HOW FOOD-FAKERS SWINDLE THE PUBLIC.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 81, 1 May 1909, Page 4

HOW FOOD-FAKERS SWINDLE THE PUBLIC.

In spite of the fact that food-fakers are mulcted in tines to the extent of something like iIiOOO a year, they still flourish us largely as ever. After the lilies for selling adulterated food have been paid, there still remains a very handsome margin for profit. In fact, experts assert that a profit of .CUO.OUO is made on faked food in London alone every year, although there arc 232 skilled analysts engaged all over the country testing the quality and composition of the food we cat.

The faker, however, cares as little for the food inspector as he does for the flO or £2O line which the magistrate inflicts when he is caught. Here is one of his cute dodges for circumventing the former. He makes up margarine into rolls and pats, covered with linen, just like the best Dorset one sees in the stores. He also colors with coffee eggs bought in crates, and stamps them with an iiulinrubbcr stamp, showing the day ivhen "our own hens laid them." I'llO.M "(It'll OWX FARM."

These goods ho sells in the suburbs with the aid of a female accomplice, who, looking like a country maiden, the picture of health, carries them in a basket on her arm from door to door, offering irei.li butter and eggs from "our own farm." And purchasers looking at her readily believe that she is really trying to sell the products of some small farm in the neighborhood. Xow and again such people are caught. A food inspector, however, can only take a sample for analysis, and by the time the result of that operation is known 1 the woman, who lives, perhaps, in some back street of London, cannot be found, i According to a recent report of the Local d'ovcruincnt Board, such vendors! of margarine under the guise of butter I were discovered last year in Lewisham, Hampstcad, and Blackhcath, but when legal proceedings were commenced the culprits disappeared. Doubtless they are carrying on the game elsewhere. ""POTATOES AND MARGARINE. A fcarfuV and 'wonderful concoction indeed is some of the margarine sold by food-fakers. A few months ago a North London provision dealer was fined for selling margarine containing thirteen per cent, of mashed potatoes, as well as an excess of water. The excuse offered was that the margarine was manufactured in Holland and intended for sale in Germany, but was sent by mistake to this country.

Reputable ffrms, of course, are very careful indeed that their margarine shall bo free of all foreign substances, and for that reason manv people like it just as well as butter. Likewise it is only the get-rieli-quiok-by-aiiy-meaiis people who. for "best strawberry jam," sell a mixture hull' of which is apple-juice and the remainder corn-syrup, sugar, and color-

ing matter. THE LOBSTER WAS HISSING. One of the latest food frauds discovered was that of a Blackpool dealer who sold potted "lobster." After a very careful search no lobster could be found. What was found, however, was some other kind of fish mixed with bread, toned up with a borate preservative, and colored hy use of a coal-tar dye. The price of the fish and bread was sixpence a pot. It was worth about one penny. it is not so long ago since the eidermakers of the West of England complained of the gross faking of cider by the use of salicylic acid to the extent of sixty or seventy grains, and of coloring a fictitious beverage and selling, it as cider. 'Shortly afterwards-an inspector' who analysed a bottle of "elderberry wine" bought at Eastbourne found that it consisted of 20 per cent, sugar, .04 per cent, alcohol, 7S per cent, water, aniline coloring, and salicylic acid. For the defence it was said that this "eldcrberryless wine" was made from essence supplied bv certain manufacturing chemists.

Even beer is sometimes faked. During a revenue case some months ago it was proved that if the beer was "dead" or flat publicans sometimes improved it by diluting it with a certain saccharine solution, a quarter to half a pint of which would start fermentation and give what is popularly known as "head" to the beer.

EOOD-FAIUNG IX RESTAURANTS. The food-faking which goes on in sonic restaurants is very often just as had as that which takes place amongst unscrupulous grocers and dealers. The rolls on the table are not always new. Those that are left over at night am kept in a cool place, and in the morning carclully damped before they are placed on tlie tabic.

Thick: ox-tail soup is often weak gravy colored a nice brown and thickened with Hour. Mulligatawny soup is the same, with a little rice added and flavored with currv-powder. Filleted plaice in the kitchen becomes Dover sole on the bill of fare; and the herrings have their roes extracted before they are grilled, so (hut "soft roes on toast. Is," may figure on the menu card. Fruit tarts are made by serving stewed fruit 'with ;, little piece of crust, baked separately, laid on top of it; while it would be interefitnig to know if a restaurant proprietor cannot be summoned for selling as coffee a decoction consisting mostly of chicory, t AMERICAN' FOOD-FAKES.

As an illustration, by the way, of the wholesale manner in which coffee ie faked in America, the land of freedom, it might be mentioned that, although only 13,000,0001b of Mocha and Java coffee was imported one year, as much as 250,000,0001b of such toffee was sold. Then, again, pepper adulteration is so remarkably common in the States—and it must be remembered that we import a great deal of this article from across the Herring Pond—that one firm sells the main ingredient of adulteration, called ''pepper deteriorator," at £4 a ton in five-ton lots. This sluif, mixed witli com meal and a certain dye, forms black pepper. The firm selling the preparation once frankly admitted to an inspector that (lie dcterioralor served equally well for cinnamon, cloves, or allspice, these differing only in formula.— Tit Bits.