Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-27

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 ted with water,
 Inferior but not Intentionally adulterated | flour is produced in numerous quantities Iron
 grain damaged by incomplete growth, by in jury from wet in the harvesting or storing, by
 incipient sprouting, mouldiness, or mustiness, as well as by the presence of the seeds of other
 grains, or those of weeds.
 Flour itself once good is damaged in trans
 portation and in storing. The endeavor to
 make an apparently good bread from cheap,
 or even damaged four, is probably the reason l why certain chemicals have been widely uset
 in the making of bread.
 Liebig says in his letters on chemistry that
 the bakers of Belgium discovered twenty (now sixty) years ago how to bake from dam
 aged four-by adding sulphate of copper (a poison) to the dough; 8 bread in appear
 ance and external properties as fine as from
 the best wheat flour. Alum has the same ef feet as sulphate of copper when added to the dough 1t renders the bread very light, elastic l firm and dry and the London bakers, in con- | sequence of the demand for white bread, have
 been compelled to add alum to their flour. l
 saw in 184O, in an alum manufactory in Scot land, little mounds of finely ground alum
 which was destined for the use of the London
 bakers. To conceal it's nature the powdered
 alum bears sthe trade names hards and | stuffs.
 1 Huseall asserts that ssalum is used in bread | making, nearly all over the United Kingdom. " 1
 said to range from Boz. to 12oz.. to the sack | of 24O pounds according to the quantity of
 tho flour. These quantities have been some
 times exceeded, it would appear, for not only | does the baker put alum with the flour he l buys in order to deceive his customers as to l the quality of the bread, but the miller or | flour dealer puts alum into the flour he sells l to deceive the baker.
 However happy the effects of alum may be
 in improving the appearance of the bread and | swelling the profits of the miller and baker, 1 the effects upon those who are obliged to eat 1 such bread are liable to be most disastrous, | if indeed they be not so inevitably. A very little alum in bread may not prove immediately or seriously injurious, l but no considerable amount of such 8 power l ful astringent is required to disorder the d. gestion and ruin the health, as is shown by | vast array of competent testimony. Whether | or not alum is extensively used in this coun- try have no means of knowing. Some 20 years ago Dr. Wetherill of Phila- deIphia examined 24 samples of bakers bread | of that city and found alum in two instances. l In 1873 Dr. Waller, of the New York Board of Health, examined 51 samples of bread in that I city and found six which were probably adul- | terated with alum and copper. Last year Dr. Leeds, of Hoboken, N. J., examined num- | Der of samples of bread and in five cases found evidences of alum, in one case amount | ing to 23 grains to the four pound loaf. l It is possible that the immunity from bread | adulterations, under which we must suppose
 ourselves to be living is but imaginary and that Justification is actually practiced, and re- | mains unknown, because the real facts have
 not been ascertained by suitable investiga- | ton.
 The use of alum for making out of flour
 which, of itself, would give 8 dark, sticky, | sodden bread-a white and haky loaf, is not | a recent invention of this materialistic and
 degenerate age. ''In the days of Henry VIII. l Is
 ness baker shall not put alum in the bread or | mix rye, oaten or bean flour with the same, | and if detected he shall be put in the stocks, :" It would be strange if in our large cities
 alum should not be employed, strange if l some royal bakers descendant should not
 wreak on the sovereigns of America the ven Reance sworn against King Henry, by an out ragged ancestor whom that pious prince caused | to experience the astringency of public oak | as an offset to the pucker of clandestine alum. | Whether or not alum is mixed by the baker with our daily bread, it is fact that alum or it's equivalent, is an ingredient of some of the substitutes for yeast which are so largely em-. ployed among us.
 This brings me to the subject of the so- l called baking powders, by the use of some of
 which that are, or lately have been, in our 1 markets, we are liable to adulterate our own bread, with poison unawares.
 The employment Of substitutes for yeast
 goes back 50 years moro or less. Yeast itself is minute plant, whose growth in wheaton dough generates carbonic acid gas, which in- Hates or raises the loaf.
 The use of chemicals mixed with the flour,
 that will yield the same gas, answers 1 the same purpose and has the advantage of
 shortening the trial and ming the labor of preparing bread.
 The chemicals that are best adapted in all respects for carbonating dough in the kitchen are cream of tartar, the bi-tartrate of potash and soda saleratus, the bi-carbonate of soda; and these two salts are the active Ingredients of the best baking powders. But the supply of cream of tartar is limited, and the cost is considerable so that various cheaper substi- tutes have come into use.
 One of the cheapest that can be employed is alum or the sulphate of alumina, which, mixed with bi-carbonate of soda, produces carbonic acid gas abundantly, but contami- mates the bread with an injurious or even poisonous substance.
 According to Dr. II. A. Mott, of New York, the Patapsco Baking Powder contained 20 per cent of burnt alum or it's equivalent, the Andrews 224, Dooley's Standard Baking Pow der 263, ard the Charm 30. This was in 1878. More recently Dr. Mott asserts that 23 brands of baking powder examined by him contained alum or 8 similar sulphate of alum ina.
 Before quitting the subject of alum in bread, I ought perhaps to say that the effect of it upon the consumer has been the sub- ject of much discussion, and some chemists in Europe, and I believe in this country, have defended it's use. Doubtless people may sur vive the long continued use of small quanti- ties of alum as of almost any poison, but the correct principle to adopt in fixing upon 8 standard of purity in the case of all articles which are understood to be essentially nutri- tious is to stigmatize as deleterious adultera- tion the addition of even the smallest quanti- ties of any substance which has decided pois- onous or in furious effects.
 Baking powders are also largely adulterated with terra alba (white earth, which is trade name for what is sometimes ground gypsum (plaster of paris), sometimes carbonate of lime (whiting), and sometimes pipe clay. The cream of tartar and the saleratus sold by grocers are also often grossly weighted by terra alba.
 If wheaton four and the wheaton loaf are thus adulterated, we should expect to find other cereal foods similarly falsifed. So it happens that in Great Britain, especially in Scotland, where the men are fed on oats, that oat meal, which is a standard diet in prisons, warehouses and charitable institutions, is extensively mixed with cheaper barley, meal, rice, flour, and even Indi- an meal. Thirty years ago there was famine in the Scotch Highlands, and some $500, 900 was devoted to supplying the needy HighIanders with food. One of the contract ors who supplied these unfortunates with oat meal was suspected of adu1terating the article and was brought to trial. It was shown that the oat meal was grossly mixed with bran and thirds" (cheap horse feed). The offender was convicted and punished, but he brought forward some of the principal millers of Glas- gow to swear that the practice was quite con- mon, was indeed one of the ''usaees of the trade.''
 Arrow root is variety. or rather includes several varieties of starch obtained from trop-. ical plants. Where genuine, it naturally costs more than the starch made from potatoes and from corn; but it is not commonly genuine and consists largely, or wholly, of the cheaper starches of home production. So far as the nutritive or medicinal value of arrow root is concerned, corn starch is in every sense it's equal, but it is nevertheless fraud to sell corn starch under 8 false name at fancy price.
 Sago and tapioca originally were prepara- tions of starch made in the Indies or Brazil, but now they are perfectly initiated on large scale from potato and corn starch, and the imi- tations are every whit as good as the genu- inc, and being in large demand are most like ly sold at price that is not unreasonable.
 might occupy the hour entirely with fur ther details respecting adulterations of bread stuffs, but you will perhaps wish fo hear