The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the working of the Adulteration of Food Act has been issued. The Committee has come to the conclusion that in the matter of adult teration the public "'are cheated rather than poisoned." Witnesses of the highest stan: ing," the Committee observe, "concur in stating that in the numerous articles of food and drink which they have analysed they have found scarcely anything absolutely in-juncus to health, and that if deleterious substances are occasionally employed for the purposes of adulteration they are ised in such minute quantities as to be comparatively harmless." The Committee have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the Adulte tion Act has done much good, while it has the same time inflicted considerable inju and imposed heavy and undeserved po upon some respectable tradesmen, Tt is commended that the two Acts to which their Inquiry lao had reference should be repealed, and another measure, consolidating and amending these statutes, substituted for them. it Iso suggested that the fraudulent austr tion of important po Hies of any commodity should be a punishable offence, and that the new Act should be made compulsory.
With regard to the adulteration of Tea, the Report runs as follows:—It appears that since the rej rt of 1858 certain grossly-p pared teas jove been imported from Chin: tome being largely mixed with exhausted Jeaves and ferruginous sand, and others much too highly faced or coloured; the ingredients used for colouring being chiefly Prussian-blue or indigo, powdered gypsum, and turmeric but the total amount of such teas has been small, and is kept in check mainly by th ice of pure teas. The i of recently fallen considerably, in con: quence, it stated, of the operations of the Act. Fs tea after the duty is paid was, prior to th of 1872, practised, to a small extent in this try; but whether in China or at hom idence is conclusive that in colouring tea no deleterious matter is used to such an extent as to be absolutely injurious to health; at the same time facing may be em-Ployed to conceal tea of "bad quality. Your mittee have reason to believe that very little adulteration of tea is practised in this country. They would further observe that defacing tea, or removing artificial colour, seems now much more common, but this process does not appear to extract the ingredients which form the base of the colouring' matter it simply removes the colour, leaving all the other materials on the tea. It is proved that the bright teas of China are always faced, and that the natural green teas of Japan, India, &c., are frequently of a colour hardly distinguishable from some quality of black tea. While condemning the practice of highly facing tea, your Committee cannot recommend that fairly faced green tea should be condemned as an adulterated article. Suggestions have been made that a certain percentage should be allowed for colouring matters and other impurities in yea. But your Committee consider that the limitation to a very small percentage of foreign matter would exclude from the country some wholesome low-priced teas, which are largely consumed by the poor, and if a les stringent, limit were ted, it might have the effect of increasing the amount of facing laid upon the better descriptions of green teas. It has been repeatedly suggested to your Committee that an examination of tea, for the purpose of detecting impurities, should be undertaken on land-thg ing by the Customs, and that all tea found to be seriously adulterated should not be admitted for home consumption. The Chairman of the Customs admitted that such an inspection of tea in bond could be undertaken by the Custom-house officers, and that the great bulk of the tea would require but a brief examination by good practical officials, whilst suspected samples could be analysed at the laboratory at Somerset House, Your Committee recommend that thisexamiuation should be made, as they believe it would practically atop the sale in this country of tea adulterated abroad, and relieve the retail dealer from the hardship which now arises from his being held answerable for certain manipulations of which he may be wholly ignorant,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.