November 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



269 



cases of the epidemic became known, pointed to some 

 specific and serious sanitary defect, and no time was lost 

 in endeavouring to trace the source of the mischief. By 

 this time all the world knows that a more striking instance 

 of guilt has never before been brought home to a particular 



Apparatus for obserring the KefractiTe Index of Butter and like substances. 



water supply, and it is generally agreed that such a water 

 should be condemned on half the evidence available in this 

 particular case. Now that it 

 is too late, the indignant rate- 

 payers demand the punishment 

 of those who are responsible 

 for the calamity, and mutual re- 

 criminations are rife. 



Originally the Government 

 Laboratory was established for 

 the purpose of assisting the 

 authorities in collecting and pro- 

 tecting the revenue derived from 

 excisable and dutiable articles. 

 How effectively this laudable 

 aspiration has been realized is 

 clearly seen in the results which 

 attended the change in the 

 method of testing imported spirits 

 in 1881. Previous to that date 

 the practice was to assess the 

 duty solely by means of the 

 hydrometer, a method which fails 

 to indicate the true percentage of 

 spirit in most cases when colour- 

 ing or sweetening matter is 

 present ; by substituting the 

 method of testing by distillation, 

 a sa\ing of about one hundred 

 and eighty thousand pounds 

 was effected in the Customs 

 revenue. 



In the year 1853 a gentleman obtained a patent for an 

 artificial lubricant as a substitute for sperm oil, and there- 

 fore applied to the authorities to be allowed to use spirit 



in the manufacture of his lubricant duty free. This led to 

 an extensive series of experiments by the late Mr. Phillips, 

 having for its object the rendering of the spirit unfit for 

 drinking purposes without danger to the revenue derived 

 from potable spirits, and at the same time enabling the manu- 

 facturer to compete successfully 

 with the foreigner, either at home 

 or abroad, by placing spirit within 

 reach at about three shillings 

 and sixpence per gallon. He 

 suggested that the addition of 

 crude wood naphtha to spirit of 

 wine would deter habitual drunk- 

 ards from intoxication at a cheap 

 rate by means of this mixture. 

 Profs. Graham, Hofmann, and 

 Redwood, to whom the sugges- 

 tion was referred, reported that 

 a mixture of ten per cent, of 

 purified wood naphtha with spirit 

 of wine would eti'ect the object 

 in view. The measure has been 

 highly beneficial. It has deprived 

 the smuggler of a market for 

 his spirit, and the result is that 

 ilUcit distillation is all but extinct 

 in England. While, however, 

 the interests of the people at 

 large are jealously guarded by 

 our ofticial chemists, the small 

 vendor sometimes finds himself in 

 an unenviable position ; indeed, 

 it is an easy matter for a sales- 

 man realizmg a profit of three 

 or four pounds a year on an article to find himself called 

 upon to pay a fine of three times that amount for an offence 



Jiitimation of k>ulphur in Steel. (Special ilethod.) 



which, in some cases, can hardly be regarded as premedi- 

 tated. A chemist was prosecuted at HuU by the Board of 

 Inland Eevenue for selling a spirituous preparation called 



