No. 4.] FOOD ADULTERATION. 181 



passed a law ordering the inspection of food imporjts before 

 they entered this country, for the purpose of excluding from 

 the United States all food products to which substances had 

 been added injurious to health ; second, to exclude from the 

 United States all products that are misbranded in any re- 

 spect, with no regard to the contents of the package or the 

 country where they are from, — any fraudulent brand on a 

 food product warrants its exclusion from the United States ; 

 and, in the third place, to exclude food products which are 

 not permitted to be sold in the country from which they 

 come, — that is, things that are not good enough for foreign 

 countries, in our opinion, are not good enough for us, with- 

 out raising any question at all with ourselves as to their value. 

 Now, what did we find? We found large cargoes of 

 liquid eggs coming here. You know the value of the hen 

 to the farmers of the United States. And we found cargo 

 after cargo of liquid eggs coming from China ! They are 

 eggs produced in China, broken and mixed together, — you 

 know how long eggs will keep in that condition, don't 3'ou? 

 They don't keep very long when the shell is intact. I my- 

 self occasionally sit down to eggs Avhich are past the voting 

 age, almost, and with the shell unbroken. Now, if you 

 break the shell, the process of decay is all the more rapid. 

 As it takes sometimes four months for a cargo of eggs from 

 China to reach here, you can imagine in what condition the 

 eggs are Avhen they arrive. But when you examine the eggs 

 you find them reasonably sweet, — not exactly the thing 

 you would want to get in an omelet, perhaps, but they are 

 in a reasonably good state of preservation. Why? Because 

 they are loaded down with borax. We have found as high 

 as 4 pounds of ])orax to 100 pounds of liquid egg, — in dry 

 matter about ()ne-(|uartor as much borax as dry egg. In 

 that way they are able to shi}) the egg to this country and 

 sell it at a less })rice than the farmer can sell fresh eggs. It 

 isn't just to the farmer ; it isn't just to the consumer ; it 

 isn't a fit product to eat. Of course the importers set up a 

 howl that we are interfering with legitimate trade ; but we 

 are not, — we are simply excluding from this countr}' what 

 Congi'css says wc shall exclude. 



