Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-27
LOCAL NEWS.
[For other Local News Zee seOond;Pae ell
shefiield Scientific School.

LFor other Local News Zee secondsPaes,I
 Sheffield Scientific School.
 The Annual Winter Course of Lectures
 Prof. Johnson Om Adulterati0m O
 FOods-What These Consist Of--Th,
 MILK of the Great Ciiies-.-Nevv HaveH
 Muk--NeVv KHaven's Bread and New
 Haven's Vinegar---The Coffee, Butter
 and Other Necessaries--The Practica
 Summing Up.
 Prof. Johnson delivered @ very valuable leo lure in the Sheffield Scientific School cours. last evening on the subject of 'Adulteratior of Food" in which almost every one, even tt the infantile mortal has an interest Fewper sons have been able to maintain an existence for any length of time without food, and pickles, vinegar, tea, coffee, mustard, pepper are of some importance to most people. The professor spoke as follows:
 Where the lights of civilization shine mos widely and most wildly, there the unextin- guished barbarism of our human nature falls with frequent shadows and painful contrasts
 In the great communities of men, as in the small colleges of boys, the institution" ot hazinp is an ineradicable member of the body civic or politic,-one that may be amputated or pulled away by some overmasterlng concen tration of judicial forces, but one which like the claws of the lobster is sure to assert it's vital ity, by 8 renewed growth. Men are not only tempted by the pressure of poverty and the love of luxury to covet their neighbours goods, and to enrich themselves unduly and unlaw- fully at their neighbours expense, but they learn to love cheating and abusing, for the simple fun of the thing, and pursue highway robbery in Sicily, or hardly concealed adulter- ation in London, not merely as business to fatten upon, but as an entertaining occupation, which, when the law undertakes to make 1t contraband, finds in that circumstance an added Zest.
 Cheating in bargain is so common that we accept certain amount of 1t as part of our statistics, and charge it to the account of sfprofit and loss." Since perhaps the largest number of our commercial transactions relate to the purchase and sale of food, including condiments, which are as essential to the ex- elements of high civilization as food itself, and not excluding drinks which to the rapid civilizer are both food and spice-it is natural, nay inevitable, that foods, condiments and beverages should afford a broad, productive and thoroughly cultivated field for cheating and falsifcation.
 Toread the many undeniably authentic ac- counts of the tricks that are stated to have been practiced with human food, here and there, formerly and recently, is really shock to one unprepared for the dismal story The revelations of the experts who have studied these matters are of 8 sort to exasperate and enrage any honest man. Worse than that, they not only convince us that great deal of other peoples food is unfit for any human stomach, but they actually unfit our own stom- achs, temporarily, for any good whatever. word as to the meaning of the term adultera. tion. It signifies debasing, corrupting, vitia. ting, falsifying or sophisticating by mixture with baser materials. Etymologically, the word appears to have originally meant the al teriug of anything by adding another thing, and might have had the form ad-alterate, but in it's present sense and shape it implies an al- teripp that is fraudulent and ipjurious-a tam. pering, that, in the case of food, either cheats the consumer out of part of his money, de. prives him of portion of his nutriment or the satisfaction he has right to expect, or, worst of all, actually undermines his bodily health, and poisons by what should strengthen and nourish him. It is evident that there may be very slight and very harmless additions to food of matters not properly or not strictly belonging to it, that cannot be regarded as adulterations in any other than a linguistic sense, that cannot be made the basis of legal complaint and cannot be punished by the judiciary tribunals cannot in fact be the subjects of legislative statute.
 Again, certain additions to food that were originally fraudulent and gross adulterations. having been cautiously begun and practiced long time, have acquired degree of sanction from usage, which gives them comparative exemption from the charge of falsifcation or even makes them fairly respectable.
 The use of chicory in coffee is said to have been invented 100 years ago in Holland, and for many years was strictly kept trade se- cret. When it's use was divulged, it was, as it is still, denounced as @ fraud, but many peo- ple had got to like it and regard its mixture with coffee as an improvement on the pure beverage. And in consequence, chicory is @ regular and legal article of trade, and the man. al,o oJ, tains some and usually much of this material, is a business from which very respectable people draw equally respectable profits.
 The statements which I shall make are many of them correct beyond question, others are given on what passes current as good authority, but l cannot in all cases vouch for their truth.
 Wheaton flour, which makes the most pal atabIe and popular bread, has long been the subject of Justification. The most common and harmless adulterations have been the flour of other cheaper grains or seeds. Flour of rice, of barley, of peas, beans, buckwheat and of Doura or Egyptian nillet, it is said. have been thus employed in England. It is habit of many good housewives to mix 8 small proportion of boiled potatoes with dough, in making bread, and this and similar mixtures are entirely proper in domestic bread so long as those concerned are satisfied; but in the hands of the British bakers the same practice has been adopted for the pur- pose of extorting greater profits from the pub lie, and in that case is justly regarded as adul tsration and swindle.
 A curious feature in British bread adulter- ation is presented in the history of the so- called ''Cones Flour" This is stated to have been originally the flour of particular varie- ty of wheat which was sold to bakers for the purpose of dusting their kneading troughs and the fashioned loaves, to prevent the dough from sticking where it was not wanted. It is evident enough that any flour that is fit to make dough of, is suitable to restrain the adhesion of that dough, and what the peculiar merits of cones flour once were. I have not been able to learn. But cones flour or cones, as the bakers termed it, was speedily made the means of turning great many dishonest pennies and it's consumption increased enor- mousIy until some master bakers directed their journeymen to mix a bushel of cones with sack of flour enough to fully test the s'dusting" power of the cones one would sup pose. In short, it would appear that cones was the trade name of an article which was represented to have valuable qualities for dust ing the kneading tools of the baker shop, but which was, really, 8 cheap and inferior flour, valuable for quality of putting money in the pockets of miller and baker, and of throwing dust in the eyes of revenue, police and health officers. We really imagine that when the miller began to commend cones to the bak- CTS, as an artful dodge to further the interests OI LQ0 Lrhuo. they NGu6 uLu0ESJ E0pTS60ut6u pretty truly what the cones really was, at that time, and the bakers said to themselves that an invention which would enable them to get adulterating material, under a respectable name, was well worth paying for. So the millers thought too, and soon cones became anything that would swindle the public and if possible the bakers also, and contained no wheat flour at all, but was mixture of the cheapest material that could pass muster as breadstuf.
 should here remark that Great Britain is the historic field of food adulteration, because it has been the most favored center of all in- dustries, of all commerce, of all sorts of money getting, and because the English people have from ancient times been the stoutest cham pions of personal liberty and free trade. So it has happened that those sovereigns or min isters who have tried to hamper industrial en- terprise with burdensome restrictions have had an unhappy time of it, and the strict sys- tems of inspection that have quite steadily ruled in other European countries have had weaker and intermittent hold on the British counterfeiter and corrupter. In the reign of King John Q2O3) there was proclamation throughout the King dom for enforcing the legal obligations of assize as regards bread. By assizs was meant regulations of the weight, quality and price