35 



In this case the fat was substantially the same as in No. 2 above, 

 but here the amount of solids not fat is as low as 7.20 while those 

 in No. 2 were 8.38. This low amount of solids not fat establishes 

 beyond any reasonable doubt the fact that this last sample (No. 6) 

 was watered with malice aforethought. And though the attorney 

 plead with the judge to place the case on file in consideration of 

 the previous good reputation of his client, the evidence of the 

 chemist was that a moral as well as a statutory offence had been 

 committed, and this led the judge to impose the usual fine. 



The purchaser of milk who has only the Babcock test cannot 

 detect adulterated milk where the fat is of satisfactory quantity ; 

 nothing will do that surely but the chemical analysis, which dis- 

 closes the ratio between the fat and the solids not fat ; but where 

 the purchaser suspects any trouble of this kind the use of the lac- 

 tometer, which gives the specific gravity, will be of assistance. 

 Normal milk should have a specific gravity of about 1 .032 ; watered 

 milk would be less. 



The principles explained above will illustrate the dangerous 

 competition to which honest farmers have to submit when whole 

 milk is adulterated with skim-milk. We detect added water by a 

 reduction in the solids not fat ; but when skim-milk is added to 

 whole milk the amount of solids not fat remains without much 

 change. A milk containing 4 per cent or above of fat can receive 

 a small mixture of skim-milk and the detection would be very diffi- 

 cult. We allude to this because there is strong suspicion in the 

 minds of many that some of the large surplus of sale milk in Boston 

 is due to the extending of whole milk with skim-milk. Every can 

 of skim-milk which is used in this way creates a surplus of one 

 can of whole milk, for which farmers get only the butter price. 

 The milk contractors can hardly refuse to sell skim-milk to those 

 who apply for it, with the plausible story of having to supply a 

 baker or something of that kind. Unquestionably there is consid- 

 erable food value in skim-milk of which the public would be de- 

 prived were this by-product to be excluded from the market, but 

 we are sometimes inclined to believe that the injury caused by the 

 fraudulent use of skim-milk is greater than the benefit which the 

 public receives from the food value which there is in the skim-milk 

 that finds its way to market. 



Milk is sometimes tampered with by dishonest employees, who 

 remove the top of a can after it has stood for some time, and then 

 fill the can with water. Unquestionably some honest farmers have 

 been prosecuted for such delinquencies of employees, in accordance 

 with the well-recognized rule to which business men of every kind 

 are subjected, that the principal is responsible for the acts of his 



