Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1892 — ADULTERATION SCARES. [ARTICLE]

ADULTERATION SCARES.

If People Are Given Adulteration. It Ii Frequently Their Own Fault. There are few subjects more easily treated by a skillful writer, who desires to scare up a sensation, than the adulteration of food. It is unfortunately true that there are dishonest men engaged in the food traffic, as there are in every other kind of business known to civilization, and it is also true that a dishonest man, especially if he be driven by competition, will sell dishonest goods. It therefore happens that sutstances are sold to the public, sometimes, as food, which are either not food at all, or inferior in quality to those which they are represented to be. This is an evil, to expose which is distinctly within the province of the public press. No greater service can be rendered, at least of a secular character, than to put the reader on guard against frauds of this character. No small part of the success of the American Analyst is due to the fact that we have performed services of this character fearlessly, constantly, and with some measure of skill. It is one thing, however, to expose an evil, and entirely a different thing to describe it in such a way as to destroy public confidence. This latter is the error into which sensational writers are almost certain to fall. The reader of one of their articles must necessarily lose confidence, either in the purveyor or in the writer of the article, and it is fortunate, for everybody but the writer, that the public generally may be credited with enough common sense to distrust the writer rather than the great body of reputable dealers. The so-called “Exposure of the Tricks of Trade” is tolerably certain to be so sweeping and general as to be unworthy of respect, and the general reader recognizes this fact. A conspicuous example of this kind of journalism was the recent publication of a column article in the New York Sun, on “Adulteration of Coffee.” It begins with the statement that “Pure coffee is expensive, and therefore there are immense quantities of stuff spld as pure coffee which are in reality compounds of various substances which cost less.” Then, after specifying “chicory, acorns, mangel-wur-zel, peas, beans ahd flour,” as some of these substances, the writer says: “The estimate has been made that the people of the United States who buy spurious coffee under the name of pure Mocha, Java, or Bio are cheated annually to the extent of about $18,000,000.” Now it may be true that this estimate has been made. Any other absurd estimate may be made at any time, by anybody, with perfect ease. The question remains whether it is worth while to waste printer’s ink on the publication of it. Other sample statements in the article referred to are these: “The general public without expert knowledge is utterly unable to distinguish the counterfeit.” “The purchaser, therefore, has absolutely no protection short of chemical or microscopical analysis.” “Very few persons will take the trouble to protect themselves from-such imposition.” “There is a process * * * so as to produce an article that will deceive some experts. ” The only safeguard the writer of this article suggests (although he does admit that some dealers sell honest goods) is to buy green coffee, roast it yourself, and grind it with religious exclusion of any adulterants. Evidently the whole tendency of such an article is mischievous, and it does gross injustice to a most reputable class of business men. Nobody of ordinary intelligence doubts that coffee is sometimes adulterated. Nobody questions the notorious fact that what is sold under the trade name of coffee, at less than the market price of pure coffee, is a mixture. The inference, however, that people are cheated to any appreciable extent is unquestionably false. Not one grocer in a hundred sell these mixtures under the claim that he is selling pure coffee. The customer, unless phenomenally ignorant, knows that when he is buying “coffee” for 20 cents a pound he is not getting coffee, and he is, therefore, not cheated. If he really v*ants pure coffee, and will tell his grocer so, he will not be cheated once in five hundred times. As was said, it is the mission of the American Analyst to expose the tricks of dishonest dealers. This we do without fear or favor, but the rehearsal of well-known facts coupled with the inference that the great body of dealers in a standard article are guilty of deliberate swindling, is work that is unworthy of any first-class periodical.—American Analyst.