Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 487 



go back to liis old abominable practices of swindling ? I have more 

 hope of reaching this evil through the discussions and published 

 reports of the proceedings of this club, than in the efficacy of any 

 other scheme. 



Mrs, Dr. Ilallock. — The doctor is more sanguine than I can be in 

 regard to the moral sense of petty swindlers. So long as human 

 nature i'emains what it is, I am afraid it will be impossible to restrain 

 fraudulent dealers by mere appeals to their moral sense. We cannot 

 know the injury done in the community by food mixed with hurtful 

 materials. The deleterious influence of such worthless material as is 

 taken into the human stomacli, with the adulterated food and 'drink, 

 cannot be computed. 



Some physiological writers have stated that both men and animals 

 usually live about five times longer than the period required for their 

 perfect growth. Man reachee that pouit of perfect maturity in about 

 twenty years. Therefore, according to that computation, people 

 ought to live until they arrive at the ripe age of one hundred years. 

 But how can they be expected to live to that age, and who among us 

 expects to live to one hundred years when his or her liealth is under- 

 mined and impaired from childhood to old age by the very food that 

 ought to promote vigor and long life. 



Mr. D. B, Bruen said that he once had occasion to examine the 

 loaves made in the bakeries of our neighboring village of K^ewark ; 

 they were all short weight. Bread should be sold by weight, instead 

 of in loaves of any size the bakers choose to make tliem. 



A member, — Selling by weight will not remedy the worst of the 

 evil. The dealers will adulterate the flour, just as they do the prov- 

 ender for horses, with plaster of Paris and other similar substances. 



Dr. J. E. Snodgrass. — I have been astonished to see to what great 

 extent the adulteration of bread is often carried b}- the addition of 

 poisonous material. The great evil of all this is, that tliis adultera- 

 tion of what we eat and drink, and feed to our horses, not only 

 swindles us out of our money, but makes us take poisonous materials 

 into our stomachs. Think of gypsum and alum as articles of diet t 

 Some years ago I was called upon to investigate a matter of thia 

 kind, and came across evidence concerning a largo (piantity of mar- 

 ble dust that had went in the direction of certain suspected flour 

 barrels. As to the trick of short weights, even the street retailers 

 have learned it. You will often hear them crying figs for ten cents, 

 a pound, when good flgs are sold at the fruit stores for twice as much^ 



