THE ANALYST. JUNE, 1881. THE Health Exhibition opened this month at South Bensington affords another opportunity to the public, to learn the nature of the various ingredients used in the preparation of most of the articles of every-day consumption. Although the Exhibition ismost successfully arranged so as to display, in a prominent manner, all the articles connected with food, yet the public are only shown what is done by the most careful and respectable firms, whose names are a sufKcient guarantee that only materials of the highest quality are used in the preparation of the goods which they show. All who are connected with food produce know how, from time to time, the desire on the part of the consumer for cheap goods, is the cause of the introduction of articles called ‘( substitutes,” which are offered to the manufacturer at one-third tohe price of the genuine material, and which frequently consist of some cheap and simple preparation, the very opposite, in its chemical character, to the article €or which it is said to be an efficient substitute : several cases’of this kind have recently been brought to our notice.For instance, we have seen an article to be used as a substitute for tartaric acid, the composi- tion of which has been found to be acid sulphate of alumina in solution ; a substance which, if introduced into the manufactme of bread or biscuits, is as objectionable as alum, and quite as much an adulterant. Bisulphate of potash is also sold under a name similar to tartaric acid, and is equally as worthless as sulphate of alumina.These are only two instances out of many, and serve as an additional argument to show the keen competition in trade, which causes the manufacturer to produce, and unscrupulous firms to sell, such articles under ‘( Royal Letters Patent,” or some other heading of this sort, to attract the notice of the consumer. The public analyst, although, of course, he should be cognizant of these facts, has quite enough work for the remuneration paid to him, and in addition to this there is the fact thatthe Sale of Food and Drugs Act is so limited in its aim and scope, as to practically prevent the analyst from testing anything but the common articles of food, such as bread and milk, unless they are sold under some recognised name. Let him, once travel outside these lines, and a whole host of objections are raised.What is really wanted, is more stingent legislation, aimilar in character, to that at present in operation in the United States and Paris. We have several times printed in this Journal the monthly reports of the Paris Municipal Laboratory, showing the complete and thorough manner in which the food supply of that city is protected: why cannot something of the same sort be done i n London? What is wanted is a measure defining what is and what is not adulteration, and prohibiting the use of articles which are frequently employed at the present time, and the sale of which, while benefitting one class, seriously injures another, by substitu- ting an inferior article, for one of better quality. Considerable good would have been done by the Health Exhibition, had they exhibited a CRS~) of these so-called substitutes. The prominent display of this class of article in a National Exhibition, would have done much towards putting a stop to a trade, which, while it enriches tho nnaoriipulous trader, places tho honest manufacturer in an awkward positiou,