RE-DRIED TEAS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 254, 5 April 1875, Page 3

RE-DRIED TEAS.

(National Food and iuel Reformer .) A few interesting and edifying _ facts in elation to the above subject being now before the public, it may not be amiss for us to call attention to the serious possibilities which the practice of re-drying water-da-maged teas opens out. In the case which has been thus brought forward, there is no reason to doubt the good faith of all concerned; but brokers and their customers may not always be inclined to act fairly and above-board, and it is for this reason that the late inquiry may be considered to point a strong moral. A public analyst of undoubted ability and integrity has a sample, presumably fairly taken, submitted to him, together with his fee, and an order for sampling to enable him to select his own sample if he should be dissatisfied with the one furnished to him, Armed with his certificate of goodness and soundness, the teas are placed on the market and the favourable result of the analysis is naturally made a feature of, the result being that the teas fetch a good price, which there is no reason to doubt they were well worth. But now let us imagine another state of things. Let us suppose, for instance, improbable as it may seem—let us suppose the existence of a firm of brokers so lost and degraded as to be not too particular how they make a profit so they do make one, and more regardful of their private wealth than the public health. They draw a sample which is sent to some one to analyse who they have reason to think, and perhaps to know, will not too severely scrutinise and investigate. A sufficiently glowing certificate is signed, and the article which should have been incontinently destroyed finds its way into the daily living of Her Majesty’s lieges. That such a possibility exists, one fact which came out incidentally will at once show. Fourteen million pounds of tea so-called were stated to have been sold for £SOO. Now philanthropic dealers don’t go about giving men even such small sums as this, in order that they may have the pleasure of knowing for certain that the stuff will be destroyed, and as at the price realised by the tea spoken of above, some £70,000 would be the net gain, it is to be presumed that, unless great vigilance be exercised, the whole of this rubbish will be thrown into the market, Unless such an infliction can be prevented, it will become a serious question for us to consider whether our sanitary laws and safeguards are not wholly shams, totally useless "for their purpose, and unable to cope with any one who wishes to evade them.”