Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-12
criminals, not merely fined few dollars as

criminals, not merely fined few dollars as
for trifing oifense.
The dishonesty and want of conscience
are as great in the adulteration OF coffee and
tea, though this form of criminality is not
so destructive to health and life. 1t used to
be thought that coffee In the grain was GER
tainly not adulterated, but the rapacity for
gain set somebody's wits to work and an
Invention has actually been patented by
which coffee grains can be initiated in such
manner as to make the swindling of people
quite an easy matt er.
How Tea Is Doctored Up.
Tea is so disgustingly matter for success
full cheating as to make a SO o'clock tea" a
time for the fashionable disposal of old rub
bish under esthetic conditions An inves-
tigation of tea in London some years ago
showed there were established factories for
cheating in this favorite beverage. In these
the refuse-exhausted leaves of hotels, eat
ing houses and other places were redrled,
colored with black lead and other stuffs, and
then sold over again as genuine tea. Spu-
rious tea is even manufactured in China,
where it is made of leaves of other plants,
glazed, doctored and then sold as the
choicest Pekoe or other brands. With the
leaves are mixed mineral and impure mat
tiers to further increase the gain of its sale.
No one can be sure he is not cheated in tea,
and no one can be secure from iron filings,
sand and dirt unless he really tests it.
Women are, as a rule, fond of their tea
The effort made in this country to establish
the English afternoon tea as a social insti-
tuition has been most marked. especially In
New York and Boston. The English
novels are full of it. The informal
drawing room teas left out wonld
l.. IF of
most effective scenes. But if it be true, rs
claimed, that by reason of free trade with
China, England gets all the best tea-bad
as it is-Americans will hardly care to cul-
tivate a habit of drinking adulterated tea
that is dangerous to digestion and destruc-
tive to health.
The Crimes Of the Bakers.
The chief aduIterations of bread is alum
or sulphate of copper, or some sort OF chalk.
These are worked in in some chemical way
so that inferior -four can be used and more
loaves gotten out of it. This would seem
to explain why bakers bread is never equal
to the healthy, sweet, homemade article in
which really good -four is required.
Sweet country butter has almost become
a memory, unless people keep a COW and
churn ior themselves, or can find honest
dealers Butter, we are told, is adulterated
by horse-grease, beef-fat, hog g's-lard NUT
ton-fat, and only the heavens above knows
what, in order to deceive into buying what
is falsely called butter at butter rates.
Wine is doctored and manufactured until
now the grape crop, whether great or small,
has little effect upon the quantity sold,
though in times of small harvests the price
is advanced of course. Champagne is made
of rhubarb and gooseberries, these ingre-
dients and the chemicals used being cheaper
To-, Co. 1ou ho-
come the French, Germans and others in
the manufacture OF wine with drugs, acids
and cheap trash that grape juice is no
longer an essential
The Fraud Runs Through Everything.
Seeds are adulterated as farmers find to
their sorrow. Drugs are adulterated.
The people are cheated in woolen goods, in
silks and by some means in almost every
thing they use,
Are those who practice these tricks of
their trade moral men? Are. they con-
sistent Christians? Are they. counting
their culture and knowledge, much better
than those who imposed the burdens of
slavery upon their fellowmen in
earlier DAYS for their own advantage? Is it
wonderful that a Christian Conference
should ''call down" a President whose
actions proclaim that he uses the advantages
of high position for personal ends, who can
be bribed by a land syndicate into becoming
an advertisement for their making of money?
That the world is growing better there
can be little doubt, but, with all said and
done, there is small reason to doubt that the
strong and unscrupulous can rob the people
indirectly with as few compunctions of con-
science as did the barons bold in days of
old. They do not go out into the highways
and rob openly as in feudal days, but they
get there just the same.
BESSIE BRAMBLE