depositor will not be liable to account, although he has received an excess, unless such loss occurred after he stored his wheat. (March term, 1887. Brown v. Northcutt, 14 Or., 529.) The deposit of wheat in a warehouse which has been mingled with the wheat of other persons in a common mass is a bailment, and the depositor does not lose his right thereby to reclaim it. Where a warehouseman ships wheat to a third party without the consent of the depositor, such depositor is not estopped from claiming damages for its conversion, unless by acquiescing in the acts of the warehouseman he has misled such third party. (April term, 1887. McBee v. Ceaser, 15 Or., 62.) WISCONSIN. Plaintiff being the owner of a certain quantity of wheat, which, with his consent, was stored in mass with that of others in a warehouse, after shipments had been made from the mass, until a quantity not greater than that due him was left, this was his absolute property as against the warehouseman, and any invasion of that quantity by the latter was a wrongful conversion, and plaintiff might follow the wheat wherever it could be identified. (June term, 1866. Young v. Miles, 20 Wis., 646.) Under both the warehouse-receipt act and the factor's act, if a principal empowers his factor to purchase and retain a negotiable warehouse receipt, or transfers to him possession of such receipt, the factor, having the apparent legal title (though clothed with a trust toward the principal), has power not only to sell but to pledge the receipt to one dealing with him in good faith; and notice that he holds the receipt as a factor is not notice of any limit of his power, as between him and his principal, to sell or pledge it, though such sale or pledge will not bind the principal if the vendee or pledgee has notice that it is made in violation of the principal's instructions. (August term, 1877. Price v. Wis. Marine & Fire Ins. Co., 43 Wis., 267.) ADULTERATION OF FOOD PRODUCTS. CONTENTS. Page. Review of the evidence taken by the Senate Committee on Manufactures.. 1 21 Digest of additional statements concerning baking powders... Digest of the laws of the United States and the several States and Territories relating to adulterated and unwholesome food 117 137 REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE TAKEN BY THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON MANUFACTURES. The Senate Committee on Manufactures was authorized by the Fifty-fifth Congress to investigate and ascertain what manufacturers adulterate foods and drinks, and which, if any, of such products are fraudulent. In accordance with this authorization, the committee held numerous sessions in Washington, Chicago, and New York between March, 1899, and February, 1900, inclusive, and heard the testimony of a large number of witnesses, including both professional chemists and physicians who had analyzed food products or observed their physiological effects, and persons practically engaged in the manufacture and sale of foods. Written statements were also received from a number of authorities who were not present in person. Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief Chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, besides stating the results of some of his own investigations, met with the committee in some of its sessions and took part in the questioning of other witnesses. The testimony taken by the committee makes a printed pamphlet of more than 600 pages. (Senate Report No. 516, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session.) Topical digests of this testimony and of certain additional statements afterwards submitted to the Senate in reply to some of the testimony concerning baking powder, together with a digest of the pure food laws of the various States, have been prepared in pursuance of Senate resolutions passed December 6, 1909, and January 6, 1901. The digests of testimony, etc., are by Charles E. Edgerton and Max West; that of the pure food laws is by E. Dana Durand. EXTENT OF ADULTERATION. There seems to be a general agreement that foods of American origin have improved in purity during recent years, except in certain particulars. Two witnesses call attention to the lack of pure American food products in former years and the consequent general use of foreign goods, but agree that American manufacturers are now producing even better goods than can be imported. Two explanations are given for the improvement-an advance in national character and the discovery that honesty is the best policy. It is sugested that more money is to be made out of pure foods honestly labeled than out of adulterated products.' Dr. Wiley has stated that probably 95 per cent of all food products have been adulterated at some time in some country; but he estimates that scarcely 5 per cent of the food products bought at random, other than spices and ground coffee, would now be found to be adulterated. Moreover, the adulteration which is injurious to health is much less extensive than that which is merely more fraudulent.2 Other witnesses who have analyzed foods have found very little injurious or poisonous adulteration. On the other hand, it is said to be impossible to distinguish injurious adulterations from those which are merely frauds, food which is wholesome for one man being unwholesome for another.1 Lead poisoning.—Attention is called to the danger of getting soluble salts of lead and tin from the accidental dropping of solder into canned vegetables and from the use of a large proportion of lead in the tin of which the cans are made. The excess of lead causes what is known as painters' colic." Another source of lead poisoning is the use of lead ir siphons used for mineral waters." MIXED FLOUR. A kind of terra alba known as mineraline, produced in a North Carolina factory, is said to have been used in an adulteration of flour. It is absolutely insoluble in the stomach, and serves as a mechanical impediment, loading up the stomach with a dead weight. Sulphate of lime or gypsum, ground to a white powder, has also been used as an adulterant of flour." It is not denied that before the passage of the mixed-flour law it was a common practice to adulterate flour with corn starch, corn flour, and, in some cases, with mineral substances; but the law is thought to have been effective in stopping nearly all the mixing of flour except in the case of such preparations as pancake flour, which are expected to be mixed. The increased confidence in American flour abroad resulting from the passage of the mixed-flour law is shown to have produced a decided increase in the exports of that commodity,' and the law is generally considered satisfactory, minor amendments only being suggested.10 BAKING POWDER. The consideration of the relative merits of baking powder made with cream of tartar and that containing alum gives rise to a number of unsettled questions. Two witnesses claim that the popular prejudice against alum baking powder is kept alive by advertising or reading matter paid for by the manufacturers of cream of tartar baking powder, elsewhere referred to as the baking-powder trust."1 Great stress is laid upon the relative cheapness of alum baking powder; 12 but, on the other hand, it is shown that it is much inferior in leavening power to that made with cream of tartar,18 and also that while it is sold at wholesale at very 1 Hanney, pp. 63, 64; Furbay, pp. 60, 62, 63. 2 Wiley, pp. 41, 585. Frear, p. 481; Jenkins, p. 449. 4 Vaughan, p. 202; Prescott, pp. 197, 198. 6 Wiley, p. 42. Edwards, p. 238. 7 Wiley, pp. 31, 32. Gallagher, pp. 3, 4, 5, 135, 136; Eckert, pp. 26, 27, 28; Wiley, p. 21. Gallagher, pp. 7-11, 136; Eckert, p. 27. 10 Gallagher, pp. 2,3; Eckert, p. 27; Furbay, p. 62. 11 Rew, pp. 87-89; Austen, pp. 531, 532; see also Delafontaine, n. 230 12 Austen, pp. 542, 543. 13 Weber, p. 605; Withers, p. 617; McMurtrie, p. 600. |