The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-21
CURING AN EVIL.

let 1t not be understood or inferred from recent investigations and expos- ures that all the sin of bad meats and other food products rests on the Amer ican packers and canners. An inspec- tor of camberwell. Eng, has been in- vestigatins a jam cannery, and accord- ing to his published statement he found "a collection of dried raisins fill- ed with ants and other insects, rotten apple pulp, orange peel, some filthy macaroni and a lot of blown tins of apricots."
 From this disgusting medley of in- gredients the factory had been putting up the stuff supplied to the English people as pure fruit jam, and doubtless much of 1t has found its way to this country. The revelation sounds very much like some things that get out over on this side. and it is fair to as- sume that the one canning factory in- vestigated at Camberwel is not all the one in England to be guilty of this swindling and poisoning the public, Discussing these matters under the heading, Do your own canning The
 
 New York Mail says:
 We have sidestepped the duty of cooking our own meals, Of filling the jam closet with our own preparations, of living in country surroundings where we can raise children and have our own cow and our own chickens. Our women folk have reduced the kitchen almost to the simple and easy clements of an alcohol lamp, three wooden picnic plates and half dozen tins. We eat factory canned stuff m the line of meat, of vegetables and of fruit; or we dine in restaurants on products that have run the double gant- let of Packingtown and a basement kitchen which we know nothing about.
 Perhaps The Mail may be just a lit- tie exaggerative in its language, but all city dwellers know that ready-to- eat preparations have largely taken the place of home-cooked food, and. we ought to know that these prepared foods are not always what they are represented to be. Taking Alabama as fair example, we know that much of the danger and Imposition to which our people are subject could be avoid- ed if the fruit and vegetables that now go to waste could be honestly and in-
 
 served for home use and for supplying the demands of our local and city trade. We have discussed this matter so of ten that it is threshing old straw to repeat 1t. All intelligent persons ought to see and understand it without ar gument. As The Mail elsewhere says, the revelations of factory made pro
 Nn hot ma become an indispensable thing"
 One of the causes, aside from greed, for so much imitation and imposition is that of any fruit product for which there is popular demand there is not enough made in the world to supply A ouarter-perhaps not one-tenth- of the demand for 1t. A certain kind of fruit jam, jelly or preserve which is honestly put up and is exactly what it Is represented to be in every respect will become so popular that all the fruit of that kind grown will not sup pIv all who want it. Naturally IS the demand increases. methods will be sought to supply it and unprincipied Dersons will adulterate and substitute i'll finally we will be eating food put m on the Camberwell plan in place of inc pure article represented by the labels. whether such dangerous swind- ling can be suppressed or prevented is s matter of which we have grave doubt, except in one way and that is by cutting down the use of all can ned products.