Grocers' Goods / A Family Guide to the Purchase of Flour, Sugar, Tea, Coffee, Spices, Canned Goods, Cigars, Wines, and All Other Articles Usually Found in American Grocery Stores

by Frederick B. Goddard

Adulteration Laws.

Yet even this class of adulterated goods is objectionable, from the fact that there are always dealers who will be tempted to sell them as “Strictly pure,” thus defrauding the purchaser, out-reaching honest rivals and losing their own self-respect. Probably, therefore, most of the upright and leading grocers of the country would be glad to see wise and effective general laws passed against food adulterations, under which all could unite and be freed from unfair competition by the unscrupulous. But laws which will protect both the health and the pocket are difficult to frame and to execute without being sumptuary and oppressive. The most effectual and probably the best laws of the kind in this country at present are the enactments of Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and Michigan.