June 21, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
1023 
R. Bannister, of the Inland Revenue laboratory, produced 
four samples of spirit which had been seized, and declared 
them to be plain spirit of wine, and he also examined six 
samples taken from spirits supplied by the defendant to a 
firm in Scotland, and found them to be spirits of wine, 
containing no essential oil, and neither perfumed nor me¬ 
dicated. Nearly the whole of the spirit sold by the de¬ 
fendant was about 58 over proof. He sent several casks 
of spirit labelled “perfumed spirit” to a firm in Scotland 
to be converted into sweet spirit of nitre, and this spirit, 
upon information supplied by the firm, was seized by an 
Excise officer, and was declared to be ordinary spirit of 
wine. At the request of the Excise the firm gave an 
order for some spirit to the defendant, and the officers, 
upon its delivery, succeeded in tracing the defendant’s 
illicit still. 
At the conclusion of the case for the Crown his lordship 
shortly summed up, saying that the jury were no doubt 
satisfied upon the evidence adduced on behalf of the 
Crown that the defendant had carried on the business of 
a distiller without a licence to do so, and had been selling 
illicit spirit. The defendant was not present to defend 
himself, and if he had been, what could he have said ? 
There was ample evidence to show that he had an illicit 
still and worked it. In some cases the jury would, per¬ 
haps, be satisfied that the spirit was disguised to evade 
the duty. It perhaps would not be very agreeable for 
some of the persons who had had dealings with the de¬ 
fendant to hear him (the learned judge) remark that there 
was much truth in the old adage that the receiver was 
worse than the thief. If no persons had purchased spirit 
of the defendant he could not have carried on his busi¬ 
ness. Mr. Watts was to be greatly commended, but he 
had done no more than his duty as an honest man. The 
amounts sought to be recovered were large—large enough, 
it was to be hoped, to keep the defendant out of this 
country for the remainder of his days. 
The jury being of opinion that the Crown was entitled 
to the verdict generally, a verdict was entered accordingly 
upon each count for duty and treble penalties, which 
amounted in the aggregate to a sum of £13,687 5s. 
Peosecotions undeb the Adulteeation Act. 
COCOA.—MUSTAED.—PEPPEB. 
Several cases of prosecution under the Adulteration 
Act, which have taken place recently, offer points of spe¬ 
cial interest, as tending to show what will be held to be 
an adulteration, the extent to which a dealer is responsible 
for a knowledge of the purity of the articles which he 
sells, and the formalities necessary to be observed in pro¬ 
curing samples for analysis. The following are reported 
in the Grocer for June 14 :— 
At the Kingston County Police-court, three tradesmen 
of Walton-on-Thames appeared before the bench on sum¬ 
monses which had been issued against them for alleged 
infringements of the Food Adulteration Act. Mr. Hum¬ 
phries and Mr. John Coldwell, grocers, were charged with 
having sold adulterated packets of cocoa ; and the charge 
against Mr. Robert Ridges was that he had sold two 
ounces of adulterated mustard. The charges were pre¬ 
ferred by Inspector Bunyard. In the course of the fore¬ 
noon, whilst the general cases were being heard, and 
before the above-named summonses came before the Court, 
Mr. Humphries applied for the postponement of his case 
until the following week, on the ground that Mr. Wontner, 
solicitor, who had been engaged to defend him by Messrs. 
Dunn, Hewett, and Co., the manufacturers of the cocoa 
which he was charged with having adulterated, was un¬ 
able to attend that day. The magistrates consented to 
the application. 
The case against Mr. John Coldwell was then proceeded 
with. Mr. Haynes, solicitor, appeared on his behalf. The 
charge against the defendant was that he had sold a packet 
of Taylor’s cocoa which was labelled “soluble cocoa,” and 
on which was also the following :—“ This admixture con¬ 
tains no injurious ingredient.” Inspector Bunyard, in 
support of the charge, stated that on May 19 he purchased 
a packet of cocoa at the defendant’s shop, for which he 
paid 2 cl. After purchasing it he took it to Dr. Stevenson, 
the analyst for the district, and directed him to analyse 
it. He subsequently obtained Dr. Stevenson’s certificate. 
The witness produced the packet he had purchased, which 
was labelled “ Taylor’s Soluble Cocoa.” 
Mr. Haynes : When you purchased the cocoa you knew 
it was soluble cocoa ? 
Witness : It was so stated on the label. 
Mr. Haynes : Well, then, you were well aware that it 
was not pure cocoa, for pure cocoa is not soluble ? 
Witness : Yes, I suppose I was. 
Mr. Haynes : Of course you were. 
Mr. Bell (clerk to the magistrates): It did not state on 
the label that it was pure cocoa ? 
Witness : No. 
The analyst’s certificate was here put in, which stated 
that the cocoa submitted for analysis contained a mix¬ 
ture of cane sugar and sago, but that it was not injurious 
to the health of persons eating or drinking it. 
Mr. Haynes, on behalf of the defendant, contended that 
the charge against him could not be sustained for several 
reasons. In addition to the fact that the analyst had cer¬ 
tified that the article sold was not injurious to health, 
which under the Act of Parliament he was required to do 
before a conviction could take place, there was the further 
fact that on the face of the statement on the label on the. 
packet there was no intention whatever to pass the article 
off as pure cocoa, and of that fact the inspector was per¬ 
fectly aware at the time he made the purchase and took 
the article to the analyst. 
Colonel Terry, in giving the decision of the bench, said 
it was perfectly manifest that the cocoa was not sold as 
pure cocoa, and there was a difficulty in arriving at the 
conclusion that it was deceptively sold as an adulterated 
article, inasmuch as the label on the packet bore evidence 
that it contained other ingredients beyond that of pure 
cocoa. In the case of a person named Kelly, at Liverpool, 
who was acquitted the other day by the magistrates on 
the charge of having sold adulterated butter, the Court 
of Queen’s Bench had decided that the magistrates were 
wrong, and that the defendant ought to have been con* 
victed on the ground that the butter was adulterated, 
whereas the defendant represented it as butter only, and 
in that case Mr. Justice Blackburn remarked that an 
acquittal would have been justifiable had he stated that 
it was not pure butter, or that there was a mixture with 
it of other ingredients, thereby inferring that, although an 
article might be adulterated, a fine for selling it ought not 
to be imposed if a representation to that effect were made 
at the time of the sale. In this case it was clearly repre¬ 
sented on the label of the packet that the article was not 
sold as pure cocoa, but that it contained a mixture of 
other ingredients. Under these circumstances the charge 
must be dismissed. 
Mr. Bell, clerk to the magistrates, after the decision in 
the first-named case, called the attention of the bench to 
the charge preferred against Mr. Humphries, which in the 
course of the forenoon it had been agreed should be post¬ 
poned until next week. He suggested that, after the de¬ 
cision which they had just given, it might be desirable to. 
dispose of it at once. He submitted to the bench, for 
their inspection, the packet for the sale of which Mr. 
Humphries had been summoned, which was labelled 
“Dunn’s Digestive Cocoa,” and on which it was also 
stated “ this article contains nothing but fecula and 
sugar.” Looking at that label, it appeared to him that 
the prosecution had not a leg to stand upon. 
The Chairman, having inspected the packet, said it ap¬ 
peared to him that the evidence on the face of the packet 
was even stronger against the probabilities of a conviction 
than in the last case. The label on the packet not only 
said that it contained nothing injurious to health, but it 
