ADULTERATION OF FOOD. (Hansard, 26 June 1855)

§ MR. SCHOLEFIELD

said, he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the adulteration of food, drinks, and drugs. Adulteration had so greatly increased of late years that some inquiry was absolutely necessary; but if fraud had increased so as to outstrip existing legislation, the means of detecting fraud had been still more increased by the knowledge which had been acquired of organic chemistry. A gentleman who had been a Member of that House, Mr. Wakley, to whom the public owed a debt of gratitude, had made some startling disclosures with regard to the adulteration which took place, although in the course of that task he was subjected to various annoyances, and even to threats of personal violence, and some of the details which that gentleman had published were well worthy of attention. He could adduce numerous and startling instances of the adulterations in food, &c., which wore practised, but he would content himself with giving the House a few samples 219 to show the average condition of those adulterations. He found that out of thirty-four samples of coffee all were adulterated except three; and in many instances there was really no coffee at all in the compositions. Chicory itself was adulterated very considerably with ground acorns, carrots, horse chestnuts, and stuff mixed with bullocks' liver. Out of fifty-six samples of cocoa eight only were genuine, and 30 per cent of the adulterated cocoas was clay. The adulteration of food, however, was not the worst. After people had been injured by adulterated food they were obliged to have recourse to medicine, but he was sorry to say that the adulteration in drugs was equally great, if not greater; in fact, there was hardly a single article in the materia medica but what had been found to be adulterated. Efforts to arrest the evil in France, America, and Prussia had been successful, and there was no reason why they should not be so in England.