Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1879 — How Food, Etc., are Adulterated. [ARTICLE]

How Food, Etc., are Adulterated.

Mr. George T. Angell recently read a paper before tho American Social Science Association, in Boston, on “Public Health Associations,” in which he mode some startling assertions about the adulteration of food. He said: Cayenne pepper is adulterated with red lead, mustard with chromato of lead, curry powder with red lead, vinegar with sulphuric acid, arsenic and corrosive sublimate, It is stated that probably half the vinegar now sold in our cities is rank poison. One of our Boston chemists analyzed twelve packages of pickles, put up by twelve different wholesale dealers, and found Copper in ten of them. Many of our flavoring oils, sirups, jellies and preserved fruits contain poisons. The adulterations of tea are too numerous to mention. Coffee is not only adulterated, but a patent has been taken out for molding ehiccory into tho form of coffee-berries, and 1 am told that clay is now molded, and perhaps flavored with an essence, to represent coffee. Cocoa and chocolate are adulterated with various mineral substances.

Several mills in New England, and probably many elsewhere, are now engaged in grinding white stone into a fine powder for purposes of adulteration. At some of these mills they grind three grades—soda grade, sugar grade and flour grade. It sells for about half a cent a pound. Flour lias been adulterated in England, and probably here, with plaster of Paris, bone-dust, sand, clay, chalk and other articles. I am told that large quantities of damaged and unwholesome grain are ground in with flour, particularly with that kind called Graham flour. Certainly, hundreds, .and pirobably thousands, of Barrels of | “ terra alba,” or white earth, are sold in our cities every year to be mixed with sugars in confectionery and other white substances. lam told by an eminent physician that this tends to produce stone, kidney complaints and various diseases of the stomach. A Boston chemist tells me that he has found 75 per cent, of “ terra alba” m what was sold as cream of tartar used for cooking. A large New York house sells three grades of cream of tartar.. A Boston chemist recently analyzed a sample of the best grade, and found 50 Ser cent, of “terra alba” in that. luch of our confectionery contains 33 percent or more of “terra alba.” The coloring matter of confectionery frequently contains lead, mercury, arsenic apt! copper. Baking-powders are widely sold which contain a large percentage of “ terra alba” and alum. It is not water alone that is mixed with milk. Thousands of gallons, and probably hundreds of thousands, are sold in our cities which have passed through large tins or vats, in which it has been mixed with various substances. Recipes for the mixture can bo bought by now milkmen from old, on payment of the required sum. I am assured, upon what I believe to bo reliable authority, that thousands of gallons of so-called milk have been, and probably are, sold in this city, which do not contain one drop of the genuine article. Large quantities of tho meats of animals more or less diseased are sold in our markets. Cows in the neighborhood of our large cities are fed upon material which produces a large flow of unwholesome milk. Poultry are fed upon material which produces unwholesome eggs. Meats and fish are madesunwholesome, frequently poisonous, by careless and cruel methods of killing. A California chemist recently analyzed many samples of whisky, purchased at different places in San Francisco. He found them adulterated with creosote, salts of copper, alum ami other injurious substances. He slates it, in his published report, as his opinion that there is hardly any pure whisky sold in that city. A gentleman recently purchased from a prominent Boston firm a cask of pure sherry wino for his sick wife. His wifcgrow worse, lie had the wine analyzed, and found that there was not a drop of the juice of the grape in it. An eminent medical gentleipan of Boston said to me‘“The adulterations' of drug»~in thiscountry are perfectly abominable.” I sav that laws should be enacted and enforced prohibiting the manufacture and sale of these poisonous and dangerous articles under severe penalties, and compelling the manufacturers and sellers of adulterated articles to tell buyers the precise character of the adulterations-

—The Utica Herald, chronicles a new swindle. A fellow claiming to be a painter called at a Utica jeweler’s Saturday,.and offered what appeared to be about S4O worth of fine gold in weight. Deducting the supposed weight of the dross, tho jeweler gave the fellow $25. On putting it into the pot for melting, - the whole batch disappeared, leaving nothing but ashes. Just what the material is, is not known, but in this case it deceived one of the most expert 1 goldsmiths.