THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



If such variations occur in quantities of 20 lbs. 

 we can estimate the value of analyzing one spoon- 

 fttf out of fifty thousand pounds, and the worth of 

 ordinary approximations, if they are ever at- 

 tempted. 



Gtpscm may be adulterated either by substances 

 m chemical combination or in artificial mixture. 

 Nothing but expensive chemical tests, which are 

 never applied, and which the Inspectors, we presume, 

 do not know how to apply, can develope this class 

 of frauds. It is also, when ground, adulterated by 

 water, of which it absorbs considerable quantities. 

 How far vigilance is excited to delect this, some- 

 times hard to discover, we do not know ; but a case 

 can be proven in which it has come to the merchant 

 dripping wet, and other cases in which it has been 

 sold by inspection as No. 1., when it contained so 

 much water as to set like cement in six months. 

 Well may such inspections be termed a burlesque 

 o» science. 



Tobacco.— It is enough to say of this class of In- 

 spections that they are a nullity. One may export 

 anything in the shape of tobacco, and the ec- 

 •or's brand has no more effect on the price than 

 «ie timber of which the hogshead is made. The 

 m&mt and evidence of the maker is of far more 

 Importance. 



Flottr. — Frauds in this article may be committed 

 li two ways: 1st. In adulterations, such as corn 

 meal, potatoes, beans, peas, alum, gypsum, bones. 

 This kind of fraud is not known or believed to be 

 attempted here, and if so it is by bakers, and of 

 course after the flour, whether for export or home 

 consumption, is beyond the power of the Inspection 

 Laws. 2nd. In sending it to market unbolted or of 

 tuality unfit to rank with the lowest degree which 

 the law has established. The nature of this last 

 offence will be treated of hereafter, when it will be 

 shown to be really no offence at all, except in the 

 eye of an absurd and unjust law. So far, then, it 

 appears that the only case in which those laws ope 

 rate at all, is in the second class of frauds in flour:— 

 an instance in which it creates the crime it would 

 prevent, and converts into misdemeanor an act in 

 itself indifferent if not meritorious. 



II. So far as the principles of good government 

 apply to this class of cases, it may oe safely assert- 

 ed that they are all violated. Thus, it is the duty of 

 government to punish the guilty and shield the inno- 

 cent; but in this case all ire brought under the pen- 

 ally of inspection that the guilty may not escape. 



It is its duty to pre.-»r.:iie its citizens innocent until 

 *ey are proved guilty ; but the planter and the mil- 

 der are presumed guilty until they are proved inno- 

 cent by the certificate of an Inspector. 



It is its duty te accredit its citizens abroad. But 

 tae Inspection Laws discredit a large portion of 

 Ifherw by refusing to let them ship commodities until 

 they are examined. 



It is its duty to protect its own citizens against the 

 rest of the world. But this rule is so far reversed 

 that every article of import, except guano, gypsum 

 and building lime, is admitted free of any sort of ex- 

 amination, whilst the citizens of foreign countries 

 are by our laws assured of scrupulous protection 

 against the presumed frauds of our own citizens in 

 our main exports. 



It is its duty to proteet all classes, and especially 

 those most exposed to fraud. But so far from 

 this, there is no inspection of articles where fraud 

 is, or may be most easily perpetrated, but only 

 of those in which, as in tobacco, it is impossible; 

 or, as in flour, never attempted ; or, as in guano 

 and gypsum, undetectable by the inspector; or, as 

 in lime, not worth detecting; or as in fish, where 

 the inspector's assurance of good quality is in a 

 short time thebestevidenceof bad quality. Whereas 

 in linens, cottons, woollens, silks, liquors, coffee, 

 tea, molasses, sugar, manufactured tobacco, agri- 

 cultural lime, hardware, castings — all liable to 

 misrepresentations of quality; most of them sub- 

 ject to adulteration ; many of them habitually adul- 

 terated, manufactured tobacco so much so that it* 

 adulterations give the peculiar character and value 

 to each brand ; and some of them, as certain liquors, 

 known to every body not to possess one atom of 

 what they pretend to be made of, known in fact 

 to be made of whiskey here in Richmond; in all 

 these there is no inspection. As little in imported 

 flour. There is no protection against the miller even, 

 who though stigmatized to the rest of the world as 

 a suspicious character, is at liberty to cheat the do- 

 mestic consumer as much as he pleases; and whose 

 weights and measures, as if to provide him with 

 means for plunder at home, are just what it may 

 suit himself to make them. In mules and horses, 

 where the honest dealer is a black swan ; in the flesh 

 market, where the honest butcher is found by Dio- 

 genes' candle ; in wheat and corn, which, to the 

 farmer's shame be it spoken, rarely come up to sam- 

 ple, and not unf'requently sprout in the hold ; in law, 

 where the attorney sometimes plays monkey to the 

 cats; in these, in the mechanic art«, trades, profes- 

 sions, in all things, one can name, nobody ever 

 thinks or ever ought to think of government pro- 

 tection. And every one knows that tobacco and 

 flour do not afford any unusual facilities for fraudu- 

 lent practices, and do not, if fhey possess any ob- 

 scure points of quality, require peculiar inspec- 

 tional skill to point them out to the ignorant and 

 unwary merchant. 



It is the duty of government, too, to afford a re- 

 medy against fraud. Whereas the present laws, 

 especially in the matter of guano, plaster and tush, 

 are a bar to recovery at law in so far as the inspec- 

 tor's mark substitutes the principle of warranty 

 or of caveat emptor, as the case may be, 

 and provokes fraud by tempting the dealer to 



