The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-04-08
On the above article the Mews and Cou-


rier makes the following comments:
There is no sham in Congressman
Aiken's account Of the way in which
Oleomargarine is made. The process is
simple and inexpensive, and the Oleo.
margarine looks like butter, smells like
butter, and tastes like butter. 1t de-
ceives knowing Congressman at dinner
as we'll as after dinner. The demand for
it outruns the production. Our Western
States crave it Southern cities delight
in it; Germany doats on it. There is no
sham in this. Oleomargarine is not but
ter, however, and the crucial test has not
been applied.
The processes of digestion and assimi-
lation are not carried OH by the eyes, the
nose or the palate. 1t is the stomach
which separates the wholesome from the
unwholesome, and no other organ can be
relied on to determine the extent of the
difference between butter and butterine.
The Spanish barb in the old tale was in
veigled into eating shavings in place of
grass. As the animal wore green spec
tacles, the shreds of wood looked like
rich and toothsome herbs. The stomach
detected the fraud, and the horse gave up
the ghost. Chemists can resolve dia-
mond into its constituent parts, and COM
pound it again. But it is no longer
diamond. An intangible something has
escaped, and is lost, which gave the dia:
mond its flashing beauty. There is good
reason to be cautious, therefore, in the
use Of sham butter, until it has been
proved that it is as nutritio as in
ocuous as real butter.
A facetious member of the Congress
sional Committee suggested, as Congress-
man Aiken tells us, that making Oleo-
margarine is simply "going behind the
returns" producing in an hour by
mechanical methods the substance which
Dame Nature produces in twenty-four
hours by lacti6cation, milking and churn
ing. A hopper with sausage machine
attachment takes the place of the ami
mails teeth. A cauldron, heated to 1l2
degrees, is substitute for the stomach.
Pressure, paddles and coloring matter do
the rest. Can any one believe, for mo.
ment, that animal fat, by any series of
operations, can be converted into sub
stance identical with that which comes
from the luxurious milk of the browsing
COW, the pugnacious goat, or meek-look.
ing ass 1t is not the same. The micro.
scope reveals the variation at once, and
not as forcibly as the stomach will. To
make the experiments complete, the
manufacturers of Oleomargarine should
exhibit q group of individuals who live
on it, side by side with groups who stick
to oId-fashioned butter. When it is
shown that the sham furnishes as much
tissue as the real, besides being as fair to
see and as pleasant to taste, there will be
a host of converts to Oleomargarine.
Until then, despite labels and notices,
most persons who consume it will do so
in the belief that they are revelling in
Simon-pure butter
The Oleomargarine people should go
step farther. With machine-made butter
there is no butter-milk, and how can
country-bred Southerners live without
butter milk. And if it comes to going
behind the returns, the chemists and ma
| chinists may rs we'll do without an elec-
ton, so to speak, and make their sham
butter directly from the grass, the pota-
toes, or the swill OIL which the beevcs
and COWS are usually fed. 1t is waste
of time to wait for the formation of fat,
when chemistry can operate directly
upon the food which produces it. Cows
as we'll as milk-maids and ld-fashioned
butter will then, indeed, have outliycd
their usefulness