Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-05-31
AduItarafion

A revival of the excitement about the
adulteration of food and wearing ap-
parel has Just taken place at the North.
When q committee of Congress reported
on this subject, some months ago, the
matter was pretty thoroughly discussed
in the press, and much good promised
to come of it. Several legislatures took
up the question Of adulteration and
promised some legislation on it,
but somehow or other the mat
ter fell through, and save the
oleomargarine act of the New
York Legislature, passed more for the
protection of the dairy interests of that
State than for the protection of the PEG
pies health, nothing has been done. The
new complaints against the adulteration
of articles in this country come, as usual,
from abroad. The German mothers are
loud in their plants against American
baby carriages, which they charge with
being infected with the worst of poisons
white lead-producing all sorts of in
fantile diseases and death.
At the same time the New York World
starts quite sensation in that city by
the discovery of a new adulterant for
sugar, or rather the discovery of an old
one, whose great use the people have
been profoundly ignorant of. A visit ola
reporter to the plaster mandatory of
J. B. King & Co., Staten Island, un-
earthed an industry of which New York
knew little. His establishment, Mr..
King declared, turned out 1000 barrels
of plaster a day; other manufac-
turers in the neighborhood did about
as much, making a total of over
600, 900 barrels annually manufactured
on Staten Island The plaster was
produced from gypsum, imported from
Nova Scotia, and ground, beaten. bolted
and boiled. Some of it was used in plas-
tering walls, but large portion of it
went, Mr.. King candidly confessed, in
adulterating -four, sugar and candy. Mr..
King did not like to eat it himself, but
thought, at the same time, that it was not
very injurious. certainly not as much so
as glucose or terra alba Confectioners
had told him that they usually worked
in about 20 per cent. of this stuff into
their candy, and that it made the candy
firm, hard and brittle, thus improving its
appearance, while they profted by the
difference in the cost of plaster and SUI
gar.
The Worlds man interviewed the
leading grocers of the city on the same
subject. They all denied the use of the
plaster in adulterating sugar in their
establishments, but admitted that large
quantity of it was used by the confec-
TONERS. There was no remedy for it,
they said, the only way of avoiding the
plaster being to buy sugar and candy
from persons in whom you have perfect
confidence.
Prof Need, of Louisville, when con-
suited on adulteration, declared that
while there was some exaggeration on
this subject the public did not know
half the truth. OF articles of food, he
thought the most frequently and dan
gerously adulterated were pickles, sugar
and candy. Canned fruit and meat,
also, he thought were often put up in a
very unhealthy condition. He wound
up by warning the ladies in particular
against going too thlckly yelled. Wells
were very often colored with poisonous
dyes that vitiated the air they breathed
and affected their health. Better to be a
little tanned and freckled, lie said, than
invalids for life.