River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1886-07-08
Bad Butter Not Bogus.

Bad Butter Not Bogus.
As result of the anti-bOgus butter
agitation throughout the country a bill
was introduced in congress on the Sth
day of March to regulate the sale of
limitation butter" The bill provides
that the whole tribe of cOncocted but
ter shall be known and designated as
limitation butter;" that the buildings
in which the fraudulent stuff is manu-
featured shall be labeled limitation
butter factory" in letters six inches
long painted in white upon black
background or vice versa; that every
person dealing in it shall cOnspicuously
advertise himself as "dealer in imi.
tatiOn BUTTER" that manufacturers of
imitation butter must Obtain license
and pay five hundred dollars year for
it; that wholesale and retail dealers in
the disgusting compound shall also
pay license fee; that in addition to
the manufacturer license fee a tax
of ten cents per pound shall be levied
on refuse grease, alias imitation but
ter; and that every tub, box, firkin,
or package of imitation butter be
distinctly or durably branded or
marked as such.
Against all persons who violate the
provisions of the bill penalty is i'm
posed in the way of heavy fines and
Imprisonment. This bill if it ever
becomes law, will be the death knell
of the bogus butter at which its pro-
visions are aimed, and there will be
no mourners except those whom the
traffic in old grease has made rich.
People will not knowingly buy and eat
imitation butter, and as soon as that
article is placed upon the market only
under its true name it will cease to be
sold, for there will be no buyers. The
cOmpounders of imitation butter OBJ.
ject to the passage of the bill and
especially to those provisions of it re-
quiring them to sail under their true
colors. But they have no right to
complain. If their business is fraud
it ought to be exposed. If not, then
no harm can come of telling the truth
concerning it by suitable brands.
There is, however, another kind of
bogus butter which the provisions of
the Scott bill fail to reach. And it is,
if chat be possible, worse than the
genuine bogus butter. Indeed, but
for this other kind of bogus butter, to
which we now allude, there would
have been none of the vile compounds
to which congress is about to give the
euphemistic designation, imitation
butter. The other bogus article,
which is real butter made from cream
and seasoned with sour buttermilk
and dirt. For its existence the dairy
men are themselves to blame. 1t is
made by slovenly women, then put W
in soiled cloths and dumped into an
old pork barrel until ready for market.
1t is of various degrees of nastiness,
and has odOrs suggestive of the stable.
Its adhesive qualities are often strik'
ingly apparent.
Imitation butter is palmed off on
the public because it resembles real
butter. and people think it is butter.
| But il is the poorer and worst grades
of real butter that are initiated. 1t is
/ impossible for the pure, clean, fresh.
skilifully manipulated product of the
dairy to be successfully initiated. But
dirty, stale butter, being itself refuse
grease. is easily initiated by artists in
/ grease. Danish low grade real butter
and you strike a severe blow at the
bogus article, for there viii remain
nothing of which it is an imitation,
and it will never be bought in large
quantities except under the impress.
sion that it is actually butter.
The dairymen of the country have
done well in directing attention to the
magnitude of the traffic in fraudulent
and noxious compounds under the
name of butter, and will deserve the
gratitude of butter loving people il
they succeed in inducing congress 70
pass the Scott bill in its present form,
but they should not consider that the
signal for disseminating their efforts
in behalf of honest butter. Bogus
butter must undoubtedly go, and with
/ it should go the cheap, dirty grade OF
real butter that makes imitation pos
sible.
The Minnesota Prohibitionists nomi.
nate J. B. Child for governor, with a