The news & observer., 1905-12-31
FOOD ADULTERATION.
\ Great and Apparently Growing
Evil.

To the Editor: Mr.. Mccarthy
did the State a real service
when recently he stirred up the
often stirred, but somehow prone to
quick stagnation. Food adulteration IL
a great evil. an evil which owing to
ignorance of, or familiarity With, does
not receive a mi!lionth part of the at
tention it should. 1t is undoubtedly
doing far more harm in our midst than
whiskey is or ever has. For 1t is fai
more insidious evil. Whiskey, alco-
holic drink. is a curse which we have
very distinctly labeled, and which ali
who will can avoid. But all or US,
even the wiSest and most circumpect,
must indulge in the dangerous habit OF
eating. For, as things now go. the ut
most care viii. not protect one, MOTH
ing short of total abstinence.
Few are the fancy grocery stores
which do not contain in their pickles,
sauces and numberless canned m$Its,
fruit and Vegetables, enough poison TO
Kill outright a hundred men, if taken
at one dose. AS it is it is taken at
many doses and only laps off por-
ton Of each mans life and health com
mensurate with his Indulgence. The
blame for this does not lie with the
grocer who as rule, much prefer to
sell pure 2OOuS IL lIcS OOuld So
them. It lies with the whole State ana
the whole Nation which supinely al
lows itself to be poisoned instead OF
Irising in it's might and dealing out such
swift and heavy punishment to all
food adulterators, and making the
calling so odiouS and SO dangerous thGt
men would commit di,.ect murder with
gun as soon as they would this indi-
rect murder with their food adulter-
ants. Bonaparte showed more genius
in few things than when he shot
contractor for furnishing adulterated
bread to his soldiers.
We bubble over the most invisible
poiM of law. involving a six pence
We work ourselves un into righteous
ind 4snation when a chimney swallow
is Snothered or egg-sucking dog
xii I'd. We punish poor worried dar-
KEN for belaboring a bucking, back
ingt biting, kicking mule, we do all
thit and thousand other inconsistent
thikgs, and still with all our Haunted
hrHanity and wisdom we are not hu-
MIME enough or wise enough to pre-
ve3 our wives and children-ourselves
nov considered-from being poisoned.
i understand rather than exaggerate
| this question. / have long been alive
! totit, as indeed every obServant man
mast be- 1t seems to me clear that the
sudden increase in kidney and other
diteases, and probably appendicitis is
ciAIsed by harmful adulterants used TO
! cHeapen food. / have noted the in
| base in kidney diseases, especially in
certain families since they substituted
| lSEgely food bought at the stores for
hHme grown articles of diet. And eS-
| I3cially have l noticed this in the ne
| gSoes since they begin to look to the
4 s&pres instead of the farm for their
| Nod. In cheap, heavily adulterated
| dur, which the negroes have substi-
! tilted almost exclusively for corn bread.
E believed to lie mostly the cause of
his harm. though doubtless cheap
damned goods do their part.
my first contribution to The News
3nd Observer, twenty-siX years ago, QI
| Nave been that long contributor) was
| on the subject of food adulteration.
| Since then / have written again and
again calling the attention of the peo-
EsSe to this evil. 1t is an evil rapidly
q tending. 1t now embraces about
1 rerything we eat or drink. / had no
larrsl with it 50 long as it kept within
n chs and jars in barrels, kegs,
&und It's, bottles, jugs, demijohns,
tic. xThere it concerned me not. l
veu nade skept when it got on butch
IRIS Weat and in oysters and fish, and
Nvher had to give up breakfast bacon,
4 am, Massage, salt fish, souse, and even
&Paltinbre (side meaD. For had | not
Ahome- Aade butter, eggs, corn bread
kand tuHnip salad, with which reason
liable man should be content? That is
las long as he can get them all strictly
{lirst-class, All was we'll till the turnip
salad Went wrong. Investigation
showed HAT the trouble was with the
bacon. I quit store bacon for a neigh
bor's. H. a few years the neighbor' S
bacon cd wrong. / then went further
back intp the woods and to better
member bf the church with success for
a while, but failure at length. / shah
now havA to raise and cure my own
bacon.
| am I'd that 'liquid smoke'-Boric
1acid-is the bottonf of all my bacon
ttroube. f so the practice of curing
Invent wit it and vastly lessening its
/ wholesonT Tness, has assumed truly
alarming proportions. 1t would be
the best J, Par's work. or ten years
work, that it ever I'D. if our agricul-
tural department cSsald so enforce the
laws as to give to 81 people pure and
wholesome food IRere is. | believe
a crying need for propaganda OF
honesty and humanity to induce our
| homo people to dnlearn numerous
| ideas of these "new kinks" especially
| on meat curing, which, if persisted in
with a knowledge of their deleterious
| effect on health become downright
| lknavary, and far worse than wooden
| hams and nutmegs
| These only defraud. The food adul-
| terants kill. One is theft: the other
| murder. O. w. BLACkNALL.
Kittrell, N. c.