Before industrialism had reached its present development the statutes enacted against adulteration were severe. They punished it with the pillory and tumbrel. The following are the words of the statute:
"If any default shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through the great street where there be most people assembled, and through the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck; if a second time he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall through the great street of Cheepe, in the manner aforesaid, to the pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory, and remain there at least one hour in the day; and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to forswear the trade in the city forever."[55]
As the Encyclopædia puts it: "All this has given way to the force of free trade." In other words, freedom of industry has been interpreted to mean freedom of adulteration, and the Act of 1872 accordingly punishes adulteration with "a sum not to exceed fifty pounds," and only provides imprisonment in case of a second offence.[56]
It is interesting to take up any standard encyclopædia and read the cold-blooded accounts of the various poisons introduced into our food and other commodities for the purpose of adulteration. The matter has been well treated by Mr. W.J. Ghent;[57] and in spite of the fact that he is a prominent Socialist his book may be read, because in every case he cites an authority, and his authorities are, for the most part, reports of State Commissions and Health Departments.
It is probable that no article enters more universally into consumption than milk, and of all the articles that we consume, it is most important that milk should be pure, because it is the food of infants and children. Yet in spite of all the laws passed for the prevention of adulteration of milk, "in New York city, during 1902, of 3970 samples of milk taken from dealers for analysis, 2095, or 52.77 per cent, were found to be adulterated. The arrests in the city under the inspection acts were 193 in 1899, 460 in 1900, 464 in 1901, and 722 in 1902."[58]
The experience in Ohio has been just the same as that of New York:
"The Dairy and Food Department of that State was created in 1886. After seventeen years of inspections, arrests and prosecutions, adulterations of milk still continue. 'Out of 1199 samples tested by the chemists,' says the report for the year ending November 15, 1903, 'about one-fourth were found to be either below the required standard in solids and butter fats, or adulterated with that base adulterant known as "formalin" or "formaldehyde."'"[59]
Mr. A.J. Wedderburn calculates that 15 per cent of all our products are adulterated; that is to say, $1,125,000,000 per annum.[60] And this figure does not include adulterations of wine, whisky, beer, tobacco, drugs or patent medicines.
Of eleven samples of coffee compounds analyzed by the Pennsylvania Department in 1897-1898, "six contained no coffee whatever, and none contained more than 25 per cent. The contents ranged from pea hulls (65 per cent in one instance) to bran and the husks of cocoa beans."[61]
The Ohio Report of 1898, in describing what is called "renovated butter," says as follows: