ILLINOIS STATE DAIRIMEN’s ASSOCIATION. 
43 
Fair shine the blue that o’er her spreads, 
Green be the pastures where she treads, 
I he maiden with a milking-pail.” 
1 opic No. 6 was then taken up, u What Legislation, if 
Any, is Necessary to Prevent the Adulteration of Articles 
of Food ? ” 
R. P. McGLINCY’S ADDRESS. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen i —Relying 
upon the gentlemen who have been assigned to this topic 
I have made no preparation for it, and must therefore rely 
upon making an extemporaneous speech if I make any. 
The question assumes that food articles are adulterated, and 
that these adulterations can be prevented by legislative en¬ 
actments, but the great trouble is to enforce the laws we 
have upon our statute books. That nearly all articles of 
food are adulterated is not questioned, and that some, if 
not all, of these adulterations are harmful is not denied by 
the best informed physicians of the land. People will and do 
adulterate food for the sake of gain, regardless of what the 
results on human life may be, and some measures, the 
surer the better, if the law be enforced should be provided, 
whereby life may not be jeopardized by what we eat. 
Really sir, it is mighty dangerous to live in these days 
of anti-huff and lard in cheese; with the rotten fats from 
which oleomargarine is made; sowine, which is mixed in * 
butter; terra alba in sugar; talc in flour, and so on to 
the end of the list of all the articles of food which we daily 
consume. A day or two ago ago I picked up a Chicago 
paper, in which I found an excellent article on “ Our Food 
and Drink, by Dr. O. W. Wight, of Milwaukee, from 
which, with the permission of the Association I will read a 
few extracts: 
Dangerous Adulterations: —Lead in canned vegetables 
and meat; corrosive sublimate in the rind of cheese (used 
to destroy skippers”); poisonous colors (such as arsenite 
of copper and chromate of lead) in candy and confection¬ 
ery or caustic lime in lard ; analine color in fruit jellies, 
preserves, sausage and wine ; salts of tin in sugar ; cocculus 
indicus and tobacco in beer and ale; salts of copper in 
