ADULTERATIONS OF ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES. 295 
tenced them to pay a fine of 50 francs, and to be imprisoned 
for 8 days ; but an appeal being made, the merchant was 
acquitted ; the Royal Court, considering that if A. did sub- 
ject the damaged tea to a treatment to render it saleable, 
this is no proof of any fraud with reference to the quality of 
the merchandize sold. 
In consequence of this acquittal, the tea still covered with 
the chromate of lead, a poisonous salt, which might prove 
injurious to the animal economy, was restored to Mr. A. 
It is to be regretted tnat the Administration did not order 
that, previous to restoring the tea, it should be washed to 
remove the chromate of lead. 
It is probable that tea colored with the chromate, indigo, 
and talc, are at present circulating in commerce. It must 
be remarked here, that this fraud with tea was not only 
practised in the metropolis, but at the moment when the 
tea colored by chromate of lead was the subject of an in- 
vestigation at Paris, M. Merchand, pharmacien in Fecamp, 
found that tea sold in that town was likewise colored by 
the same process.* 
In addition to this, we could quote a great number of 
other substances constituting articles of food with which 
more or less heavy frauds are practised ; but we think that 
the facts above related clearly prove the necessity of a law 
being enacted with reference to the sale of alimentary sub- 
stances and spices — a law which would prevent not only 
the frauds quoted above, but those likewise which I have 
passed over in silence. This law would have the advan- 
tage of protecting the health, as well as the interests, of the 
citizens. 
* At the same time when the subject was inquired into at Paris, the excise 
authorities in London seized upon a manufacture of sophisticated tea, one 
ton of which, having already been used, was worked upon. Shortly previous 
to that time, a tea merchant of London was sentenced to pay a fine of 200 
pounds sterling. This fine did not dishearten the defrauders, which proves 
that this fraud must be very profitable. 
