New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-06-16

FRAUDS THEREIN.


monstrated to them by scientific analysis that |
large share Of the articles Of ordinary consumption
that are pamed of upon them as pure are, inre- |
atty largely adulterated with substances Of infe |
ri0r or else deleteriOus. Our bread is often eN |
banded, as to bulk, with mashed potatoes, and |
whiened, as to color, with alum. Our cheese is /
coIored with % annatto,n and contaminated wire |
red lead. Our pepper is mixed with pea -four or
ground mustard seed and our pickles are poisoned
with acetate 'of copper. Our sugar is qualified |
with wheat -four, chalk bone dust salt, or potato
starch. Our imported" spices are too often |
manufactured at home, out of mustard husks, |
and wheat -four, while our foreign sage is, in the
long run, little else than domestic potatostarch,
pure and simple, and FORMS perhaps, the most in
nocent kind Of adulteration in vogue. Who does !
not know that what is sold as pure honey is |
composed of two parts starch and flour, to one |
part Of the genuine juice Of the bee? Our hogs
lard, Except perhaps, in city, is largely
deteriOrated with potato -four, starch and water
and even our common salt is frequently adulterated
with preparations of lime. Arrow.root and tapioca
come out OF Irish potatoes; ginger IS manutac- |
tured from ground rice and massachusetts; and |
-four is deteriOrated with alum, potato -four,
and sometimes with fine saw-dust.
Passing from food to drinks, we find Our tea
aduterated with elder leaves, ash leaves, horse
| chestnut leaves and sycamore leaves, while sand
is sometimes added to give the bastard compound
! greater weight We drink, not the pure juice of
the China herb but the mixed and questionable
products Of our native woods. Our ground coffee
is mixed with peas, beans, rye, sawdust and old
coffee grounds, while chickory root sometimes
| forms niue-tenths of what is sold under the name
of coffee. Chocolate is so easily cOunterfeited that
/ it is doubtful whether any of it in the market is
! genuine. 1t is adulterated with rice flour, wheat
-four the -four of beans peas and potatoes, mixed
with fat, the yeIk of eggs, almonds, green soap
| and other substances too numerous to name.
| Cocoa undergoes in great part, the same meta
morphOsis. Beer, ale and porter, those favorite
beverages Of English and Teutonic fell
low cinzens, are sometimes colored, haVor-
ed and strengthened with quassia, NORWOOD,
sulphate Of iron, capsiCum, grams OF par
adise, cocculus indicus and sulphuric acid.
T! OF course we don't mean that any large
quantity of these substances is used, nor hat all
the beer and ale that we consume is dragged, but
the evidence is ample to show that where water is
plenty and grain and hops scarce, very small
quantity of some OF the above substances will fla
Vor many gallons Of aqua purd, mixed with Just
enough of the extract of malt to deceive the unso
phisticated stomach of the consumer.
Brandy is so uniformly adulterated that we have
heard some connoisseurs declare that not pipe
! of genuine foreign brandy exists this side of the
I water The favor which characterizes pure
| French brandy, and which is owing to peculiar
essential oil it contains in small quantity, is coun
terfeited by distilling molasses spirit wine
i lees. Most of the brandy sold at retail in our
American cities and towns is made up Of whisky
or alcohol diluted with water, and colored with
n burnt sugar, Acetate Of lead, Guinea pepper,
= murk," and cream of tartar, are variously used
e 10 add strength to the compound, while oak saw
dust is added to give the new brandy the favor of
a that I" slowly ripened in the wood" When it is
Il obtained by distilaton from wine, and the high
q price of all wines the last few years is remem-
n bered, the scarcity of genuine brandy is largely
f accounted for 1t is not our business to tell all
the secrets Of the liquor trade, but the reader,
It curious to learn more upon subject whose ignor-
Il ance is comparative bliss, may consult any of the
n current g liquor manufacturers guides for fur
= Their details.
