution for selling imitation 

 bulter of the same color as natural butter, or under any other color than pink, an analysis ot 

 the substance is admissible in court as evidence. Ohio, by a law of last year, prohibits the 

 manufacture and sale of oleomargarine as butter, but permits it to be dealt in as beef suet. 

 Oregon has a law similar to a bill that was at one time before the Legislature of this Stale. It 

 requires the public to be notified at every point of contact with oleomargarine that the sub- 

 stance is oleomargarine. It must in the first place be branded for market, then a notice must 

 be posted up by hotel, restaurant, and boarding-house keepers that the substance is used by 

 them instead of good butter, and lastly, the bill of fare, if a bill of fare is used, must state that 

 the lubricator on the table is oleomargarine, if such be the fact. 



In 1883 Pennsylvania started out to protect its citizens against oleomargarine, its Legisla- 

 ture enacting a law requiring the imitation article to be branded for what it was. This pre- 

 caution proving unavailing, in 1885 a prohibitory act was passed. This law has recently been 

 sustained by the Supreme Court of the State in the case of the People against Wallace. 



In Rhode Island stamping with the proper name is required, and each seller of oleomar- 

 garine is required to deliver to the purchaser a label setting forth the true nature of the sub- 

 stance he has bought. In Tennessee the only requirement is that imitation butter shall b 

 made and sold for what it is. The Territories of Arizona and Dakota have similar laws on 

 this subject, traffic in the substance being allowed only on condition that it is properly labeled. 

 The Arizona law requires the dealer to post up a notice that he has notice that he has oleo- 

 margarine for sale, and he must, as in Rhode Island, deliver to the purchaser an oleomarga- 

 rine label with the package, when that article is bought in preference to genuine butter. The 

 laws of New Jersey are like the present New York State laws. 



Florida has made it a misdemeanor for hotel and boarding-house keepers to offer their 

 guests imitation butter, and affixes a penalty of $100 for each offense against the law. There 

 seems to be no provision in that State permitting the use of oleomargarine as such. 



THE DEMORALIZING EFFECT UPON TRADE. 



"There is a phase of this traffic in counterfeit butter," said a leading merchant, "that has 

 scarcely been touched upon, so far as I have seen, in any of the exposures that have been re_ 

 cently made, and that is, its demoralizing effect upon trade. There can be no doubt that the 

 law prohibits the sale of these counterfeits as genuine butter, and yet we hear every day of the 

 arrest of grocers or their employees for selling them. Grant, if you please, that the constitu- 

 tionality of the law is questioned, is it not on the statute books, and should it not be obeyed 

 until the question is definitely decided? If a law is bad and iniquitous in its workings, the 

 surest way to secure its repeal is to enforce it. But these dealers, who sell this product, 

 knowing it to be counterfeit, for real butter, are guilty of a crime, and the manufacturers who' 

 furnish them with the stuff, well knowing that it cannot be sold for what it is, are morally re- 

 sponsible for their violation of the law. In many of these cases the proprietor of the stores 

 escapes punishment because he was not present when the sale was made. Is not the selling 

 of the goods in his store presumptive evidence that he instructed his clerk to sell them ? What 

 can you expect of young business men who are taught at the very outset of their career that 

 deceit and fraud are a part of their duty to their employers ? Can you look to them in their 

 future lives to be honest and honorable ? " 



The Western Plowman, a conservative agricultural journal, says: 



" The failure to stop the sale of oleomargarine does not proceed from any fault in the laws, 

 but from the indifference or sanction of the people. The only executive of municipal laws 

 under our form of government is public opinion. If the people sanction a law and are thor- 



