Miss Alice Lakey, chairman of the food investigating committee of
the Food Consumers' League, made a collection, as the New York "Sun"
reported, of squares of flannel, a dozen of them, in brilliant hues of
green, red, pink, and other colors--all colored with the coal tar dyes
that came out of eatables and drinkables, she explained, adding: "It's
a wonder that our insides are not dyed all the colors of the rainbow.
"One of the meanest forms of adulteration I know," she further
remarked, "is the blackberry brandy, because that is bought for
invalids, aged and delicate persons, who hope to get a little strength
and appetite from it. Out of 600 samples examined, 460 contained no
trace of blackberries. They were made of crude spirits colored with
coal tar dyes.
"Did you ever hear the story," she continued, "of the kind-hearted New
York woman who invited a company of Italian girls who worked in a candy
factory to a Christmas party? She had an entertainment and Christmas
tree for them, and among other things was a box of fine chocolate
creams for each one. When they went away every child left her box of
candy on the chair behind her.
"'Why, aren't you going to take your chocolates?' said the surprised
hostess.
"'Oh, no,' they said in chorus; 'we make those!'"
That tells the whole story. The slaughter of the innocents and the
ruining of health of children by means of adulterated and poisoned
candies was for decades a national crime that would have justified
thousands of lynchings, if anything ever does justify such summary
meting out of punishment.
Dr. Shepard, State chemist of South Dakota, framed a series of menus,
on the plan of those published by the women's magazines, to assist
housewives in catering for families. Here are three, which show how any
family in the United States might have reasonably taken _forty doses of
chemical preservatives and coal tar dyes in one day_: