Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-04-01
Candy That Is Poisonous.
Rock AND RYE DROPS FILLED With FUSE
OH SOLD TO CHILDREN.

"Ten drops OF this candy will intoxicate a
child. There is enough fusel oil in that tin
! box full of candy to poison three men, and yet
that stuff was sold to children attending the
Thirteenth street grammar school for months
az pure 'rock and rye drops. / had the man
ufacturers arrested and heavily fined for max
ing sixty pounds of this candy"
The speaker was Cyrus Edison, Chief Sani-
tary Inspec tor, who sat at.his desk in the Of
fee of the Board of Health yesterday. He
was surrounded by bottles and cans contain
ing various samples Of adulterated food. The
tin box contained ten pounds of rock and rye
candy drops, aduterated with fusel OLA dead
ly poison
"Dr. Elbridge T. Gerry, president of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children, made complaint to me about this
candy" continued DR.. Edison. He opened
the box, and small strong of fusel oil was
emitted. 1t was sickening. No decent man
will make even pure rock and rye candies.
They only give children an appetite for
liquor, and the artificial favors are actually
poisonous. Fusel oil is that property con-
tained 10 bad whisky which makes it bad. 1t
has little commercial value. Confectioners
often buy rock and rye flavor, believing they
are getting oil of coriander They get instead
seized two more eases of the poisoned candy,
and have arrested the other two manufactur-
FRS. They will be tried this week.
500 | think there is much impure candy
made now? No, you cannot buy bad candy
in New York. will except cocoahut con-
fections-I won't answer for people who eat
cocoanut candy. There is no more unwhOle-
some candy made. The manufacturers buy
partly decomposed nuts, cut out the rotten
portions, and grind up the rest. 1t is impos-
sible for one part of cocoanut to be bad
and the rest good. The nut is an air-tight
globe, and the meat is porous. If spot be
comes putrid inside, the milk must be con-
taminated and so the whole. But after the
nut has been ground up and decorated with
chocolate and other flavors, chemical analysis
will not detect the impure cocoanut. The
cocoanut patties or cakes sold at Italian street
stands are absolutely poisonous.
'Three wears ago the Board of Health
seized $4,000 worth of impure CONNECTION
airy. That frightened the contectioners, and
we have kept watch of them ever since.
People would hardly believe that the yellow
used few years ago for coloring candies was
chromate of lead; that the red was prepa-
ration of mercurious vermiilion; that the
green was arsenical green, and all the cOlors
mineral poisons. The ornaments made for
Christmas trees-dogs, fruits birds, wreaths,
letters of the alphabet, etc.-were half sugar
and half mineral poison. And still the con-
tectioners complain loudly because we seized
them. They said they were not made to be
eaten-only for ornaments. Yet what child
doesn't eat them?
Here is a case containing twelve different
colored samples of candy absolutely pure.
Every tint is made with vegetable color,
perfectly harmless. The case came from
Germany three wears ago, and now all the
dyes. They cost little more, but are pure.
Vegetable colors fade in the sun, while min
eral colors remain fast Confectloners claim
that they are losing all their wholesale trade.
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Buffalo candy
makers are getting the western business, be-
cause the health authorities in their cities are
not as strict as we are here. French glue
enters extensively mo American candies
real yellow animal cement. 1t is clean, if
made properly, but who wants to eat glue?
Ice cream and charlotte russes are adulterated
with it, and medicine capsules and pill coat
ings are also made of French glue. Com
mercial gelatine, or grape sugar, is pure if
the acid used in extracting it from the corn is
thoroughly washed out 1t can be easily
adulterated, but the principal harm from its
use is in the coloring matter added in making
ices and like delicacies. | repeat it, don't
believe there is any candy sold at retail in
New York containing the least amount of
poisonous or Objectionable matter. ~. Y.