Most of our Imported" wines are made from
~ whiskey, largely diluted with water, and ingen
n ously disguised with sugar, alum, Brazi-wood
:, elderberry husks, flbert husks, bitter almonds
e orris-root, logwood, oak, sawdust, etc. Happy
l. the man who raise his own pure juice of the
IN LCatawbal grape,n and whose wishes for the
q luxuries Of the palate,
ID "a few paterna acres bound"
IL Even cider is now sophisticated into bottles con
tanning little else than solution of few drops o
suphurc acid with a Qudrtitu1ll sutfcit of water
add a small solution of carbonate of soda, and yol
have the " mineral water or bottled soda of tn
shops, which is drank by thousands in the no
season. under the pleasant delusion that it
le wholesome, and even invigorating. Vinegar
Of made by water mixed with nitric, sulphuric, Q
IN muriatc acid
he ate was made of? Cold-skimmed milk, nike
'lf with powdered arrowroot, or rice -four littl
lg sugar. and occasionally an egg, delcately favore
oy with vanilla, lemon etc., form by far the create
We portion of the "ice.creamn nightly dispensed t
TO the papiatng crowds that throng the fashionabl
ry saloons.
d, Candies, especially the colored kinds, are fire
lie put into the innocent stomachs of our children
IN, 1t is vulgar notion that the decaying teeth an
ed pale skins which attend upon the consumers
gs candy are due wholly to the sugar or sweetnes
ed it contains. But negroes and children who liy
on upon sugar plantations and have free range OF til
ne sugar-mls, have remarkably sound teeth. Cand
ed is fatal to the health of those who eat much of il
q not because of its saccharlne qualities but b.
lh cause of the poisonous substances used in mani
ts featuring or coloring it. The yellow color is il
CT, parted by chrome.yellow, preparation contai
DT11T lilo
es, which is aduterated with lead; and the gree
les color by Scheee's green, which contains ARISEN
ca and copper. In the preparation Of many swee
yet meats, a mixture of sugar, starch, and a sort
eet clay is employed; and that which are known
ing "comfts " are often adulterated with clay,
ud needs but to dissolve themin boiling water to
the certain.
The horrors of the swill-milk trade have been
ses ten exposed, but there is a more common abu
'st, which is scarcely less disgusting. We mean
by adulteration of pure milk with compounds of cha
OUT water -four sugar starch and the brains OF shee
=. calves and oxen. That this is practiced more
less, in all large cities is we'll known to those VI
have ever taken the trouble to ascertain. A $
more common adulteration of milk is that W
water to add to its quantity; tea, ETC., to sweet
the it; salt, to bring out the flavor; and annatto,
'Qr- restore the color from the familiar sky-blue VIII
be the addition of water alone produces to the ri
e a creamy aspect which is its original color. a pr
rels tce Frequently resorted to- also although not
icy adulteratiOn, is the removal OF the cream from
IKE surface of the milk and selling the SKINNED m
oks alone, or mixed with some fresh milk, and perh
ling water, as the pure article
Olive oil, as Professor Blot has lately inform
5ye the ladies of Boston, when using it to compol
10Y those miraculous salads with which he ilustra
1nly his lectures on crockery, is seldom or never
ana ported pure. His countrymen, he confesses, pr
tre- the olives once and retain the oil for home c
ony sumption, then press the husks again, mixing
ard, product with American lard, melted which
dinl then suitably colored, put up in elegant bottl
this and exported to England and America. He e
TO- mates the proportion of lard as nine parts in
age, of the:ol!ve oil
IL al When consider the mischevious extent of
east, business of adulteration applied to food
hree drink, we are filed with Commisseration for
they unsuspeCting victims. But when we go Ii
oWs further, and find these authorizations not only
urn the ailments which make men sick, but the V
rust drugs which to restore them to health it
but actually to be adding insult to injury Yetitisa
used utely certain from sworn testimony taken bel
ana parliamentary commission in 1866, that muc
'slng the more expensive drugs are systematically
and terated The drug-grnders" employ. ch
weep medical substances together with pulver
auon chalk and various kinds of -four and dust, in
!, as pounding the powders supplied at WHOLESALE
long the druggists and the most stringent legal pc
see ties have hitherto failed wholly to arrest fl
they which so jeopardizes human life, but which
Ike easily carried on, because difficult of thorc
me- inspection.