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114 jyi.-E LEADER, _ [No.358, Satubday,
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THE ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD. Adtdurations ...
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THE NEW ZEAL ANDERS. Traditions and Supe...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Quarterly Essays. Descriptive Essays, Co...
of engine-bouses and coal-mines were introduced to us through a medium more dio-mfied than that of the cheap Miscellany ; essentially frivolous , he printed bis trifles an the form of essays , or even as ' books , ' and the public seemed not unwilling to popularise them . "Whether he galloped over the Andes , or gossiped on the Brunnen of Nassau , or sketched an emigrant ' s hut , or travelled on a locomotive to Crew e , or photographed the seven beauties , of Woiverton , or wrote innocuous tittle-tattle about Paris , or gathered from , a fortnight's experience in Ireland materials for a commissioners' report , or sought to terrify all women that in England dwell about a French invasion , reading people have taken him in liand , and occasionally promoted him to the honours of a second edition . Such a writer ought to be well satisfied ; Indeed , Sir Francis B . Head is exceedingly well satisfied . He
has collected his " descriptive" Quarterly Essays ia two volumes , and on the azure cover has imprinted a golden allegory . The Quarterly Review , open , ¦ with its face downwards , forms a simple coop ; within , Sir Francis himself , in the guise of a proud hen , is watching a swarming brood ; and the little chickens , running in and out , are the . " descriptive essays . " Though not all worth preserving , they are generally readable . Sir Francis has a facile pen , and an aptitude for details . He recorded , when at Boulogne , that upon arriving in his bedroom , he opened his dressing-case , took < jufr his razor , prepared a lather , laid a piece o paper on the table to receive the products of bis cheeks and chirij and then shaved ! So minute a chronicler may be expected to deal faithfully with the topics under analysis ; but , unless the articles have been elaborately corrected since they were originally
published , a good many of them , must have lost their utility . Thus , the statistics of the London and North Western Railway , and of the General Post-OflGLce , as given by Sir Francis Head , possess only an antiquarian value ; while , in other essays , minute particulars are given which would interest a reader on the day following the particular occurrence alluded to , but would for ever after be as dull as a last year ' s newspaper . Nevertheless , the volumes contain gome really descriptive essays which are uncommonly amusing-, and to a considerable extent instructive . Among these is the article on the " Cornish Mines . " That on " English Charity" is a comparison of the old with the new system , naturally to the advantage of the newj for was not Sir Francis B . Head the assistant commissioner who mapped
out tke unions in East Kent , and whose interest it was to suppress the outcry against ther rigours of the amended law ? That on " Canadian Politics " is a virulent attack on Lord Durham , which might well have been omitted from the collection , inasmuch as it is the decision of a judge in his own case , for Sir Francis Head was pitted against Lord Durham . The article-in fact is neither more nor less than an outburst of splenetie personality . The volumes wiir no doubt attract many readers by the colloquial vivacity of their style and the popular character of their contents ; but the writings of Sir Francis Head are essentially shallow , and can acquire only an ephemeral reputation *
114 Jyi.-E Leader, _ [No.358, Satubday,
114 jyi .-E LEADER , _ [ No . 358 , Satubday ,
The Adulterations Of Food. Adtdurations ...
THE ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD . Adtdurations Detected ; or , Plain Instructions for the Discovery of Frauds in Food and Medicine . By Arthur Hill Hassall , M . D . Longman and Co . Th » work , invaluable to the professional man , is also of some interest to the general public , for it contains succinct accounts of the various adulterations to which food and medicines are subjected , and the means of detecting them . Two hundred and twenty-five microscopic illustrations greatly add to the value of the-work for those who happen to possess microscopes . When Dr . Hassall calls his instructions " plain , " he does not mean that they are instructions for the general public , "but for microscopists and analysts . He -would have added to the popularity of his work could he have given inore plain instructions for ordinary people—such , for instance , as the following : —
DETECTION OF ADULTERATED COFFEE . If the ground , coffee cakes in the paper in which it is folded or wlion pressed between the fingers , there is good reason for believing that it 5 a adulterated , most probablv with chicory . If , when a few pinches of the suspected coflfee are placed upon some water in a wineglass , part floats and part sinks , there is reason to believe that it is adulterated ; it may be eithor with chicory , roasted corn , or some other analogous substances . The coffee does not imbibe the water , but floats on the surface , while the other substances absorb the water , and gradually subside to the bottom to a greater or less extent . Usually , however , part of the coffee subsides with the chicory , and a portion of the latter remains on the surface with the coffee ; and after the lapse of a short time in general , both coffee and chicory fall to the bottom .
