The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-10 00:00:00

LEGISLATION AND ADULTERATION.

ONE of the measures still before Parliament is a
bill which proposes to render penal the adultera-
tion of articles of food, drink, or medicine. Every
person who shall adulterate or order adulteration
to be practised is to be fined on being convicted,
and imprisoned for a second offence. The vendor
who knowingly sells an article with which
anything injurious to health has been mixed,
or who sells as pure an adulterated article,
is to be fined on conviction, and for
a second offence exposed by advertisement.
Vestries and district boards arc to appoint salaried
analysts and inspectors ; purchasers of any article
may demand an analysis on payment of a fee of
one to five shillings ; and convicted persons have
the right of appeal to quarter sessions or a
superior court. The object is laudable, but the
measure would probably prove inoperative. How
can the adulterator be caught at his work ?
Who can prove that the vendor of an impure
article is cognisant of the adulteration ?
Why limit punishment to those who adul-
terate with materials injurious to health ?
Why not imprison the man who steals money
from our pockets, and keeps health from our
children by selling water at the price of milk, or
starch for arrowroot ? Why permit a dis-
honest tradesman to sell any quantity
of adulterated goods so long as he does
not say they are pure? Then the ap-
pointment of analysts is to be left to vestries
and boards composed for the most part of men
engaged in business, men, therefore, whose interest
lies in the opposite direction. And what purchaser
will care to prosecute when, having already con-
tributed by rate to the salaries of special officers,
he must pay a special fee, attend at petty sessions,
and probably again at Quarter Sessions or a
superior court ? If this bill became law
it is to be feared that the sole effect would be that
dishonest people would thereby be instructed in
the art of adulterating goods according to Act of
Parliament, and the public be prevented from pro-
secuting by the expense and trouble attending the
process. We cannot doubt that a far better
measure might be framed if competent men wore
consulted.

MR. ANTHONY TROLLOPE AND THE
AMERICAN POST-OFFICE.

Amur two months ago, Mr. ArrincorY TnoLLorz
left England for Washington, commissioned by
our Post-office authorities to conclude a
new Postal Convention with the United
States. The negotiations in which Mr. TROLLOPE
has since been actively engaged, have
resulted in a formal communication to him
from the Postmaster-General of the United
States, a copy of which we have just
received. The American Post-office cheerfully
assents to the proposition that the mails be
despatched from Liverpool vii Queenstown to
New York and from New York vii Queens-
town to Liverpool three times each week, the
days of departure to be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays from Liverpool and New York respec-
tively, if satisfactory steamers of approved speed
and rate of compensation are tendered. There is
at present a semi-weekly mail communica-
tion ; the United States Post-office will
gladly avail itself of the earliest oppor-
tunity to increase the frequency of the trips to a
tri-weekly or even to daily service, and is prepared
to contract at once under the provisions of the
present convention for an additional weekly
service from New York to Liverpool vii Queens-
town, on the same conditions, and at the same
rate of compensation allowed to the other steamers
employed in transporting the mails to the United
Kingdom. The American Postmaster General con-
siders it inexpedient, in view of the frequent means
of mail communication provided by the numerous
lines of first class steamers plying between the two
countries, to limit the regular mail exchanges to
three weekly linos only, plying between New York
and Liverpool, vii Queenstown, and to treat all
the correspondence forwarded by other lines of