cocoa, red oxide of iron is added. This almost invariably is more or less arsenical. Cocoa-shell, a perfectly valueless material, is mixed in a very finely ground state with cocoa of the commoner kind. Owing to the enormous increase in the consumption of so-called chocolate-creams, which are masses of sugar confectionery coated with a cocoa-paste containing a large proportion of the fat of cocoa (cocoa-butter), the quantity of cocoa-butter that is obtained in the manufacture of cocoa-powders is no longer sufficient to cover the demand. Substitutes of cocoa-butter prepared from cocoa-nut oil are manufactured on a large scale, and all enter without acknowledgment into chocolates or chocolate creams. As there are not any regulations touching the composition of chocolate, sugar or starch or both are used in chocolate manufacture, and especially in that of chocolate powders in often excessive quantities. In the Dutch mode of manufacture of cocoa-powders an addition of from 3% to 4% of an alkaline salt is made for the purpose of rendering the cocoa “soluble,” or, more strictly, for putting it into such a physical condition that it does not settle in the cup. This addition does not, as is often alleged, render the cocoa alkaline, and is not made with any fraudulent object; several countries, however, have passed regulations fixing the maximum of the addition which may thus legitimately be made. Most of the cocoa-powders sold in England are prepared in accordance with the Dutch method.
Wine.—If under this term a beverage is understood which consists of nothing but fermented grape juice, a great proportion of the wine consumed in England is not genuine wine. All port and sherry comes into commerce after having received an addition of spirit, generally made from potatoes; port and sherry would not be what they are and as they have been for generations unless they were thus fortified. The practice can now hardly be classed among adulterations. A well-fermented wine made from the juice of properly matured grapes does not require any added alcohol in order that it should keep; imperfectly made wine is liable to turn sour; the addition of alcohol prevents this. French wines, both red and white, are hardly subject to adulteration. In wine-growing countries like France wine is so cheap and plentiful that it would be difficult to manufacture an imitation beverage cheaper than genuine wine. In Germany the conditions are different, the districts from which those wines that are exported are nominally derived being small and insufficient to cover the world’s demands. The addition of sugar solution or of starch sugar is allowed within limits by German law, which not even requires that notification to the purchaser be made of the addition, and it is notorious that a very large proportion of the wine sold under the name of “hock” and some of that coming from the Moselle are thus diluted, sugared and lengthened, or, in plain terms, adulterated. Wines from the Palatinate which under their own names would not sell out of Germany are often passed off as hocks. As there is but little German red wine the law also permits this to be lengthened by the addition of white wine. For the removal of part of the acid from sour wine produced in bad vintages the addition of precipitated chalk is also permitted. Attention has been drawn in England to the very serious fact that German wines sometimes contain salts of zinc in small quantities. These are introduced by a fining agent protected by a German patent, consisting of solutions of sulphate of zinc and potassium ferrocyanide, which, when added together in “suitable proportions,” produce a precipitate of zinc-ferrocyanide which carries down all turbidity in the wine and is supposed to leave neither zinc nor ferrocyanide behind in solution. As a matter of fact, one or other of these highly objectionable substances is almost invariably left behind. The use of artificial colouring matters in wines does not appear now to occur.
Beer cannot be said to be adulterated, although it is well known that materials often very different from those which the general public believe to be the proper raw materials for the manufacture of beer, namely, water, malt and hops, are largely used. By the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1885, sec. 4, beer is defined as any liquor “which is made or sold as a description of beer, or as a substitute for beer, and which on analysis of a sample thereof shall be found to contain more than 2% of proof spirit.” That is to say, beer is legally anything that is sold as beer provided that it has 2% of proof spirit. There is not any restriction upon the materials that are employed provided that they are not positively poisonous. For Inland Revenue purposes, however, a prohibition has been made against the admixture of anything to beer after it has been manufactured, and excise prosecutions of publicans for watering beer are not infrequent. Formerly there was a restriction on the amount of salt that might be present in beer; this no longer exists. On the other hand it cannot be said that any injurious materials are being used by brewers, the brewing industry being, broadly speaking, most efficiently supervised and controlled by scientifically trained men. The addition to beer of bisulphate of lime, which is almost universally practised in England, is not an adulteration in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The thin beer which has taken the place of the strong ales of the past generation contains an insufficiency of alcohol to ensure keeping qualities, and it is difficult to see how modern English beers could be sold without the addition of some sort of preservative.
Non-Alcoholic Drinks.—The same remark applies to a good many of so-called temperance beverages. Of these again it is hardly proper to speak as liable to adulteration. So-called soda-water is very often devoid of soda and is only carbonated water, but the term “soda-water” is a survival from the times when this was a medicinal beverage and when soda was prescribed to be present in definite amount by the pharmacopoeia. Potash and especially lithia waters very frequently contain only mere traces of the substances from which they derive their names. The sweetness of ginger-beer and often of lemonade is no longer due to sugar, as used to be the case, but to saccharine (the toluol derivative), which is possessed of sweetness but not of nourishment; and since, as an antiseptic, it may affect the digestion, its use in these beverages is to be deprecated.
Vinegar ought to be the product obtained by the successive alcoholic and acetous fermentation of a sugary liquor. When this is obtained from malt or from malt admixed with other grain the vinegar is called a malt vinegar. Often, however, acid liquors pass under that name which have been made by the action of a mineral acid upon any starchy material such as maize or tapioca, with or without the addition of beet sugar. Dilute acetic acid, obtained from wood, is very frequently used as an adulterant of vinegar. When properly purified such acid is unobjectionable physiologically, but it is improper to sell it as vinegar. Adulteration of vinegar by sulphuric or other acids, formerly a common practice, is now exceedingly rare.
Spirits.—By the Sale of Food and Drugs Act Amendment Act, whisky, brandy and rum must not be sold of a less alcoholic strength than 25 under proof (corresponding to 43% of alcohol by volume), and gin 35 under proof (37% alcohol). For many years the only form of adulteration recorded by public analysts related to the alcoholic strength, the undue dilution of spirits with water being, of course, a profitable form of fraud. No addition of any injurious matters to commercial spirits has been observed. It was, however, well known that a very considerable proportion of so-called brandies was not the product of the grape, but that spirits of other origin were frequently admixed with grape brandy. A report which appeared in 1902 in the Lancet on “Brandy, its production at Cognac and the supply of genuine brandy to this country,” served as a stimulus to public analysts to analyse commercial brandies, and convictions of retailers for selling so-called brandy followed. It was shown that genuine brandy made in the orthodox style from wine in pot-stills contained a considerable proportion of substances other than alcohol to which the flavour and character of brandy is due; among these flavouring materials combinations of a variety of organic acids with alcohols (chemically described as “esters”) predominate. For the present a brandy is not considered genuine unless it contains in 100,000 parts (calculated free from water) at least 60 parts of “esters.', As a consequence a trade has sprung up in artificially produced esters, sold for the purpose of
