CURIOUS MISTAKE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12618, 1 December 1926, Page 6

CURIOUS MISTAKE

NITRATE SOLD AS SUGAR MYSTERY UNSOLVED A TON DISPOSED OF (By Telegraph.—Special to “Times.”) NAPIER, November 30. Somewhere tucked away in various homes iu Napier are packets of a substance that all in good faith lias been sold as sugar, but is in reality, if not nitrate of soda, at least a near association of the saltpetre family as fur as can be ascertained. The first notification that anything was wrong came from a Napier gentleman. who likes his breakfast porridge nicely sweetened. His devoted wife knew this, and as usual the other morning liberally besprinkled the “burgoo” with what she took to be sugar. A sustained roar from the irate husband suggested to her that something was wrong, and her good man’s vehement declamation that his porridge had been salted instead of sugared convinced her on the point. Investigations were made, cobpled with much tongue-tip tasting resulting in wry faces, and it was found that the beautiful, clean-looking crystals, although very like unto sugar, were in reality a kind of soda. SECURED IN ORDINARY WAY It appears that a firm of grocers in Napier has had planted upon it a consignment of would-be sugar, which is not sugar at all. Interviewed by a reporter, the manager of the firm stated he had no idea how the stuff could have been confused with real sugar. The consignment, about half a ton, was apparently delivered in ordinary sugar sacks and rebagged in four and seven pound lots ready for sale. “We got it ex-wharf in the ordinary way through agents,” he said, “and I can’t for the life of me understand what has happened. Naturally, I’m concerned and am ready to do anything which will rectify matters as much as possible.” The agents could give no clear reason for the mistake. It was as mysterious to them as to every one else. TASTED LIKE EPSOM SALTS “Of course,” they said, “we don’t actually handle the stuff at all, although we are the intermediate agents, for it is delivered straight to the retailer ex-wharf.” An assistant told a newspaper man that he tasted it himself, and it was like tasting Epsom salts. “One customer brought a bag back,” he said, “and I changed it, but the second bag contained similar stuff to the first, and the customer went horribly crook.” A letter from the refiners to the inauager of the stores would seem to , indicate that no solution of the mystery can bo gained from that source. \ The letter, amongst other things, states that it is a matter of impossi- ■ biiity for nitrate of soda to have be- ■ come mixed with the sugar whilst in I the company’s possession, as they did not uso nitrate of soda in their refinery or elsewhere. A sample of the stuff was taken to an expert in the city, who without being able to say outright, pending a lengthy analysis, what the stuff was, was certain that it was allied to the saltpetre family. In the meantime certain members of the Napier public have distributed amongst them about half a ton of nitrate of soda or something similar, which commodity, although it*may be useful as a manure, a pickling preserve for salt beef or a healing remedy for a sore throat is no good for sweetening porridge.