ADULTERATION OF SPICES
THE Dutch at one time tried to control much of the spice trade but were
frustrated by the birds which carried the seeds and planted them in
other countries. We are strongly inclined to look upon the scheming
Dutchman with contempt for this selfish act, but there is to-day
hovering over spice products a greater evil, which makes one feel almost
like shedding tears of shame for the acts of men who adulterate spices.
If they would stop in their work long enough to ponder on the following
appropriate words, they might receive new light in their attempt to mock
Nature:
“Thou great first cause, and only cause direct,
All else existing, only in effect;
Cause and effect must harmonize and blend,
To doubt the cause, we need but doubt the end.
Perfection altered, would produce a flaw.
God cannot err, hence, cannot change His law.
First, follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard which is still the same.
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged and universal light.
Life, force, and beauty must all impart;
At once the source, and end, the test of Art.”
When the spice grinder will consider how hard it is to hide the spark of
Nature, whoever yields reward to him who seeks and loves her best, and
when the retail dealer of spices will remember that there is another man
on the other side of the counter who is entitled to his money’s worth,
then, and not until then, will the evil of the adulteration of spices be
done away with. A merchant who will, knowingly, sell to his customer
adulterated spices at the value of pure goods is worse than a thief,
because he not only robs them of their money but gives them poison for
their stomach.
Spice millers should not be counterfeiters! How can they afford to
imperil their reputation by advertising “scheme goods”? Let them grind
their spices to give Nature’s flavors as they grow in the balmy forests
of the East Indies. Let them not mix these spices to suit the price of
the retail dealer, but grind them pure, to please the tongue and the
palate, and then hang out their sign, as their business would suggest,
as spice millers or grinders, instead of “spice manufacturers.” If the
retail dealer of adulterated spices trusts a customer who will not pay
his indebtedness, he calls the man a rogue, but forgets that the greater
rogue is himself; that his customer has the law on his side, and that
his best witness is the adulterated goods which were sold him;
furthermore, this dealer is teaching to the clerk whom he has taken into
his employ, with a promise to teach the young man the trade and good
business principles of an honest merchant, the trade of a thief, and as
such teaches him to rob his employer. If the merchant breaks his part of
the contract, can he expect the clerk to keep his? If the clerk, trained
by the dealer in dishonesty, steals from the cash-drawer, would it be
right to discharge him with a tarnish on the good name he had when he
entered such employ? Let the dealer keep pure goods, and teach his clerk
their merit. By so doing, he can be twice armed when he is selling in
competition with a dealer of adulterations.
Let not the merchant profess to seek after the prosperity of the
country; let him wonder not that business is dull; that labor is
unemployed; that enterprise is dead, when he is doing all he can to
destroy business and commercial prosperity by undermining the public
confidence, which is the foundation upon which all commercial enterprise
rests. Nothing is more essential to business prosperity than a
confidence that prosperous, existing conditions will remain unchanged.
He who is helping to destroy that confidence makes himself a stumbling
block in the public highway of humanity and, as such, is a detriment to
mankind. He is the greatest enemy to self that humanity can produce. He
is like a vine which climbs the tree and obtains its life by sucking the
life of that to which it clings. No man can be a good citizen who will
wrong his fellow man simply because the laws of the country will protect
him or, in other words, will not punish him for such wrongdoing. A
miller or retail dealer of mixed or adulterated spices is as much a
criminal as the man who has ingenuity enough to shape a coin from alloy
and stamp it as a legal standard, or as one who counterfeits a bank
note, for all are guilty of illegal acts to obtain wealth. The
government punishes the counterfeiter of money, but the dealer in
adulterated goods is allowed freedom. The government will grant a patent
for the latest improvement in machinery for mixing spices, but it will
not grant a patent for a die to counterfeit bank notes.
The dealing in adulterations is not confined to the poorer dealers.
Among those who are guilty of this wrong we find the wealthy and those
professing to be Christians—men who shudder at a dishonest act, but they
apparently forget their duty to God and man. Is not such conduct
mockery? Is it not offensive to God? If not, where could we find that
which would be? Let men dare to do right if they wish to be successful
and respected. Let them dare to do right for the sake of their fellow
man who is striving for an honest living. Let them dare to do right and
not wait for the law to compel them. Let them remember that there is
something in an honest name which they cannot afford to lose! To the
consumer of spices, this should be said: Be willing your grocer should
live and obtain a profit for his work. Do not compel him to handle
adulterated goods by quoting him the price of his neighbor dealer who
sells the adulterated stock. Spices of high order are more costly, but
are cheap to the consumer by reason of excess of flavor and strength.
