No. 8. 



Adulterated Milk. 



259 



laro-e. There are, besides, less cow-feed erg, 

 whose stock varies from twenty to a hundred 

 head. 



To the establishments of the larger sub- 

 urban proprietors, milk retailers repair twice 

 a day, purchase the article at the wholesale 

 price, take it to their own homes, where — 

 unless the craft be much libelled — the quan- 

 tity is much increased at the expense of the 

 quality, before delivered to the public. The 

 London milk-trade, then, is divided into two 

 great branches, consisting of those who 

 keep cows, and those who merely sell milk 

 Sometimes, however, these two departments 

 are united, and the same individual retails 

 the produce of his own stock, which in an 

 overcrowded city like London, is almost 

 universally stall-fed. The denizen of the 

 provinces, while threading his way through 

 a dense, close, and pestiferous neiglibour- 

 hood, may be occasionally startled, while 

 peeping into a cellar, or what was once a 

 parlor, to behold a cow or two tied up to a 

 sort of manger, there in all probability to be 

 imprisoned during the term of their natural! 

 lives, never having enjoyed the sight of a 

 green field since the days of their calfhood. 

 The milk yielded by these unlucky animals, 

 must be of a very inferior description; yet 

 even that is adulterated. According to the 

 occupation abstract of the census of 1841, 

 the number of persons employed in feeding 

 cows and selling milk, was 2764. 



It is perhaps wrong to stigmatize the 

 whole of these individuals as deteriorating 

 the article they deal in ; for, doubtless, a 

 great many are honest traders, and do not 

 sophisticate their milk. One thing is cer- 

 tain, that some in this line of business, lest 

 they should be suspected of the practice, 

 drive their cows about the streets, and guar- 

 antee the genuineness of the commodity by 

 milking the poor beast before the customers' 

 eyes. Yet adulteration must be very gene 

 rally carried on, else " the chalk and water 

 of London" could never have so firmly es- 

 tablished itself as a proverb as it has done 

 It is said of a celebrated comedian, that 

 when he first came to London from the 

 rural districts, he imagined that real milk 

 was unattainable; and finding the chalk and 

 water supplied to him as such, very badly 

 mixed, he one morning, in the simplicity of 

 his heart, presented two vessels to the milk- 

 seller, saying, "he would, if convenient, 

 take the ingredients separate, for he pre- 

 ferred mixing them himself" As a fresh 

 proof of the difficulty of obtaining good milk 

 in London, we may instance the fact, that 

 in noblemen's fatnilies, where the consump- 

 tion is great, the supply is drawn directly 

 from farms in the vicinity of the metropolis. 



The great tavern and hotel keepers have 

 taken dairy farms on their own account, in 

 despair of obtaining genuine articles by other 

 means. 



It must not, however, be inferred that 

 London is the only place where milk is 

 adulterated. With all the centralising reg- 

 ulations of the Paris police, the article is 

 very largely vitiated in that city, and, we 

 are led to believe, in every other place 

 where the demand for the imtritious aliment 

 is great. Many have been the efforts to 

 suppress this fraudulent manufacture ; but 

 hitherto they have proved abortive. Lately, 

 however, science has aided in the detection, 

 and a certain Dr. Donne has invented two 

 instruments, by one of which the proportion 

 of water added to any quantity of milk can 

 be readily found out, while the other enables 

 us to ascertain the relative richnessof cream. 

 The first will prove of essential value not 

 only to the London public, but to the inhab- 

 itants of all brge cities. It is called a lac- 

 tometer, and consists of upright tubes of 

 glass placed one within the other. The 

 uspccted milk, poured into this simple ma- 

 chine, very soon separates itself from the 

 adulterating water, the proportion of which 

 to the rest of the liquid, shows itself by 

 means of a scale of degrees marked on the 

 outside of the tube. We have not yet heard 

 whether the hawk-eyed police of Paris have 

 adopted the invention as a detective power, 

 but a paragraph from a Belgian journal as- 

 sures us that the Brussels officials have. On 

 the 27th of last June, a body of police, armed 

 with lactometers, posted themselves at the 

 gates of the city, and condemned and seized 

 no fewer than eighty large cans of milk. 

 The consequence has been, that the deni- 

 zens of Brussels have subsequently had no 

 cause to complain of being supplied with 

 bad milk. Thanks to Dr. Donne, his lac- 

 tometer, and the municipal police, they get 

 the full benefit of some of the finest milch 

 cows in the world, which feed upon the un- 

 equalled pastures of the Belgian meadow- 

 land. 



The lactometer would be a useful instru- 

 ment in the hands of the London public. By 

 it they would at least be able to ascertain 

 how much water they are made to drink in 

 their milk, and thus, by discovering the ex- 

 tent of the adulteration, gradually remedy 

 it. We have not seen either of the learned 

 Donne's machines, and are indebted for a 

 description and figures of them to the 86th 

 number of V llhtstration Journal Univer- 

 scl. — Chambers^ Journal, 



i 



In all your reckonings, be careful to re- 

 member the final account. 



