.^. 



VOL. XIX. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 23, 1883. 



No. 21. 



Published every Wednesday, by 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Proprietor, 



Adulteration, a Root of Bitterness. 



One of our correspondents writes us 

 as follows : 



Prince Bismarck says that Ameri- 

 can pork and lard are the "root of all 

 evil," and that it is fattening the 

 grave-yards with human beings. 



At East Buffalo, N. Y., are the 

 great hog yards fed on the refuse of 

 the grape sugar factories ; there are 

 others at Lawrence, Peoria, and Des 

 Moines, where the hogs and cattle are 

 covered witli boils. Adulteration is 

 the root of much evil, in America. 



The California Canner and G-rocer 

 remarks as follows : 



If some means is not soon devised 

 to check the alarming tendency to 

 food adulteration, there will, in a 

 short time, be but little market for 

 our goods abroad. It is to be re- 

 gretted that manufacturers cannot be 

 made to see that any policy, except 

 tliat which grants a pure article at a 

 fair profit, defeats itself in the end, 

 and that an adulterated article placed 

 upon a foreign market, bearing the 

 label of an American firm, inflicts an 

 irreparable injury upon American 

 manufacturers. This should be made 

 the gravest kind of a misdemeanor, 

 ;ind those driven to such course.? 

 through their inordinate greed, should 

 meet with speedy and condign pun- 

 ishment. With our present manu- 

 facturing interests, we need an 

 Jiuropean market as an outlet for our 

 goods. Increasing as our manufact- 

 ures are, it is of vital importance that 

 foreign markets should be kept open 

 to us. That they will not be, we have 

 every reason to expect, unless some 

 means is soon found of checking the 

 iidulteration of goods, and the coun- 

 terfeiting of brands, to enable the 

 lilacing of inferior goods. The fore- 

 going remarks are suggested by the 

 recent action of the Cuban Govern- 

 ment in reference to importations of 

 American lard into the port of Havana. 

 The Collector of Customs of that port 

 lias been instructed to refuse admit- 



tance to four brands of this American 

 lard, until they have each been the 

 object of a rigid scientiflc examina- 

 tion. The charge of adulteration is 

 entered against them, and the adulter- 

 ant is thought to be injurious. 



The Canner and Grocer continues by 

 saying, "Adulteration is the thief of 

 trade. More tempting than Delilah, 

 for it woos with promises of golden 

 gains ; it finds numberless lovers 

 among those who deal in the staple- 

 food articles of commerce, and lures 

 them on from bad to worse, until 

 finally they become hopelessly en- 

 tangled in a net-work of dishonest 

 practices. Under our at-present im- 

 perfect laws for protection against the 

 sale of spurious goods, with but slight 

 danger of detection, and with a cer- 

 tainty of large profit, many a dealer, 

 finding his keener sense of honor 

 dulled by money greed, begins to 

 adulterate the commodities he keeps 

 for sale, and thus enters into a career 

 that is more villainous and more dan- 

 gerous to the community than that of 

 the old-time highwayman; for through 

 it the public are robbed not only of 

 their coin, but of their health as well. 



" This infamous system has been 

 growing of late with frightful rapidity 

 until one is in almost perpetual fear 

 lest he be eating or drinking some 

 poisonous compound instead of the 

 healthful article which it counterfeits. 

 This vile traffic is confined to no local- 

 ity or country, but is pursued in all 

 the business centres of the civilized 

 world, and from them finds its way 

 into the most distant channels of 

 trade. As an evidence that this evil 

 exists in many of the ramifications of 

 trade, let us glance at ttie report of 

 the New York Board of Health, tfiey 

 having been investigating tlie matter 

 of late: "Out of 236 samples of oils ex- 

 amined, the committee reported that 

 only 32 stood the test provided by law. 

 Seventy-five samples of drugs" were 

 examined, and 32 found to be adul- 

 terated. Samples of food to the num- 

 ber of 119 were examined, 60 of wfiich 

 were found to be in similar condition." 



Organized efforts are being made in 

 several countries to check or put a 

 stop to this adulteration of food and 

 other necessaries of daily use, but so 

 far they have met with only partial 



success, excepting in the case of Ger- 

 many, where the good work goes 

 bravely on, and its excellent results 

 are already proven. The English sys- 

 tem is acknowledged to be unsatis- 

 factory. Dr. Wigner, Public Analyst, 

 wrote in 1881 : 



" These statistics, unfortunately, 

 prove that our legislation is not per- 

 fect, but, on the contrary, that the 

 rate of adulteration prevailing now, 

 although a vastimprovement over the 

 condition of things prior to the pas- 

 sage of the acts, does not show a con- 

 tinued decrease." 



In referring to this subject Prof. 

 Charles R. Fletcher, of Boston, said: 



" While in England 17,000 samples 

 of food were analyzed in a year, one 

 finds over 231,000 samples examined 

 in Germany. The German law is 

 rigid, and receives vigorous Govern- 

 ment and individual support, and if 

 anybody would examine an approach 

 to an effective system, I think he 

 should turn to Germany." 



We are glad to learn that, in New 

 I'ork city, the Board of Health is 

 putting tlie new adulteration law in 

 vigorous force, and the result of its 

 investigations has been the com- 

 mencement of numerous prosecutions 

 against dishonest manufacturers and 

 tradesmen. There are some com- 

 plaints, it is true, that these have been 

 instigated by rival houses, etc., but 

 even if that be so, the public have 

 reason for congratulation. An Ex- 

 change aptly remarks that it " would 

 be better, for instance, that the courts 

 snould punish burglars even to the 

 verge of inquisitorial persecution, and 

 at the same time allow sneak-thieves 

 to go unprosecuted, than that they 

 should, for the sake of ill-named jus- 

 tice, allow both of these rascally 

 classes to go unscathed. Every case 

 of adulteration punished is a victory 

 gained for honest trade in general, no 

 matter from what branch of business 

 the offenders may have been selected." 



Adulteration of honey, as well as all 

 kinds of food, should be strongly con- 

 demned, until strong, well-defined and 

 rigidly-enforced laws shall give full 

 and permanent relief to all innocent 

 purchasers and consumers. 



