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132
To consider first of all adulteration, it is easy to see why this is
practised, when it is remembered that coffee costs half-a-crown a pound
and chicory only sixpence. It is thus highly profitable to adulterate
coffee with chicory—profitable, that is, until detection of the practice
is followed by a substantial fine. In the same way flour is added to
mustard, inferior flour to wheaten flour, pepper to ginger to increase
the pungency, barleymeal to oatmeal to improve the appearance, and
so on.
This sophistication of food by unscrupulous traders is no longer
common. Attempts on the part of the authorities to suppress this
undesirable practice have a history which goes back to very ancient
times. The early sanitary enactments of the Jews are still preserved
for us in the Old Testament, and those dealing with meat were
extremely strict. The ancient Egyptians have left records of food
adulteration; Pliny relates how bakers used to defraud their customers
by selling adulterated bread; and in both ancient Greece and Rome
wine was badly sophisticated.
In this country, bread, as a staple food was very early the subject
of legislation. In the reign of Edward IV, for example, we read that
the Lord Mayor of London "did sharpe correction upon bakers for
making bread otherwise than of floure and light of weighte, and caused
divers of them to be put in the pillory." Various minor enactments
were made dealing with other foods, the punishments for infringing
these rules ranging from a small fine to being dragged through the
streets on a hurdle, confinement in the pillory, and subsequent banishment
from the town or prohibition from carrying on the trade in
connection with which the fraud was perpetrated.
it was not until the early part of the 19th century that concerted
effort was made to legislate against defects in food production: and in
1875 there was passed an Act "To Make Better Provision for the
Sale of Food and Drugs in a Pure State." This Act repealed earlier
Acts dealing with adulteration, and it was the first of a series of Acts,
which, under the title of The Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875-1927'
constitute our means of dealing legally with food sophistication. These
Acts include a wide and intricate series of orders and regulations; but
the first Act of 1875 may be regarded as the starting point of food
legislation in this country. Earlier Acts were incomplete, unpractical,