The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-10-12 00:00:00

THE ADULTERATION AC .e.

Land and If-ater say. :

'A very necessary and a very welcome measure 1
passed into law just before the close of last Session.
The practice of fraudulently adulterating food, drink,
and drugs has become so common among certain clarifies
of tradesmen that an Act has at length been carried
which aims at repressing all such misconduct. As
the law now stands every person who wilfully mixes
injurious or poisonous ingredients with food, drink,
or drugs is liable to a penalty not exceeding
for the first offence, and will be imprisoned for a
maximum term of sin months, and kept at hard labour
if convicted a second time. it would seem, however,
that those who adnlterate goods are not always the
people who retail them to the general public, and it
has therefore been provided that even to vend these
spurious articles shalt be punishable with a £2O fine,
and if any person offend in this respect more than
once, the magistrates are to have his name and address
published in the newspapers of the locality.
"The Legislature has not neglected to frame accurate
rule. for carrying this law into effect. In the metro-
polis the Commissioners of Sewers for the City and
the Vestries and District Boards, the Courts of Quar-
ter Sessions in the counties, and in the boroughs the
Town Councillors may, and when required to do so by
the Local Governmi nt Board shall, appoint competent
eralaried analyst., who are to have an eye to the fo
drink, and drugs for sale within the districts to which
they belong. In each locality the inspectors of
nuisances, of markets, or of weights and measures
are authorised to procure and submit samples of food,
drink, and drugs suspected to be impure, for analysis
by the officials above referred to; and if adulteration
shall thereupon be discovered, they are to prosecutethe
guilty parties in the magisterial courts. It is further
ordered that the analysts shall report yuarterly to the
officiate who appoint them on the number of articles
analyzed during the preceding three months, and
these reports are to be read at the meetings of the
local authorities. Any purchaser, also, on paying a
email fee to the inspectors may submit suspected goods
he has bought for an examination, and the analyst into
furnish him with a certincate whether they have really
been adulterated, and now far such adulteration has
rendered them actually injurious. A certificate thus
i
obtained may be used n eviderce against the 'mirth%
accused. To secure tradesmen against vexatious pro-
ceerlings at the instance of some jealous or offended
rival it has been enacted that the onus of proving that
the article alleged to be adulterated was delivered to
the analyst in the same condition as when received
from the seller, shall in all cases lie with the inspectors,
who are carefully to seal up and preserve a portion of
the sample before analysis is made.
_.-.• • •• • •

"The Act extends to Scotland and Ireland, and if the
public will but acipaint themseh es with the ismer of
aelf•protection which has by its means been placed In
their hands, sanded sugar and plaster.of-Paris bread
will no longer be 'coninion objects at the sea-side' or

elsewhere. Like all Englishmen, we claim the privilege
of grumbling even at our most welcome boons; so here
we cannot forego a lamentation over the prospect of
augmented rates, which the execution of the Act will
entail upon us."

The Field says

" It is confidently expected and hoped that the food
discussions will waken up a proper practical interest
in the question of adulteration. Any laws in existence
on the subject are to all intents dead-letter enactments;
we seldom or never hear of their being put in motion.
And yet it is ascertained that the tea for our morning
meal may he a mixture of willow leaves and dock sweep- I
ings • our milk a combination of the Thames with ,
chalk which no cow would own to ; our butter
grease and annatto ; our bread alum and bad
flour. If we prefer coffee to souchong, we receive
a ground package of chicory and roast horse-beans;
our orange marmalade is composed of potato ;
but the recital of the rogueries of trade in food would
he endless, The beer we drink is deletelionsly
drugged ; the wine we sip owes its Is itiquet and its body
to a skilled chrmist, and not to a vineyard ; and no on.
Of course it will be perceived that we have put the
Case with some colouring ern:b anis, but there is justi-
fication in abundant evidence for every one of our
statements. Nothing would be easier or simpler than
to render adulteration as exceptional as deliberate
poisoning. Over and over again the remedy, penal
publicity, has been pointed out. Here, indeed, we might
borrow a leaf from the regulations on the subject of
our friends across the Channel. We do not assume that
adulteration is unknown in Paris, but it is rot prac-
tised in any proportion to the scale in which
the business is carried on in London and through-
out England; and in truth we have grown so de-
' moralised in this particular that we virtually encourage
' a class of dealers to traffic in these unwholesome and
scandalous goods. If we read the offers for tenders, and
the list of accepted tenders and the prices for medicines
and other articles at local 13Ciards and parochial Guardian
caucuses and parliaments, we shall feel con.cinced at once
that the drugs or the nutritious foods for the infirmary
are supplied at a rate which renders their being adul-
terated an obvious necessity. A premium is held out
to dishonesty, while the fair tradesman is quite unable
to compete with his knavish rival. To be sure, there is
a sort of saving clause put into the requisition for
I tenders that the lowest will not necessarily be accepted;
I but tenders of the most suspicious standards certainly
are chosen, while we never heard of the supply being
with any regularity or care inspected by competent
I analysts."