Thou Shalt not Adulterate. 



So general, so persistent and so demorali- 

 zing liave adulterations become, that astrin- 

 gent law against all such is demanded alike 

 in the interests of common humanity, com- 

 mon honesty and common healthfulness. 



The Chicago Tribune of Feb. 23, contains 

 an article calling upon the Mayor and City 

 Council to " appoint competent and honest 

 persons to act as detectives of the adulte- 

 rated groceries and provisions, sold now by 

 almost all the retail grocers. The poorer 

 class of citizens are being actually poisoned, 

 —slowly but certainly,— the flour, the sugar, 

 the coffee, the tea, the milk, the butter— al- 

 most everything sold to them in the shape 

 of an edible— is adulterated by poisonous or 

 injurious substances." * * * "Honest 

 and faithful as well as competent men 

 should be immediately appointed as detec- 

 tives, and sellers of adulterated food should 

 be punished by fine and imprisonment, their 

 licenses revoked, and poisoned goods de- 

 stroyed." 



It cannot be denied that these are facts 

 which demand the attention of every citizen. 



In answer to our demand for honest pro- 

 duction of honey and a law against the 

 adulteration of it— an Eastern writer on 

 what he is pleased to call "the coming war," 

 makes fun of the idea, and cites the oleo- 

 margarine butter-fraud as a sample of the 

 good done by fraudulent imitations. He 

 says that he has a friend who is making 

 twenty tons of this vile trash (imitation 

 butter) per day, and that he could sell 40 

 tons per day if he could only manufacture 

 that much. This writer then endorses a 

 prediction concerning its " future," viz : 

 " that within a year every commission house 

 in New York will open theirdoors to receive 

 it, place it by the side of the pure article, 

 and advocate its sale, because, forsooth, 

 they can make a better profit on its sale !" 

 He then defiantly alludes to glucosed honey, 

 and says that we may substitute the words 

 glucosed honey in the place of oleomargarine 

 and the results will be similar ! ! Any one 

 should blush to make such an allusion, 

 much more to be so base as to predict such 

 a result. 



He then defiantly enquires : " What are 

 you going to do about it ?"— adding, with a 

 sneer at the action of the National Conven- 

 tion against adulteration, " glucosed honey 

 will be cheap and in great demand," though 

 " made by the sinners in the wilderness "— 

 " outside of the National Convention !" 



Well does he know, however, that if the 

 counterfeit stuff were labeled "Glucose," 

 instead of "Honey," that it would find no 

 sale, for that representation alone finds it a 

 market ! 



Oleomargarine, too, would find no buyers 

 were it not for the fact that in appearance 

 and taste, it resembles the genuine butter. 

 " The better the counterfeit the more dan- 

 gerous the fraud !" 



Were there a law compelling the manu- 

 facturers of counterfeit butter to stamp it 

 " Oleomargarine," and the fraudulent-honey 

 men to label their product " Glucose" — how 

 long would it be before " the sinners in the 

 wilderness " would be obliged to adopt some 

 new fraud or— if it be possible— to become 

 honest men ! 



Dr. R. U. Piper, a noted analytical 

 chemist of this city, has prepared an illus- 

 trated article descriptive of the butter fraud, 

 from which we select the following, by per- 

 mission of the author : 



To sum up the whole matter, spores or 

 eggs of living organisms, and sometimes 



~~? 



ii*^x 





& fSa i p °OTo o SJ° i ' 



i Spro*°^-r\i« % / 



Pure Butter, magnified 564 diameters, 318,096 times. 



these organisms themselves, some of them 

 known to be inimical to the human system, 

 may be introduced into it through oleomar- 

 garine, as we find this substance contains 

 in all cases fragments of animal tissue; that 

 moreover that if this tissue is perfectly 

 healthy in the first instance and does not 

 contain these spores or organisms, it is like 

 all other animal flesh when dead— sure, 

 sooner or later, to pass into the putrifactive 

 process when exposed to the ordinary con- 

 ditions of moisture and warmth ; and we 

 have already seen how dangerous such 

 putrifying meat may become to the human 

 economy. 



That good butter has none of these organ- 

 isms nor indeed can the very worst article of 