Let your dealer know you can appreciate a good article and, if he
handles adulterated goods, remind him “that he may fool all the people
some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but he can’t
fool all of the people all of the time.” [1]As an illustration of the
extent of the adulteration of spices, the fact may be cited that one
firm in New York City used and put upon the market in their spices more
than 5,000 pounds of cocoanut shells. To show how bold the custom has
become, the following quotation is copied from a journal devoted to
spices:
“All necessary information for spice manufacturing supplied.”
And the following advertisements appear:
“Manufacturers of spice mixtures and mustard. Goods made to order
for wholesale.”
“Grocers’ spice mixtures and cayenne pepper a specialty.”
Another reads:
“Manufacturers of all kinds of spice mixtures. My celebrated brand
of P. D. pepper is superior to any made; samples sent on
application. Goods shipped to all parts of the United States. Spice
mixtures a specialty.”
Out of all samples obtained at random from the miller or retail dealer,
one-half to two-thirds have been found to be adulterated. Such a state
of affairs is simply barbarous.
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Footnote 1:
Since the words on adulterations were written, the pure food laws of
the different states have been greatly enforced, which has reduced
adulterating almost to an entirety; but enough yet remains to make
them of value.
Cloves were prepared with the volatile oil extracted, and with the
cloves there were ground clove stems, roasted shells, wheat flour, peas,
and minerals. Allspice is ground with burnt shells and crackers, spent
clove stems and charcoal and mineral color. Ginger, with corn flour,
mustard hulls, coloring, and yellow corn meal.
Mace, with flour buckwheat, wild mace, and corn meal. Cayenne, with rice
flour, stale shipstuff, yellow corn meal, tumeric, and mineral red.
Cassia, with ground shells and crackers, tumeric, and minerals.
Cinnamon, with cassia, peas, starch, mustard hulls and tumeric, mineral
cracker dust, burnt shells, or charcoal. Pepper, with refuse of all
kinds, ground crackers, cocoanut shells, cayenne, peas, beans, yellow
corn meal, buckwheat hulls, nutmegs, cereal, starch, mustard hulls, rice
flour, charcoal, and pepper dust. Mustard, with tumeric for color, and
cayenne to tone it up, cereal starch, peas, yellow corn meal, ginger,
and gypsum.
By comparing prices in the following table of ground and whole spices,
we may see to what extent adulteration is carried on. This adulteration
is so largely practiced that it has given rise to a branch of the
manufacturing industry of great magnitude, which has for its sole object
the manufacture of articles known as “spice mixtures,” or “pepper dust,”
which are known to the trade by such technical abbreviations as “P. D.”
This is a venerable fraud, which has expanded with rapidity.
TABLE
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KINDS OF SPICE GROUND WHOLE
PRODUCT PRICE
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Cassia, Batavia, 7 to 7½ cents 10 cents
Cassia, China, 5¼ cents 42 cents
Cassia, Saigon, 36 to 40 cents
Cloves, Amboyna, 27 cents 32 cents
Ginger, African, 5 cents 8 cents
Ginger, Cochin, 13 cents 12 cents
Mace, 50 cents
Nutmegs, 110s, 48 cents
Pepper, black, 18 cents 18 cents
Singapore,
Pepper, black, West 16 cents 15 cents
Coast,
Pepper, white, 29 cents 32 cents
Penang,
Pepper, red, 9 cents 10 cents
Zanzibar,
Pimento, 5 cents
Mustard, yellow, 4 cents 12 cents
Mustard, brown, 5 cents 12 cents
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Of course, the above prices are standard for the year when the
comparison was made, but it is well to examine the figures as given and
compare the price of the whole spice with the ground. Such comparison
affords good indications of the extent of adulteration, since the meal
is sold below the cost of the whole spice. We now find this article put
up in barrels, as “P. D. Pepper,” “P. D. Ginger,” “P. D. Cloves,” and so
on through the entire aromatic list. Different cities use different
material for their pepper dust, using that which is most easily and,
therefore, most cheaply obtained in their locality.
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[Illustration:
Fig. 20. _Capsicum_
Fig. 38. LINSEED
Fig. 39. PALM SEED
Fig. 40. EXTERIOR HUSK OF RAPE SEED
Fig. 44. PURE CAYENNE PEPPER
Fig. 45. CAYENNE PEPPER, ADULTERATED]