Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-27

With mineral substances to give weight and 4, with pigments and facing to improve or produce the color and lustre of tea.
 When the high duties were exacted on teas imported into England, thirty or forty years ago, regular tea factories existed in London, Liverpool and other large cities, some dozen it is believed in all. This industry consisted partly in buying up tea grounds at hotels and coffee houses for two or three pence per pound, giving them coating of gum water tannin and copperas. drying, and if meant for black tea facing them with rose, pink and black lead, or if for green tea, with Prussian blue and chromo yellow, or similar and often worse pigments. Another part of the busi- ness was converting the leaves of all manner of British trees into false tea, or, as the Chi nese are said to frankly designate it, lie-tea.
 In 1843, the professor here noted, the London excise officers seized tea containing large amount of carbonate of copper,-a fear full poison, and in 1845 at Manchester tea containing chromate of potash, an active poison.
 The professor then proceeded Coffee has been and now is adulterated with chicory. Burnt sugar and parched beans, peas, barley, rye, wheat and peanuts, roasted carrots, pota. toes parsnips and beets. roasted acorns, spent logwood and tanbark. mahogany sawdust and baked horses liver, are some of the substances that have been found in the ground coffee of London.
 The speaker now alluded to the use of chicory in adulterating coffee, and to the large extent of this adulteration. He also al luded to the great production of this article and it's almost universal use, also remarking that many preferred mixture of coffee and
 chicory.
 Proceeding now to the application or moral Prof. Johnson, to the natural question which would arise, whether we here in New Haven are liable to suffer in purse and health from the adulterations of food, would answer gen. AroIIu cf1oa Eipo NOf and f0r tho c< that the investigations in New York, Boston and other cities do not reveal very widespread or injurious adulterations except in the case of milk, baking powders and few other articles already instanced; and second, that the speakers own examinations had failed to dis close any serious tampering with food except in the case of coffee, mustard and pickles, which were generally understood. It rarely happened, moreover, that those who are ready to ask and pay for good article need fail to get it. As regards watered milk, London, New York and Bostons milk was fearfully diluted, because the supply of fam flies is largely in the hands of factors who seek the business for the reason that the de- mand for milk exceeds the supply, and the chances for cheating are so great. In New Haven the customers and producers meet face to face, and where the. supply is rela- lively abundant the temptation to water is not so urgent. I have now and then tested New Haven milk bought in the street and found it pure. The bakers bread of New Haven I have looked after a little, and I have found no alum. Some of the loaves of late years are of great excellence, and contrast favorably with the average article used to see from five to twenty years ago.
 The vinegar sold in our corner stores have sometimes tested, and while some of it was weak have found no sulphuric acid and no poisonous metals in it. As to package coffee, pickles, mustard and spices, room for examin- ation was occasionally found, and there was ever a cause for care and watchfulness, and the need will constantly increase as the popu- lation increases in density. The strong arm of the law, backed by popular intelligence, should afford the necessary safeguard. The State and municipal authorities must guard and protect in this matter. The State Legis- lature ought to make a comprehensive statute to apply to all adulterations and Notifications It ought to provide for the employment of public analysts trained in chemical analysis and the use of the microscope to examine and test any article that may be submitted, and thus the State would protect all, rich and poor. No doubt bill for such an object would meet with such determined opposition as would demonstrate the necessity of the en- actment. have little doubt that one or two public food laboratories, under the control of the State Board of Health, perhaps could now save the people of Connecticut annually many times the cost of their maintenance, just as Lu0 experiment. SC6LlOn IS Deu6VeQ to save the farmers of Connecticut many times it's cost by the analysis and valuation of commercial fertilizers alone.
 While deleterious adulterations are perhaps rare among us, there is not improbably vast aggregate leakage of honest peoples money, which might be checked by making known, what we are all ignorant of, viz, the real quantities and qualities of nutriment or condi- ment or stimulant in the supplies we purchase or produce.
 The British ''Sale of Food and Drugs Aot," as amended in 1875, provides for the appoint ment of public analysts in the various cities, counties, districts and boroughs, and for the inspection and testing of food by and under the direction of suitable officers, and at the public cost, as well as making tests for citi- zens at a small charge.
 The society of public analysts of Great Britain now form large and respectable body of experts, which publishes journal of their experience in tracing and exposing adultera- tion, and exercises highly beneficial infiu- ence on the health, comfort and morals of the British public.
 The farmers of Connecticut supposed them selves to be swindled and humbugged by adulterated fertilizers for 25 years before they got sufficiently warned to declare that they must and would have an experiment station. How long shall We suffer from the greater evil Of food deliberations, actual and immi- nent, before we shall give ourselves the cheap ly provided means of keeping it's devastations within the narrowest bounds?
 How to AdOrn the Human ff air.