No. 4.] REPORT OF DAIRY BUREAU. 385 



latures of many States. Thirty-three States in the Union 

 now have laws restricting the sale of imitation butter, and 

 in 28 the laws are similar to those of Massachusetts. 



The decision of the national supreme court, favorable to 

 the Massachusetts anti-color law, in the Plumley case, has 

 been reaffirmed in cases from the States of Pennsylvania and 

 New Hampshire. Pennsylvania absolutely prohibited the 

 sale of oleomargarine, and New Hampshire permitted the 

 sale only when colored pink. The supreme court decided 

 that both of these laws are unconstitutional ; but in making 

 that decision it alludes to the Plumley case, which it re- 

 affirms, and explains wherein the Pennsylvania case differs 

 from the Massachusetts case. It says : — 



The statute ill that case [Plumley] prevented the sale of this 

 substance in imitation of yellow butter produced from pure, un- 

 adulterated milk or cream of the same ; and the statute contained 

 a proviso that nothing therein should be "construed to prohibit 

 the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate or distinct 

 form, and in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real 

 character, free from coloration or ingredients that cause it to look 

 like butter." This court held that a conviction under that statute 

 for having sold an article known as oleomargarine, not produced 

 from unadulterated milk or cream, but manufactured in imitation 

 of yellow butter produced from pure, unadulterated milk or cream, 

 was valid. Attention was called in the opinion to the fact that 

 the statute did not prohibit the manufacture or sale of all oleo- 

 margarine, but only such as was colored in imitation of yellow 

 butter produced from unadulterated milk or cream of such milk. 

 If free from coloration or ingredient that caused it to look like 

 butter, the right to sell it in a separate and distinct form, and in 

 such manner as would advise the consumer of the real character, 

 was neither restricted nor prohibited. The court held that under 

 the statute the party was only forbidden to practise in such mat- 

 ters a fraud upon the general public ; that the statute seeks to 

 suppress false pretences and to promote fair dealings in the sale 

 of an article of food ; and that it compels the sale of oleomarga- 

 rine for what it really is by preventing its sale for what it is not; 

 that the term "commerce among the States" did not mean a 

 recognition of a right to practise a fraud upon the public in the 

 sale of an article, even if it had become the subject of trade iu 

 different parts of the country. It was said that the Constitution 

 of the United States did not take from the States the power of 



