90 THE ANALYST. THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD IN CANADA. THE Offioid Report on the Adulteration of Food in Canada, forming the Third Supple- ment to the Report of the Department of Inland Revenue of that province for the year 1878, is, &B it was last year, an extremely complete and carefully compiled blde book,THE ANALYST. 91 which-dthough only 813 samples were analysed ; this, however, being a fair proportion to the popdation-amounts to nearly 70 pages.The summary shows that adulteration is decreasing in Canada under the influence of the Adulteration Act in exactly the Bame way as we have found it decrease in England, under the administration of the Sale of Food Act. During 1877 a fraction over 50 per cent. of the samples were found adulterated, while during 1878 the percentage fell to 33.3, or exactly one third of the total number examined. There is one peculiar feature in the table, which might well be copied in the summary of the English reports, viz., a column is devoted to articles not returned as adulterated, but their composition is stated by the Analysts, and this shows that they are of doubtful purity.It is very desirable indeed that some such method should be adopted here, so as to enable Analysts to specifically mark cases wLere the inference is against the purity of the sample, although the evidence may not be sufficient to justify a distinctly advcrse report. Looking through the summary it appears that condiments and flavouring materials are very largely adulterated, the Report itself stating not with things injurious to health, hut with things of inferior value ; for instance, we find that 91 per cent.of the samples of allspice were adulterated, and 75 per cent. of the samples of coffee. Out of 80 samples of butter examined, 12-i.e., 15 per cent.-were found to be adulterated, and the Report states that the adulterated samples were, with one exception, found in the possession of market people or small dealers.Canned fruit was found to be adulterated in the proportion of one out of every five, and milk was found to be adulterated in 40 per cent. of the samples. In some cases this adulteration was simply deficiency of fat, but in a considerable number of cases it was water. The Analysts have been directing special attention to the adulteration of sugar, aid especially to the proportions of glucose found to be present in it ; this glucose amounted in one case to as much as 14 per cent.We quite agree that it may be necessary to fix a legal limit above which the presence of glucose should be held to be fraudulent; but judging from the character of the sugars of low quality put on to this market it does not appear to us at all probable that glucose had been purposely added in any of the cases referred to.It seems far more likely that a similar, although not identical fraud had been carried out by boiling the sugar in such a way as to produce a considerable proportion of glucose in it, so as to change its grain for the purpose of enabling a much larger drawback to be obtained from the Government when the sugar mas exported.It is scarcely a feasible thing to mix glucose directly with sugar ; but it is very easy to manufacture glucose in large quantities while the sugar is being concen- trated in the pans. The Report itself is a model of the manner in which adulteration returns should be published by the Government, every sample being separately reported on with the cfetails of the adulteration found, and the whole are tabulated in a convenient form for reference.If our Local Government Board could see their way to tabulate the 50,000 analyses which have been made by the English Analysts during the last four years, the result would be a collection of information which would be of inestimable value to hdysts and tradesmen in future. ~n cono1wion, we need do no more than point out that, in reference to milk, every92 THE ANALYST. sample anslysed by Messrs. Ellis, Edwards, La Rue, and Fraser, has been reported in a tabulated form so as to show the amount of fat, caseine, sugar, ash, and in nearly every case the percentage of water added.