ADULTERATION OF SUGARS.
On motion by Mr. FLETCHER his bill [S. 101] to prevent frauds in the adulteration of sugars was read the second time, with Committee amendments.
Mr. VAN VORHIS questioned whether there is much to be gained by the bill, except a lucrative field for the State Chemist, and whether there would be any benefit at all to the consumer. He favored this class of legislation, but of all other page: 238[View Page 238] things sugar is the one article that needs less legislation than any other. A great many other articles of food are adulterated in such a way as to be detrimental to health.
Mr. McCLURE, so far as this bill is concerned, could see no practical advantage to be derived from it. The retail merchants, to be safe from prosecution, would have to obtain an analysis of all syrups and sugars sold by them. In order to know they would not violate the law. He opposed the bill.
Mr. FLETCHER stated the following points in favor of the bill: There is scarcely a pure syrup or sugar sold. Glucose and other matters of adulteration are frequently injurious to health. Adulteration often exists in syrups as great as 90 per cent. Sugar 10 to 20 per cent, one house in Chicago using 20,000 bushels of corn per day for sugar and syrup adulteration. The starch sugar costs less than four centers per pound, but used for adulteration sells for eight to ten cents per pound. The bill does not make the adulteration unlawful. It demands that the quantity of adulteration shall be made known to the purchaser. The method of securing analysis and labels is precisely the same as on use for determining commercial fertilizers. It encourages the sugar industry in Indiana, encourages home growth and manufacture, and enables the Indiana farmer in making pure sugar and syrup and to dispose of such pure goods without the competition of cheap adulterations, sold as pure, at fancy prices. It protects all retail dealers. It works no hardship on dealers without the State who do an honest business. There are not exceeding a dozen sugar refineries in the Union, and these make perhaps six different grades of sugar. All the analysis any one refinery would have to make would be these, and these once made would be good indefinitely for that grade or brand. Grades of straight syrups are even fewer. Refiners would have, of course, to make analyses for the various wholesale dealers using their goods in Indiana. The bill does not take a single dollar out of the public treasury of Indiana. After a careful examination by the Committee of Agriculture, the bill has been reported back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do pass.
