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term of reproach for the worst of fair-seeming sinners, and means in Aristophanes something more odious than our translation “sycophant.' Even in the strongest continental government, the long establishment of a detective force, or the necessarily high education of a censor of the press, cannot prevent the executives of these offices being the objects of avoidance and scorn. The same feeling would grow up with tenfold strength in such a country as England. Nor would matters be mended by the simple expedient advised by Mr. Postgate, of calling them "custodiers," or by any newly-invented nomenclature. The Puritans substituted the word "trier" for "inquisitor," without gaining popularity for their measures of investigation, and all similar evasions are soon found out. The worst of this would be, that a sufficient number of respectable persons could not be found to execute the office, as soon as it was found that "custodier" became as much a term of scorn as "sycophant," "delator," "informer," "trier," "inquisitor," "gauger," or "inspector." Certainly, no medical men, with whom the love and respect of their fellow-countrymen is the chief reward, could be induced to place themselves in so opprobrious a position as the employers of these means would occupy.

But even if a respectable body of officers could be got together sufficient to carry on the design of a detective repression of the evil, a doubt may be fairly expressed whether it would be so effectual as the present plan. If caveat emptor ceases to be the maxim, the buyer will learn to shift his responsibility on to the detective, and the occasional analysis of an expert will take the place of the constant supervision of customers. The latter are made as acute by interest as the former by science. An artisan may not be able to tell that his butter contains" Black Jacks" and " Bosh," or the exact per centage of its excess of water, but he soon finds out when it is nasty; he may be ignorant of the amount of solid material in his milk, but he knows when it is watery, and if so, makes a rough calculation whether it is worth while to give a higher price for a better article or not. Even those whose special vocation is chemistry and scientific research acknowledge that the palate is a more sensitive and readier detector of imperfection in food than the manipulations of the laboratory or the microscope. In a lecture on baking at the Polytechnic Institution, on the 31st of March last, Mr. Pepper said that the taste was a much better way of knowing good from bad bread, the presence of alum or the excess of water, than chemical or microscopic examination. The police of common sense, stimulated by interest, is preferable to that of educated detection.

Then again, the most frequent proceedings would of course be against the most numerous-the small shopkeepers. The sufferers would soon get up a cry that it was an attempt of the capitalist retailers to put down the "poor man's shop;" and it is not impossible that sometimes the law might in this way be really made an instrument of oppression.

To carry out such a system partially, as, for instance, in the metropolis, would be suicidal to its ultimate success. It would be purifying

the drawing-room at the expense of the passages and the kitchen, and would be merely shifting the evil. This is what actually happens in France. As regards bread, for example, Mr. Blyth tells the Committee how well the Parisian loaf agreed with him. And it is good, though with some dyspeptics we have found London bread agree better. But how is this goodness brought about? Simply because the strictness of the police prevents the bakers using any alum or mixed flours, and consequently the very best wheat alone can be employed. Hence the inferior article is thrown upon the provinces, and there the bread is almost universally bad; not adulterated perhaps, but nasty. Throughout Gascony it is musty, tough and innutritious; and at a town no less important than Caen, we once found a French fellowtraveller searching all the shops in the hope of obtaining some eatable bread for an invalid son. He was unsuccessful, and we were obliged to share with him the London biscuits we always carry when travelling in France. Such a thing would not have happened in the most neglected English village. But even in Paris the strictest police supervision does not secure in some articles so good a quality as the vigilance of customers with us. Milk, for example, in the French metropolis, is found by M. Becquerel to contain of water from 84.9 to 97.2 per 100, a variation of 12.3; while in 32 specimens analysed by Dr. Sanderson for the Paddington Report, the range is only 97, namely, between 86-8 and 965. None is quite so good as the Parisian, but none is quite so bad-an evident proof that the French article is the most artificially diluted. And it must not be supposed that even in continental governments a detective police always finds it easy to punish acknowledged fraud; for instance, the tribunal of Sarreguemines decided, a few years ago, that selling rancid butter enveloped in a thin layer of fresh, could not be brought under the wording of the law. It is true that the "Procureur" got the decision reversed on appeal, but he had some trouble to do so even in France. And at Bordeaux, Besançon and Brussels, the police have had to complain that their exertions in punishing the sale of poisonous bonbons were not seconded by the tribunals; a fine of two francs in one case, and of six francs in another, is an obvious insult to the prosecutor; and if chromate of lead does come under the notice of a judge appointed to prevent it, we do think the user of it should have more than a sixteen franc fine and a week's imprisonment.† It appears that these are typical examples of the working of the law on sugar-plums, for M. Chevallier cites no others. No police at all is better than such an inefficient one.

