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keeping qualities, is coming very largely into use,
especially amongst the poor. In London there are
over 50 different brands of condensed milk sold, and
new brands are constantly coming before the public.
Quite nine-tenths of these are made from skimmed
milk, though this fact is not very obvious on the label.
Several inquests have been held on children fed on
such milks who have, however, died from lack of
sufficient nutriment. It should be obligatory to label
such tins of skimmed milkwith a notice that they are
unfit for feeding infants. At present some are actually
labelled " recommended for feeding infants."
Butter shows this year an adulteration of 6| samples
per 100, consisting usually of an admixture of 80 per
cent, of beef-fat, known as margarine. Most of this margarine
is imported from abroad, so that the British
buyer of " butter" who may wish to help the unfortunate
English farmer, too often finds his cash
going into the pockets of the foreign grease merchants.
Groceries, though of great variety, showed a
marked freedom from adulteration, the only article
adulterated being coffee. Here, again, the adulterators
force us to support the foreign chicory
growers rather than the British capital expended in
coffee plantations. So long as chicory is one-fifth of
the price of coffee, the temptation to find that the
customer prefers a mixture, even when he asks for
"coffee," is likely to prevail with the unscrupulous.