The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-31
A PooR MAYS nRnAKrAsr.

fOOH MANS BhEAkFAGT. E Mir. Paul Pierce Superintendent of Food Fabrics at the St. Louis Exposi- tion. gives the following as "an ac- tual breakfast" in the home of one of the working men of Indianapolis: Fried sausage, colored with aniline red and adulterated with about 10 per cent. of corn grits; apple butter, col- ored with aniline red and loaded with glucose; butter. colored with aso-dye and adulterated with 10 per cent. excess of water; coffee, glazed with a glaz- ing compound composed of dextrine and. starch. and colored with brown aniline dye; bread. cheap, soggy bakers stun not sufficiently baked and containing | glucose and malt extract: potatoes: gravy, made from flour, milk and the drip from colored and adulterated sau- sage.
 The two things especially notable in | this menu are the variety of articles and the monotony of the adulterations. Of the seven articles on the bill of fare the potatoes was the only one not mix ed up with something else, and we sup pose the potatoes escaped because no practicable method has been discovered for adulterating them. If this labor ing man had reasonably liberal quan- tity of each article mentioned he has no reason to complain of lack of grub, but he certainly has good reason to complain at the additions made to his food, most of them probably hurtfui, dies.
 
 This Indianapolis man probably far ed no worse than so many others who are not so situated as to choose what they eat. and investigate it's quality and composition before eating. Many articles of common use at the table, especially of the cheaper kinds must be bought and eaten on faith. for there Is no certainty or assurance of their purity. Naturally, there is much pure food to be had, but it Is just as true that there is much that is. neither pure nor wholesome. What the remedy is, or whether there is a remedy, is quite another matter. for the remedy would have to go into almost every article of food and drink used by human beings
 
 that hash and railroad pies were mys- teries which human ingenuity could never fathom. but those articles have long since lost all claims to exclusive ness. As We have before stated, there are pure. healthful foodstuffs of all kinds, for not all manufacturers and packers are williams. but it is also true that frauds and adulterations enter in- to almost every variety of prepared food that we get, and in many other articles which come to us In shape that would apparently make 1t difficult to add anything to them without de- | tection.
 Just day or two ago we noticed that a considerable amount of discus | sion and investigation had been going on in New York on account of the ex- posture of some palpable and exten- sive frauds in the brands of condensed milk for sale in the city. They have very stringent State law in New York designed to assure pure condens- ed milk to consumers but 1t appears that the law has been violated just as most other laws to prevent frauds have been. There are plenty of laws and | regulations to prevent food adultera- tion but the nefarious business goes on all the same not only swindling the people but endangering the health and lives of consumers. If some way can be found to prevent any article of food or drink being tempered with, few greater benefits have been bestowed on humanity than it would be.