554 



GLEANINGvS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



He was so exacting in his demand that I could 

 scarce!}' find six sections to answer in my 

 whole crop, and, consequently, sent none at 

 all. Consumers in general are, fortunately, 

 not so hard to please, and will take in these 

 little imperfections as a matter of course. 



That the wood part of the sections be free 

 from propolis, no matter what the kind or 

 grade of the honey, need scarcely be specified; 

 for no wde-awake honey-producer will crate 

 his honey without first scraping the outside 

 of the little boxes; that ev'ery sign of stain be 

 also removed I hardly think wall be necessary, 

 perhaps not even desirable — at any rate, not 

 practicable. 



I also believe that three different kinds of 

 honey are enough in our grading system; viz., 

 white, amber, and dark. Good judgment will 

 tell the shipper where to place the few sections 

 of mixed honey; and if he classes them in 

 with the lower grade he will neither harm the 

 consumer nor himself materially. 



Naples, N. Y., July 19. 



THE PURE-FOOD LAWS OF ILLINOIS. 

 Present Laws Strong Enough. 



BY HERMAN F. MOORE. 



3Tr. Roof: — In order that the readers of 

 Gleanings may see what the Illinois law on 

 adulteration is, I copy the same here verbatim : 



Criminal Code, §-171: Be it enacted, etc., that no 

 person shall mix, color, stain, or powder, or order or 

 permit any other person in his or her employ to mix, 

 color, stain, or powder any article of food with any 

 ingredient or material, soas to render the article iii- 

 jurious to health, or depreciate the vahie thereof, with 

 intent that the same may be sold; and no person shall 

 sell or offer for sale any such article so mixed, colored, 

 stained, or powdered. 



§473. MIXED ARTICLES TO BE MARKED. 



No penson shall mix, color, stain, or powder any 

 article of food, drink, or medicine with any other iii- 

 gredient or material, whether injurious to" health or 

 not, for the purpose of gain or profit, or .sell or offer 

 for sale, or order or permit any other person to .sell or 

 offer for .sale anj- article so mixed, colored, stained, or 

 powdered, unless the same be so manufactured, used, 

 or sold, or offered for sale under its true and appro- 

 priate name, and notice that the .same is mixed or 

 impni e is marked, pririted, or slammed upon each pack- 

 age, roll, parcel, or vessel containing the same, .so as 

 to be and remain at all times readily visible; or unless 

 the person purchasing the same is fully informed by 

 the seller of the true name and ingredients (if other 

 than such as are known by the common name thereof) 

 of such article of food, drink, or medicine, at the time 

 of making sale thereof or offering to .sell the same. 



§■475. PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS HEREOF. 



Anj- person convicted of violating any provision of 

 any of the foregoing .sections of this act shall, for the 

 Jirst offense, be fined not less than Sk^-oo nor more than 

 $200. For the second offense he shall be fined not less 

 than S!oo nor more than S^oo, or confined in the county 

 jail not less than one month nor more than six months, 

 or both, at the discretion of the court; and for the 

 third and all subsequent offenses he shall be fined not 

 less than $soo nor more than $2000, and imprisoned in 

 the penitentiary not less than one year nor more than 

 five years. 



Now in regard to Ernest's "better pure- 

 food laws " on page 493, July 1, he says, " Its 

 first work should be to work for the passage 

 of pure-food laws in every State in the Union 

 where such laws are needed." Now, I am not 

 familiar with the laws of other States, for 

 every State is a law unto itself; but I think 



here in Illinois Mr. Dadant has hit the nail on 

 the head when he says, " Is it really necessary 

 to have more laws than we now have to pre- 

 vent the sale of glucose under the label of 

 honey?'' I will use his own words in his 

 remarks in the above article, and say, "If 

 such laws as are already on the statute-books 

 were rigidly enforced" (adulteration would 

 be almost absolutely stopped). The words in 

 parenthesis are mine. Dadant further says,. 

 ' ' In Ohio — because we have an energetic food 

 commissioner, " "it is very risky business to- 

 handle adulterated honey. ' ' Now, in my vnew 

 the E. F. Com. above is "the whole thing."' 

 It was my good fortune, in 1887 or '88, in 

 Tiffin, O., to Hsten to General Hurst, of Chilli- 

 cothe, O., then the Ohio Food Commissioner. 

 A finer, grander old man it has never been my 

 pleasure to meet. He lectured on cold storage 

 in keeping apples, and said that a perfectly 

 sound winter apple could be kept five j-ears 

 under the most favorable conditions of cold 

 storage as arranged especially for apples. 

 Now, my impression of Gen. Hurst is that he- 

 made it redhot for the adulterators, and that, 

 in my opinion, is the true and only solution 

 of this mixing question here in Chicago. If 

 we could have our own Dr. Miller as State 

 Food Commissioner, at a reasonable salary of, 

 say, 1.3000 a year, so he could afford to give 

 his whole time to it, I think the adulterators 

 would soon all be in the State prison or some 

 other prison. Under the law as it stands, 

 prosecution must be started at the instance of 

 some one interested, and is fonnall}- instituted 

 by the State's attorney in each county. After 

 the law as it stands has been given a thorough 

 trial, if the results are not satisfactory the law 

 should be amended so as to provide for the 

 appointment of a pure-food conmiissioner. 



In my opinion the only way to eradicate 

 this e\-il of mixing is to go at it under the 

 present law, with hammer and tongs — first 

 the wholesale grocers and syrup - men and 

 then the retail grocers. I am with this move- 

 ment heart and soul. I suppose I have sold 

 more honey to families in Ohio, Indiana, and 

 Illinois than any other man in the country',, 

 beginning in 1887, and making for nearly ten 

 years a specialty of it; and it is my deliberate 

 opinion that, if adulteration and the suspicion 

 of adulteration could be wiped out, the sales 

 of honey for family use would be more than 

 doubled. 



Chicago, 111., July 5. 



[I had been informed, and I thought reli- 

 ably, that the laws of Illinois on the subject 

 of adulteration were so loose as to make it 

 almost impossible to secure conx-iction; but I 

 do not see how the text of the laws above 

 given could be improved. I therefore ac- 

 knowledge that Dadant was right and I wrong. 

 As Mr, Moore says, it is not the want of a 

 good law, but the want of an energetic food 

 commisioner, such as we have here in Ohio. 

 I make the suggestion that the General Man- 

 ager of the U. S. B. K. U. learn who that 

 functionary is, and then prod him up a little 

 in regard to his duties. If he replies that 

 there is no adulteration, let us set about it 



