Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

But the magistrates’ decision carries no finality, and is not binding upon anyone else, so that the borough council may raise the question again, and prosecute the same firm for the same alleged offence in the same court. If, instead of selecting the same firm of manufacturers, which would have the appearance of vindictiveness, they bring an action against another firm which cannot afford the £200 to £300 required to win an action of the kind, and the case is tried before another magistrate, they may succeed in getting their victim heavily fined, and justice would thus be reduced to the absurdity that, while one magistrate held that there was no offence, his brother magistrate decided that a criminal offence had been committed. It may, perhaps, be mentioned that this is no imaginary picture, but is based on actual occurrences.

Another question which has been the subject of almost as many conflicts as the addition of preservatives is the colouring of preserved peas with a small trace of copper.

Many of the prosecutions have been successful, but quite as many have been dismissed. The public demands a green colour in the preserved peas it purchases, and it is apparently impossible to have this without the addition of copper.

Formerly a vigorous campaign was carried on in France to prevent any addition of copper whatsoever, but it was found to be impossible to enforce its absence, and the attempts to do so there have long been abandoned.

A better course than spasmodic prosecutions, frequently abortive, would be to fix a limit to the amount that might be used, and to render it obligatory upon the manufacturer to state prominently upon the label that the peas were coloured with copper.

It may be mentioned in this connection that Professor Tunnicliffe issued a minority report to the main report of the Departmental Committee, in which he recommended that the amount of metallic copper to be allowed in preserved vegetables should not exceed half a grain per lb., and that its presence should always be declared.

The colouring of sugar by means of tin salts stands upon a very different footing, for in that case the colouring is done with the definite object of deceiving the purchaser.

At one time, pure Demerara cane sugar, which was brown from the presence of certain vegetable impurities, had a great reputation for its fine flavour, and still fetches a higher price in the market than purified beet sugar.

This reputation has been traded upon by certain unscrupulous sugar dealers, who have discovered how to treat white beet sugar with a tin salt or with aniline dye-stuffs so as to give it the appearance of the old genuine Demerara cane sugar.

At present it is practically impossible to distinguish, except by the flavour, between absolutely pure beet and cane sugars, but the dyed product is a very different substance from the brown Demerara sugar, and there have been numerous convictions for the fraudulent substitution of the one for the other.