*

It is scarcely necessary to say that any systematic control over modes of manufacture, and the quality of articles allowed to be sold, is quite inconsistent with fair play to the principles of free trade. If we raise the price by ordering them to be made good and in less quantity, we must either protect the British merchant or ruin him. And even those who hesitated about the introduction of our present commercial system -of free trade are generally anxious at least to give it a just trial. The advocates of detection may perhaps argue, extremis morbis

Chevallier: art., Beurre.

† Ibid.: art., Bonbons

extrema remedia-that the evil is of such magnitude as to justify even the most objectionable modes of repression. But the most trustworthy evidence-evidence resting on the personal experience of competent persons-does not by any means show this. Indeed, it proves the negative, as far as it is possible to do so. The vagueness of Mr. Accum's statements, which enumerate on hearsay the number of substances used for sophistication, has made the public suppose for the last quarter of a century that the poisonous and nauseous adulteration of food is just as common as the most harmless dilution. Hence there has been naturally a great alarm and outcry. And if Dr. Hassall had stopped short with the long tabular list of the names of articles ascertained by himself to be fraudulently employed, some considerable alarm, though not so great, would be justified. But the carefully prepared details of his examinations, if really read, are calculated to dissipate much of the panic. For instance, beginning with the letter A, we find "Annatto" to be adulterated with flour, turmeric, and plaster of Paris, and on referring to the analyses,† we find that ponderable quantities of these substances, neither noxious nor nasty, were found. Then we read of red-ochre and red-lead. The former, one had rather be without, for it is a paint; but then we find there are only two grains of it in the hundred, while of the really poisonous lead there is only "a trace" in some few specimens. The "sulphate of copper" enumerated in the list is not mentioned in the analyses at all, and appears to have been the oxide. Considering, then, that annatto itself is only used to tint cheese, and to give to some milk the very slight orange colour it possesses-in fact, exists in our food only as "a trace," of which we should be a very long time in eating 100 grains-we feel quite willing to abide the consequences of our homeopathic doses of iron and lead. Next comes "Arrowroot," which we read without sorrow is often made of potatoes, tapioca, and sago. Then "Anchovies," which, instead of being from Gorgona, are sometimes "Dutch and French fish." Most of us would as soon eat them as the true Engraulis encrassicolus. However, it appears that the red colour of the sauce is due to art, so that to prevent our eyes being offended with a dirty tinted condiment, we are eating paint. But here Dr. Hassall comforts us with the information that it is only ochre, or harmless iron rust, and we reflect that, were it copious enough to hurt us, we should immediately detect it, for we know the taste of iron well enough. He has never found even a trace of red lead.

Next in alphabetical order comes "Brandy," which sometimes contains water and burnt sugar. Then "Bread," in which the only suspicious article is alum; but in spite of its universal use to lighten the baking of secondrate flour, no single instance of injury to health can be found. And so on through the list of forty-four, amongst which the only articles designedly+

* The liberty is here taken of substituting the singular number for the plural; for though Dr. Hassall modestly shrouds his identity by speaking of " ourselves," it is very evident that to him alone we owe the admirable researches contained in his book. The occasional dilution of them by the observations of others, we look upon as an adulteration. † Adulterations Detected, p. 465.

The copper in pickles is an accident from the use of saucepans of that metal. It is

sophisticated with deleterious substances are, "Cayenne pepper" with red-lead and vermilion ; " Egg-powders" with chrome yellow; "Snuff" with chrome yellow (in nine of forty-three samples), oxide of lead (in three out of forty-three), and a suspicion of powdered glass; and the "coloured confectionary" of twelfth-cakes, &c., with external application of noxious pigments. Now of Cayenne pepper and snuff, the quantity swallowed even by the most inveterate is small; "egg-powders" are known to few, and eaten by fewer; and really the only one against which evidence of bad effects can be brought is the "coloured confectionary." But we have all been taught from our earliest days, that these "ships in full sail," "dogs,” “ducks,” and "sailors," 978 were not made to be eaten, any more than tin soldiers and tops are to be sucked. An act of parliament which would deal with them must go deep into the toy question, otherwise it will be evaded by their being sold as "Jouets d'enfants."

