Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
January,  1898.  j 
Editorial. 
49 
EDITORIAL. 
MORE  PURE  FOOD  INJUSTICE. 
Pure  food  legislation  is  having  a  hard  struggle  in  Monroe  County,  this  State. 
It  was  from  that  locality  that  we  reported,  last  month,  the  failure  to  convict  in 
an  acknowledged  case  of  adulterated  mustard,  because  the  jury  could  not 
decide  whether  it  was  a  food  or  poison.  This  month  it  is  reported  that  two 
firms  were  indicted  for  selling  impure  vinegar.  The  indictments  were  quashed 
because  the  defendants  were  arrested  prior  to  the  Act  of  Assembly  passed  in 
1897.  The  judge  concluded  his  opinion  as  follows  :  "  It  is  impossible  for  us 
sustain  this  indictment.  It  cannot  be  sustained  under  the  Act  of  1897,  because 
the  Act  was  not  in  existence  when  the  offence  charged  was  committed.  Nor 
can  it  be  sustained  under  the  Acts  of  1891  and  1895,  because  they  were  repealed 
without  any  saving  clause. "  The  question  of  guilt  does  not  appear  to  have 
entered  into  these  cases  ;  it  is  rather  a  question  of  technicalities.  Justice  was 
so  tardy  that  a  new  law  was  created  which  enabled  the  defendants  to  escape. 
Such  defects  in  the  administration  of  the  law  make  dealers  defiant,  and  are  a 
menace  to  the  public.  When  no  laws  are  in  existence  the  people  learn  to  take 
some  precautions  for  themselves.  It  is  said  that  the  Pure  Food  Commission 
has  lost  every  case  tried  in  Monroe  County.  We  are  not  prepared  to  say  that 
no  laws  should  be  passed  for  the  prevention  of  food  and  drug  adulteration,  but 
we  do  say  that  conviction  under  these  laws  has  heretofore  been  very  difficult. 
As  a  rule,  there  has  been  no  question  about  the  guilt  of  the  parties  arrested,  but 
some  legal  loophole  has  usually  been  found.  A  number  of  cases  have  occurred 
where  the  defendant  has  escaped  because  the  law  did  not  state  which  edition 
of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  should  be  used  as  a  standard.  That  defect,  however, 
has  been  remedied  in  many  of  the  laws. 
DESTRUCTION  TO  COUNTERACT  OVERPRODUCTION. 
Anent  this  subject,  which  has  received  some  attention  in  the  two  preceding 
numbers  of  this  Journae,  Professor  Lloyd  furnishes  the  following  from  Val- 
mont-Bomare,  Dictionnaire,  Vol.  IX,  Lyon,  1800,  Muscade,  p.  323  :  Speaking 
of  the  storehouses  of  the  Dutch  for  precious  spices,  the  author  says  :  "The 
Dutch  do  not  distribute  their  recent  harvests,  but  always  their  oldest ;  in  1760 
they  sold  the  stock  of  1744.  It  is  commonly  believed  in  France  and  other 
countries  that  when  the  Dutch  have  too  much  of  cloves,  or  nutmegs,  etc.,  in 
their  storehouses,  they  throw  the  surplus  into  the  sea.  But  it  is  not  in  this 
manner  that  they  get  rid  of  these  spices  ;  they  burn  them.  On  the  10th  of  June, 
1760,  I  saw  a  fire  in  Amsterdam,  near  the  Admiralty,  that  was  fed  b}'  goods 
estimated  at  8,000,000  of  French  money  ;  the  following  day  another  lot,  amount- 
ing to  the  same  value,  was  to  be  burned.  The  spectators'  feet  bathed  in  the 
essential  oil  of  these  substances,  but  nobody  was  permitted  to  gather  any  of  it, 
nor  to  take  any  of  the  spices  that  were  in  the  fire.  I  was  told  that  some  years 
ago,  in  the  same  place,  a  poor  individual  who,  in  a  similar  fire,  picked  up  a  few 
nutmegs  that  had  dropped  and  rolled  away  from  the  furnace,  was  seized  bodily, 
condemned  to  be  hanged,  and  executed  on  the  spot." 
