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118 
IMPURITIES IN MILK AND BUTTER. 
Never, I suppose, within the memory of the present genera- 
tion has the attention of the civilised world been drawn so 
forcibly, as was the case in 1906, to the consideration of the 
cleanliness and purity of various kinds of foods which are 
in daily demand, especially amongst the poorer classes. 
The gruesome details narrated in The Jungle of the doings 
in the large canned meat factories at Chicago, corroborated 
as they have been, in a certain sense, by the action of the 
President of the United States, have set the public thinking 
not only of the purity of the various tinned and preserved 
foods that are sold everywhere, but also of those other foods, 
like bread, meat, milk, and dairy produce, which may be 
classed as manufactured, inasmuch as they require manual 
labour expended on them before they can be placed on the 
market. 
Milk and butter being two of the most important of such 
foods, I need not apologise for dealing only with them, as both 
have been very much in evidence during the past few months, 
scarcely a week passing without something appearing in the 
Press on the impurities of milk and the adulteration of dairy 
produce; while the Report of the Select Committee on the 
Butter Trade is, I venture to think, a sufficient justification 
for including that article of food in my^ remarks. 
And, first of all, I would draw attention to what appears to 
me to be a great difference between impurities in milk and 
adulteration in butter. Whereas the presence of dirt in milk 
may^ come under the category^ of a sin of omission, being the 
result of negligence or carelessness, reprehensible no doubt, 
but not wilful, the adulteration of butter by 7 the addition of 
water, margarine, or other foreign substance, is clearly a 
deliberate sin of commission, impossible to justify, as it is 
done wilfully, and for the purpose of making extra profit out 
of the ignorant purchaser. 
Milk. 
During the past few months there have been many meet- 
ings and conferences of scientific, medical, and other bodies, 
at which amongst other questions have been discussed the 
impurities that are alleged to be too frequently present in 
milk. 
Apparently, only the home supplies of milk were taken 
into consideration, as I have seen no mention made of foreign 
