Morning journal and courier., 1882-06-08
The Sale of Skim Milk.
[From tha NaW York snn.l


 The legislature lately passed and sent to 1 the Governor bill repeating the law which | now authorizes the seizure and destruction of l skim milk. This law, though well intended, 1 was enacted without due consideration of it's results. There are many articles of food and drink so grossly adulterated by unscru- pulous persons with substances injurious to the health that the statutes properly impose heavy penalties against frauds of this sort '; there is another class of articles, not deeteri- ous in themselves, if properly prepared, which become the subject of penal statutes, because they are habitually sold with intent to deceive the customer. But skim milk can not properly be put with either of these classes. A well known product of the dairy, familiar to mankind as long as butter and cheese have been, it is perfectly understood to be much less nutritious than if its cream had not been taken, but it is neither an in furious adulteration on the one hand, nor, on the other, a substance sailing under false colors, like unstamped oleomargarine and lard cheese.
 Nevertheless, skim milk is treated in this State as if it were a poison. It cannot even be given away without mourning penalty. That all children would thrive better on rich milk no one doubts but with milk retaiIed at ten cents quart all winter long, what are the families of the poor to do ? Instead of getting what is honestly sold skim milk at half price, some of them either get mixture of chalk and water, surreptitiously prepared and sold, or nothing at all.
 A law which should punish the selling of skim milk without letting the buyer clearly understand that it is not whole milk, would be just and the bill passed as a substitute for the existing law properly requires that skim milk should be labelled as such when sold. To go further, and treat skim milk as poison, and to subject it to kind of mad dog legislation authorizing it's destruction on sight, is not wise. The choice parts of beef command the highest prices and every body would like to have them at al times but this fact does not prevent other parts from being sold as food at a fourth part of the price of the best pieces. A law preventing French peasants from eating the residue of the meat, after they have drawn outfits juicesin cooking it for soup, might furnish some analogy to the skim milk statute.
 There is another way in which this law operates to injure the persons iu whose ln- terest it was framed. If the dairies are pro hibited from making any use of the skim milk which was formerly a vast source of revenue to them, they presumably must charge more for their butter. This helps to throw the latter out of the reach of some people of small means Either they must eat imitation butter as we'll as doctored milk. or else go without. If thess precise results are not traceable in the prices, the skim milk law not being general in all the States, still it Is clear enough what must be the effect Of dairies destroying twenty thousand, fifty thousand and even hundreds of thousands of quarts each, in season, of kind of milk for which they had previously got half price. Skim milk can be used in various ways, and in connection with other foods. It IS mis use of legislation to prevent those who want to buy this cheap if impoverished food from having the opportunity.