AN OLD INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 115, 4 November 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN OLD INDUSTRY.

CHEATS OF OLD. Nearly every country to-day has its pure-food regulations, but one might not imagine that ancient Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Rome protected the innocent buyer from the wiles of the food adulterator. To be sure, Pliny exposes the bakers of Naples for mixing white earth with flour, and mentions that even the rich of Rome were unable to obtain the Falernian wine unadulterated. Human nature being as it is it is only natural that the practice of putting water in wine should date back to the beginning of things. Still it is interesting to find that two thousand seven hundred years ago bottle of oil were labelled "pure oil from such-and-such a district" in the same manner as they are to-day. In those days, however, they labored under great disadvantages, in not being able to detect adulteration by chemical analysis. Probably it was not before the (lays of Francesco Redi, the Italian poet, physi- J cian and chemist, five hundred and fifty years ago, that accurate quantitive food examinations vvero made. Tie found, says Dr. Edward Gudeman. in a paper pepper to contain 5.1 per cent, of ash, and ginger to contain 5.'2 per cent. ash. He went further in his experiments, and ascertnined figures regarding the insoluble and soluble acids. We do the same thing, and our results are not more accurate than those of Eedi. with his lack of delicate apparatus. Tn (he Middle Ages we have no lack of data to show that pure-food regulations existed and were rigorously enforced. Nuremberg possessed a delightful sense of justice, and in 1444 burned alive one man with his adulterated saffron. A. somewhat like fate liefel a wine seller at P>ierberich. on the Rhine, in 1452. He had to drinksix quarts of his own wine. As he died from the effects it was regarded as proved that the wine was adulterated. RtiU he might have been innocent, for the time limit was not much over a minute. No one ever tolerated short weight in bread. Even in England men were roasted in their ovens for such an offence. In Augsburg offending bakers were, put into a casket, hung on a long pole, and ducked in a muddy pool. The operation was more often than not fatal. Jn cases where there was any doubt as to the actual offender all concerned, including the employees, were ducked. Mutilation was a common punishment in all countries, and the death penalty was by no means unknown. In fact, in the Middle Ages, adulteration of food was as heinous a crime as murder. So those people who hold that the food "faker" of to-day is let off too lightly, can appeal to history for support.