A . $ ytfn , if . the cold water to which , a portion of ground coffee has been added , quickly becomes tteeply coloured , it is an ovidenco of the presence of some roasted vegetable substance or burnt sugar ; for when coffee is added to water , it becomes scarcely c o loured , for some time . J « t ^ vSl ^ ' ^' *?* * * coffee ' sprcad out on a Piece of Slass and moistened with ^ f ! . lof ?« 1 * wat < V' « ™ « w * lea to pick out , by means of a needle , minute p ieces JSff L 5 flo ftcoimteucA the coffee U doubtlesa adulterated ; for the particles imSeVSu i ^ aten ****>»& and do not become eoft oven after prolonged «^ im ^ / in- ? Ught t (> , ° ^ , attention of Legislature to the frightful £ tt o 3 n « i ? y ?? Z ™ d ^ QmSt •***»*» . » d to the means of readily 2 ££ S « £ E $ F * " & \* » P ubhc P ^ utor , there should be a public aiuJyrt : our health ought to be P
proved i » 7 ^^? y SZ SX ^ MhWT ^ ^ ff j *^* permitVapSrSsotemn Some of the adulterations are said to I ™ l ^ -mu ,, -u . .., s ^^ 'fttt-at ^ jfrSwcSr ^? M 3 £ s saaittsi «** fflsausas ; mntulM how for thisatat « mout is «^ t ^^ 3 u ^ . £ 7 "" -Tk 1 * \ . n >* i > to w , mm i . «« . , m * ijssis'dS ^ ; r * a ss
genuine , and did not contain a particle of chicory ; also , that chicory was not ansli with coffee 5 u the houses of the wealthy , but that it was largel y employed , SJ separately or mixed -with coffee , by poor persons , and amongst the domestics n + because it * was considered to be an improvement , but on the score of economy chico costing about 2 d . or 3 d . per lb ., and coffee four or five times as much . This is a ? real secret of the use of chicory abroad , and not because of any preference , or that * t improves the flavour of coffee . Where money is not an object , and where the be t coffee is required , chic o ry is but seldom had recourse to . The practice , then , abroad is the very reverse of what has been asserted , and it affords no countenance to the statement that coffee is improved by the use of chicory .
Many , perhaps the majority , o the adulterations are practised for the sa ke of giving ; the articles that peculiar colour which an ignorant public fancies must be an indication of superior quality . Under the mask of this colour all kinds of impurities are hidden , and the colour itself is poison . Not to enumerate here the bonbons , pickles , preserves , and po-tted meats which are thus coloured , let us consider only Bread , the most important of all articles . We Londoners shudder at the poor Germans and their black bread ; yet the black bread , for the most part , is more wholesome than the brilliant white bread which we congratulate ourselves upon . Hear Dr . Hassall : ¦—The use of alum in bread—and it is almost always used by bakers —is partkiilarlu ¦
mjivnaus . It is true it causes the bread to be whiter than it would be otherwise indeed whiter than it was ever intended to be by Nature ; but it imparts to breai several other properties : thus it hardens the nutritious constituent of the bread the gluten , and so (^ on tie authority of that great chemist Liebig } renders the bread more indi gestible ; it enables the baker to adulterate his bread with greater quantities of rice and potatoes than he could otherwise employ ; and , lastl y , by the use of alunx he is able to pass off an inferior , and even a damaged flour , for one of superior quality . Is it then worth while , or rather is it not very foolish , thus to injure the properties o £ the bread by using alum for the mere sake of obtaining an unnaturally - white loaf ? The public , then , in judg ing of the quality of bread by its colour—by its whiteness
—commits a most serious mistake : there is little or no connexion between colour and quality ; in fact , very generall y , the whitest breads are the most adulterated . The public , therefore , should lose no time in correcting its jud gment on this point . A gain , the mistaken taste of the public for very white bread—which , be it kuovn , cannot be obtained even from the finest and best flour except by the use of alum or some other substance similar in its operation—tends to the serious injury of the bread in another way . The outer part of the grains of wheat has been proved by analysis to "be much richer i n n ourishing principles , in g luten and in oily matter especially , than the central and
more floury parts of the grain . Now , ia preparing the finer descriptions of flour , the utmost pains are taken to separate this hig hl y nutritious exterior portion of the grain , and thus , althoug h the flour so obtained is very fine and white—very suitable for making a white loaf , that fallacious test of quality- —it is yet not nearl y so nu t ritiou s as w hole meal flour , or even , the less finely dressed qualities of wheat flour . The consumer , now better instructed , is in a position to judge of how much-he sacrifices for the mere sake of an arbitrary and fallacious standard of quality , namel y , whiteness . The difference in nourishing properties between whole meal flour and very finely dressed flour amounts in many cases to fully one-third .
