The Daily News. THURSDAYK, SEPTEMBER 1, 1904. FOOD ADULTERATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 204, 1 September 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. THURSDAYK, SEPTEMBER 1, 1904. FOOD ADULTERATION.

The adulteration evil, with which the New Zealand Legislature is now attempting to deal, has been brought prominently before tho London public recently by several ' of the municipal health officers. There Scums to be hardly an article of food tlhat escapes the attention of the dishonest tradesman, and the public analyst for the City of 1 ondon, says a contemporary, has disclosed a most disquieting state of affairs in a recent report. Of two samples of butter bought in a London store one contained 80 per cunt, of margarine and the other 81.9 per cent, of foreign fat. Coffee was found to be mixed with 50 per cent of chicory, golden syrup with 45 per cent, r/f staroh glucose, mustard with 30 per cunt, of wheat flour coloured with turmeric, and ground cinnamon with eight per cent, of extraneous mineral matter. K icelooking slubstances passing as raspberry or currant jams were (otitic! to consist largely of a aheap vegetable pulp and sugar, with the small seeds to take the place of the absent pips. Sweets known as aniseod 'balls had been made attractive in colour by tho use of oxide of iron, and the old saying " Black' pepper's popper, white pepper's bones," was proved to bo based on fact. Pepper was also found to ■be adulterated with ground olivo stones, and inquiry showed that these stones had been obtained in a manner anything but comforting to the consumer. Men had been employed to prowl about tlic larger towns in Italy, and to pick up the olive stones from the street rubbish, and those stones, without any preliminary cleansing, had been ground and mixed with pepper. Also many samples of milk] were inspected, and about 20 per cent. proved to have been adulterated, usually with some form of preservative. As the use of a preservative generally implies that the milk has not been obtained or kept under cleanly conditions, it is hardly surprising that the rate of infantile mortality in London is verj high. The mc a t supply appeared to be hardly more satisfactory, and soveral health officers urged the need for regulations prohibiting tho sale, for human food, of the carcases of animals that had died a natural death or that had been in such a condition through disease that their destruction was ueccjssary. New Zealand is only on the verge of the evil, but few people will quarrel with the legislation directed aganst impure food.