486 Transactioxs of the American Institute. 



tlie farmers. I saw a letter a few days ago from Mr. Henry Bergh, 

 that triend of the brute creation, where he says that the ground feed 

 sold in that city is as much as half made up by plaster of Paris. 

 Gypsum is very good on clover land and does very well to make 

 images for little Italian boys to sell, but it has no business in a horse's 

 stomach. Can't the club do something to stop such swindling'^ I 

 liope so. 



The Chairman. — I have frequently taken occasion to express my 

 belief that The World, in exposing the outrageous system of adultera- 

 tion to which articles of food and drink are subjected, has accom- 

 plished more good for the people at large than any legislation in the 

 matter could have done, because its words have been heeded where 

 tlie_ voice of the pulpit or the tracts of the temperance societies would 

 have went for nothing. 



Mr. Thomas Cavanagh. — I have no sympathy with swindlers. But 

 Mr. Davis ought to have gone a little further, and told something to 

 balance on the other side ; how country people swindle citizens and 

 all classes of consumers by lashing large billets of wood to the bales 

 of hay they sell ; by the tag-locks tliey put inside of fleeces of wool ; 

 by the sand and dirt they mingle with tlieir grain, and in many 

 other ways. The swindlers do not all reside in tlie city. I think 

 that country people can and do swindle, by adulterating their com- 

 modities, about as much as those people who live in cities. 



Dr. Ilallock spoke earnestly of the petty swindling and cheating 

 in almost everything that is weighed and measured, which is not con- 

 fined to any locality. Legislation, he said, is utterly inoperative 

 meeting this crying evil. The onl}^ remedy is by following the evil 

 up until we can produce such a moral status, such a moral sense of 

 the odiousness of the crime of selling adulterated articles for genuine 

 ones, and employing false balances and unjust measures, that people 

 will be constrained to deal fairly, on account of their moral sense of 

 the heinousness of tlie oft'ense of swindling. I have great confidence 

 in people to believe that when they see their abominable practices 

 held up to the gaze of tlie world, they will abandon such schemes, 

 and deal fairly and justly. I hope the club will take up tins subject 

 of adulteration and make itself a means of rousing public opinion 

 with regard to the enormity of tlie frauds that are carried on, and do 

 its share in creating a higher standard of business morality among 

 manufacturers and dealers. Who that has any proper sense of moral 

 rectitude, can hear or read our discussions on this subject, and then 