Further , alum is very apt to disorder the stomach , and to occasion acidity and dyspepsia . To this let us add the authority of Liebig : — Many salts render the gluten again insoluble , apparently by forming with it a chemical combination . The bakers of Belgium discovered , about twenty years ago , how to bake from , damaged flour—by adding- sulphate of copper ( a poison * ) to the dough—a bread in appearance and external properties as fine as from the best wheat flour . This mode of improving its physical properties of course deteriorates its chemical properties . Alum has the same effect as sulphate of copper : when added to the dough it renders the bread very light , elastic , firm , and dry ; and the London bakers , in consequence of the demand for white bread , such as the English and American flour , usually so good , y ields , appear to liave been compelled to add alum to all flour in the baking . I saw in an alum manufactory in Scotland , little mounds of finely ground alum , which was destined for the use of the London bakera .
Since phosphoric acid forms with alumina a compound hardly decomposable by alkalies or acids , this may perhaps explain the indigestibility of the London bakera ' bread , which strikes all foreigners . A small quantity of lime water added to the musty or damaged flour , has the same effect as the alum or sulphate of copper , witho ut b e ing followed by the same disadvantages .
The New Zeal Anders. Traditions And Supe...
THE NEW ZEAL ANDERS . Traditions and Supeislitiofis of the New Zealanders . By Edward Shortlaml , M . A . Longman aud Co . Within the last two years no less than three works have appeared on the subject of New Zealand traditions and superstitions—one by Sir George Grey , the late Governor of the Island ; a second by the-Rev . R . Taylor ; and another , the present volume , written by Mr . Sliortland . The time may probably corao when a sufficient fund of material will have been accumulated from the various sources scattered throughout the innumerable islands of the Pacific Polynesia , to enable some industrious and intelligent
labourer to embody , in a concise system , the superstitions and myths of their populations . By this means wo shall have an opportunity of analysing their relationship with the traditions o other nations , and tracing out their ethnological connexion . There can bo no surer guide to the cognate origin of peoples than their customs , language , and traditions . Thus , iu Africa , tribes remotely separated by geography can bo shown to have descended from the same ancestral tribo . The same lino of inference induces us to believe that the ancient -Mexicans and Peruvians found their way to the prairies and mountains of America from the coasts of Asia .
But , independently of the ethnological interest which an inquiry into such matters possesses , there ia frequently a charm in the structure aud spirit of the myths of the bettor class of savages which is highly attractive . There we have imagination still investing the objects of nature with supernatural attributes , aud creating forms and personages which carry us back to the days when fairies still ruled supremo over the fancy , and science and common sense had , not repudiated their , existence . The natives of New Zealand have their good and evil genii . They give to the forests and the rocks , to the . birds and the beasts , their particular sprites , whose goo evil disposition it is necessary to atir up or appease by incantations aud enchantments .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 31, 1857, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31011857/page/18/
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