health of the adult is affected in no small degree by the amount 

 and quality of the food with which the infant, from the time of 

 its birth and throughout the period of childhood, is fed, and 

 also that much physical suffering might be prevented if chil- 

 dren were not stinted in a milk diet, it is doubly desirable that 

 the scanty allowance of milk in which the children of the poor 

 are generally indulged should be unadulterated, and of the best 

 quality that can be procured. We hail, therefore, with pleas- 

 ure, the enforcement of the food adulteration act. for there can 

 be no question that before the act came into practical operation, 

 the milk sold alike to the rich and poor in London and other 

 large towns, was watered much more generally, and to a greater 

 extent, than it is at present, in places where public analysists 

 keep a watch over the milk-men." It is a matter of public 

 record of which the court and you will take cognizance that the 

 Board of Health in this city began its operations in 1867. It 

 found at that time the death rate in this city, of children under 

 five years of age, to be fifty-three per cent, of the whole num- 

 ber of deaths. Now I will not stop to consider the general de- 

 crease which has been marked, year by year, in the rate of the 

 mortality in this city, but I will show you this one fact, that in 

 1875 the death rate of children under five years of age, to 

 whom of most importance is this question of the purity of milk, 

 their principal food, the rate of mortality had decreased to 48J 

 per cent. This means, upon the whole mortality, gentlemen, 

 saving the lives of three thousand children per year. That 

 decrease in the rate of mortality is owing, more than anything 

 else, to the safe-guards that have been thrown about them in 

 various ways, and especially their protection in the purity of 

 their food. Now, statistics of writers go further upon this sub- 

 ject, and they say that for every death you may rate twenty- 

 eight cases of serious illness', flow vast becomes the calcula- 

 tion the consideration of influences which are here before you, 

 which, if these learned gentlemen are correct, you are to decide 

 for, or against, for or against a standard, a means of protection 

 and a safe-guard ; for or against the limit of adulteration with- 

 out concern, for the profits of this distinguished defendant, or 