Dr. Sanderson's special examination of the milk, bread, and flour sold in Paddington exhibits the acknowledged facts that there is very often water in our milk-cans and alun in our loaf, but that society's life is not in any danger. The ease with which the amount of these adulterations can be detected excuses us from pitying those who submit to them against their will, and renders unpardonable any guardians who allow them to proceed to such extent as to injure the poor persons entrusted to their care. The mere reputation of having occasionally put milk in a glass to try the quantity of cream in it, is often sufficient to render you safe: at St. Mary's Hospital the milk supplied is habitually richer than an average cow's yield (containing 13-2 of solid matter vice 12.98 per cent.), merely because some years ago it was tested by the galactometer. Dr. Neligan's evidence about the milk and bread of Dublin goes to prove the same point of the innocuous nature of the adulterations.+

But even the occurrence of a quantity of water very much above the average does not necessarily show that the seller is the guilty party. We all know how wet nurses vary in the aqueous contents of their milk, and the same is more strikingly the case in different breeds of cows, and as a consequence of different nutriment. M. Chevallier+ quotes an instance in which the adulteration of bran with sawdust in Paris was detected through the thin milk yielded by the cows fed upon it; when to have fined the milkman would have been most unjust. The same difficulty in fixing on the real guilty party, and the same injustice in applying the principle of caveat venditor to the retailer, would be experienced in the case of all articles of food.

It is clear that it is through the pocket alone that society's health really suffers by the adulteration of food; and all readers of political economy by the light of history are, or ought to be in the middle of the nineteenth century, convinced that any attempt of the central frequently found in them, but, according to Dr. Neligan's evidence, not in quantities injurious to health. So little alarmed is this analyst at copper vessels, that he has not interdicted their use in his own kitchen. The detection is immediate, from the precipitation of the copper on the steel knife, and is so obviously against the interest of the picklemaker, that it may be omitted from the list of intentional adulterations. • Adulterations Detected, p. 487. + Report, March 12th, 1856.

Art., "Son."

government to interfere for the advantage of their people's pockets is a failure. It may control or arrest for other ulterior objects, but it cannot promote commerce.

On the whole, then, it may be concluded that the detective interference of a central authority with the vast masses of food which form the chief bulk of our country's merchandize, would only partially accomplish the end desired, would interfere with free-trade, raise the price of provisions (thus perhaps causing the starvation of thousands), and would establish a bureaucracy always odious, and more especially so when it meddles with domestic interests. At the same time it would be one step towards teaching us to rely for protection upon Government, and to a remission of the sleepless attention to his own interests which is the best education for being able to watch the interests of others, and which makes an Englishman not only a good tradesman, but a successful ruler at home and abroad.

In adhering to the principle of "every purchaser his own detective," it will be right, certainly, to give him every facility for being so. Those are his best friends who afford him such facilities. We can devise no way of doing this so little objectionable as that of vestries selecting (or perhaps being obliged by law to select) officers of health capable of making analyses of food and drink, and agreeing that they shall make them at a fixed price for all inhabitants of the district. In populous places this work might of itself bring in a good income to the officer. Dr. Hassall says that he could, by employing assistance for the rough work, guarantee between two hundred and three hundred examinations a week. At two shillings a piece this would give 1000%. a year to the analyst, and allow 250/. for laboratory expenses-enough to secure the services of a highly-educated man. If there was not sufficient work to occupy and support him, the ordinary duties and salary of officer of health might be added, or he might be a medical man and allowed to practice, or to take pupils. It may be observed, that while Dr. Hassall was the Lancet Commissioner, he was a hospital physician and lecturer, practised in private families, conducted analyses for other persons, and continued his literary labours as well; so it is evident analytical work may easily be associated with that of another description.

When the party interested had got his analysis, he might use his own discretion as to whether the importance of the adulteration would justify him in getting a summons, and following up the case in the method which the application of the principles of the Bread Bill to other objects would enable him to do.

It would be perhaps desirable to enter the results of the analyses in a record open to the inspection of the parishioners: but except where the case had been proceeded with, it may be questioned whether the publication of them in the public journals, as advised by several witnesses, would be judicious. There is nothing in it discordant with the spirit of English legislation, for it is simply a modern application of the exposure contemplated by our forefathers. But still there is danger of the punishment pressing unequally; and it is also exces

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