THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



81 



©rnment to the citizen; III., as a question of fair 

 and just taxation ; IV., as a question of commercial 

 policy. Of these in their order. 



I. An inspection is intended to guarantee the 

 quality of certain acticles by a police regulation j 

 to wit : by the examination of each article by a sworn 

 officer, able and willing to detect a variance from 

 an assumed, but not defined, graded standard 

 of quality, who is to certify this quality by some 

 prominent mark which shall guide the purchaser 

 and warrant coniform ity to the standard. 



Granting that frauds will be perpetrated, it is 

 presumed that none but enthusiasts in regard to 

 particular matters of great supposed utility, will 

 dispute the correctness of the general propositions 

 that Government should lay down rules to detect 

 and prore frauds and enact penalties for their com- 

 mission, but that it cannot institute examinations 

 into the quality of articles to prevent frauds by the 

 vendors of them without an amount of inquisition 

 which would be tyranny. If this be true, as it is 

 believed to be, it will rest with the advocates of 

 our Inspection Laws to show why the very few ar- 

 ticles they embrace should make exceptions to the 

 general rule. But as it is presumed that none will 

 offer to do, what all, though often challenged, 

 have heretofore refused to undertake, we will at- 

 tempt to show, that these laws are in the general 

 nugatory, and cannot in the nature of things be 

 made more effective, and that the articles they 

 embrace are precisely those in which the principles 

 they embody are of most difficult application. 



For illustration we shall select the inspections of 

 guano and gypsum, tobacco, and flour, omitting to 

 notice the two or three other inspected articles, 

 because the absurdity of inspecting them is more 

 obvious, or their consumption is, with the excep- 

 tion of Kanawha salt, comparatively too trivial to 

 i>eed attention. 



Guano. — Frauds have been perpetrated in Rich- 

 mond in this article, which so far from detecting, the 

 inspector's mark actually aided. Within the past 

 twelve or fifteen months a quantity of an article 

 marked Chilian guano, worth about $15 a &20 per 

 ton, manufactured by a noted manure maker at the 

 North, was sent to this port, and marked either by 

 the Inspector or his deputy as No. 1, after a pro- 

 fessed analysis. As such, it was sold by merchant* 

 of high character, who relied in their sales on the 

 inspector's brand. A subsequent confession, extort- 

 ed from the manufacturer himself, developed the 

 fraud (see Southern Planter for 1835;) so that the 

 only published ca.se in which our detective police- 

 man could have done any good is just the case in 

 which he has most signally failed. Other cases 

 need not be cited now. 



If other frauds are not frequently perpetrated it 

 eertain'y is not for lack of opportunity and temp- 

 tation. How can it be otherwise when a Govern- 



ment inspection supersedes the warranty which mer- 

 chants could and would give, and is itself a fraud on 

 the purchaser or the Inspector in its requirement*. 



The price for inspecting guano is 20 cents per 

 ton. The main fertilizing ingredients are ammonia 

 and the phosphates, particularly the phosphate of 

 lime. The oiher elements arc (taking as an aver- 

 age a sample from Lima, analysed by Cartels— see 

 Rural Cyclopedia, Art. "Guano,") muriatic acid, ox- 

 alic acid, uric acid, each in combination with a 

 base; a waxy substance, sulphateof potash, sulphate 

 of soda, phosphate of magnesia, common salt, alu- 

 mina, five-eighths per cent, of insoluble and there- 

 fore useless matter, and 22.718 water and organic 

 matters. The impurities are often considerable, 

 and artificially added. 



Assuming accuracy as indispensable, and pro- 

 nouncing any rude approximations, if the inspectors 

 pretend to such, as wholly unreliable and deceptive, 

 let us estimate the cost of analysis. Berthier, whose 

 method is commended to us by an eminent chemist 

 of this State, thus determines the phosphoric acid: 

 Add to the solution containing the acid a knowa 

 quantity of per nitrate of iron ; percipitate by means 

 of ammonia, and from the weight of the precipitate 

 after ignition determine the phosphoric acid. T» 

 determine the ammonia, expel it from combiratioa 

 by healing with potash, condense in a receiver by 

 means of hydrochloric acid, and add chloride of pla- 

 tinum so as to precipitate the double chloride of pla- 

 tinum and ammonia. By determining the weight 

 of platinum in this precipitate after ignition, \h% 

 weight of the ammonia may be estimated. 



In this language, which is to the inspector a stum- 

 bling block, and to the farmers foolishness, a few 

 will see the difficulties of analysis, and will believe 

 that these processes require an amount of time and 

 professional skill which it were an insult to a man 

 of science to estimate at less 'han $5-00, and which, 

 as a practical chemist of Richmond assures us, 

 cannot be commanded for such a purpose in New 

 York for less than $15 a $20. We omit the formu- 

 la; for obtaining the other ingredients, and do not 

 require to know of the analyst the percentage of 

 foreign or adulterating material, though the farmer 

 ought to know all that. Now to save himself from 

 loss at the above rate of expenditure of time and 

 talent, and the legal rate of fee, the Inspector must 

 analyze cue sample in twenty five tons or one tea- 

 spoonful in fifty thousand pounds. Is this enoughl 

 In one of two small portions taken at random from 

 a box of about 20 lbs weight, Prof. Johnson found 

 the following differences : 



No. 1. No. 2. 



Sulphate of Boda, 1.8 - - traee 



Common salt, 30.3 - 11.4 



Phosphate of lime, 44.4 ... jjg.j 

 Water, salts of arain,, Water, carh.acid, ox- 



and organic matters alic acid, and other 



expelled by heat, - 23.6 organic matters, - 51 6 

 Phos. magnesia, - trace - traoe 

 Carbonate of lime, - trace 



