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A point repeatedly brought forward for the defence, or at all events for the purpose of mitigating the fine, in adulteration cases, is the statement that defendant's goods have been analysed on former occasions and have been found genuine. As illustrating the slight value of analyses of previous samples may be taken the average laudatory analyses on patent or proprietary foods, drinks, or medicine. The manufacturer calculates—and calculates rightly—that the general public will believe that the published analysis of a particular specimen which had been submitted to the analytical expert by the manufacturer himself, guarantees all the samples on the market to be equally pure. History has repeatedly proved that in 99 cases out of 100 the goods found on the market fall below the quality indicated by the published analyses. Not long ago a case bearing on this matter was tried in court, where samples of cocoa supplied by the wholesale firm were distributed; but, when the retailer tried to sell the bulk of the consignment, he had repeated complaints from his customers that the samples were a very much better article than what he was then supplying. He summoned the wholesale dealer and won his case. But what guarantee have the general public of the quality of any manufacturer's goods—unless the Control System as instituted in Great Britain is accepted and applied ? Inasmuch as any manufacturer who joins the firms under the British Analytical Control thereby undertakes to keep all his samples up to the requisite standard; as his goods thenceforth bear the Control stamp; and as any purchaser can at any time submit a sample bought on the open market to the analytical experts of the British Analytical Control, free of any charge, to ascertain if the sample is up to the published and requisite standard, it is plain that a condition of things is created which not only protects the public from being cheated, but also acts most beneficially for these firms which are not afraid to supply a genuine article. The public are much more willing to buy an absolutely guaranteed article, of which each sample must be kept up to the previous high quality, rather than one which was good while it was being introduced, but as soon as it became well known fell off in quality and continued to live on its reputation alone.

The “greening” of preserved vegetables by addition of sulphate of copper can only be regarded as an abominable form of adulteration, and it is passing strange that in this year of grace 1904 it should still be necessary to endeavour to impress the fact, not only upon the public generally, but upon the Government authorities and upon those who are concerned in the administration of the Food Acts and in adjudicating under their provisions. It ought surely not to be necessary to insist upon the tolerably obvious fact that the admixture of poisons with food is a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, and that the deliberate preparation and sale of food thus treated should be visited with condign punishment. The salts of copper are highly poisonous, and articles of food to which sulphate of copper has been added are not only thereby rendered injurious to health, but may be extremely dangerous when swallowed by persons who happen to be specially susceptible to the effects of this poison. After a lengthy investigation, the Departmental Committee appointed by the Local Government Board to report on the treatment of food with preservatives and colouring matters condemned the practice of adding salts of copper to food and recommended that the use of these poisons for such purposes should be absolutely prohibited. Without any such investigation as that which was conducted by the Departmental Committee—and a most thorough and painstaking investigation it was—it should have been sufficiently plain that to allow or to excuse the practice in question are proceedings utterly at variance with common sense.

IN the last article it was pointed out that any form of starch as a substitute for milk sugar, the natural carbohydrate of human milk, was highly undesirable in an infant's food unless such food was to be administered under the supervision and control of a medical man. The same remark would also apply more or less to invalids' foods, and especially to brands containing raw, or only very slightly altered starch. Having regard to the object for which such preparations are intended ease of digestion is of the utmost importance, and it cannot bo contended that any starches in their natural condition can lay claim to this property. It is, however, possible so to prepare them that a very largo proportion of their weight is soluble in cold water, and where so prepared the objection is very largely removed.

This is the age of research. What was once a highly selective privilege in just a few professions that could be counted on one's fingers has since the last war become a feature of every conceivable branch of science and trade, to which millions in money are devoted. The connection often seems remote, if not a little spurious. Perhaps it may be due to the enormous emphasis on the teaching of science and technology in recent years, but we see what Sir William Dale calls “these turnspits of modern science” ready to undertake, and various official bodies to finance by grants, research into almost anything. The amount spent, for example, on cancer research through the years and all over the world, which incidentally has produced very little in the way of real advancement towards a cure, must be phenomenal, but it is now probably dwarfed by the colossal sums available for trade and market research. We even see research by opposing groups, one endeavouring to prove, the other to refute some particular hypothesis. Much of it appears to lack realism or to be of any great practical value and at too high a theoretical level, including masses of statistics, without which the younger generation of scientists appears to think research valueless, if not impossible.

After a few years away from the countryside, a brief visit to some farms in the heart of England reveals a changed scene. Farming is obviously prosperous and there are now many more young men farming; because of better conditions, older men have been able to retire and hand over to the younger man who has often attended an agricultural college and shows it in the methods he employs, especially in milk production Nowadays there seems to be a surfeit of machines, a greater use of machine‐milking, sometimes with pipe‐systems to cooler and direct to churns, without manual effort from start to finish. The rural water supply schemes and electrification between the two wars have revolutionised farming and taken the drudgery out of milk production. The farm kitchen is a revelation and the farmer's wife, young, strong, efficient, attractive and fashionable, surrounded with every electrical domestic appliance devised by the ingenuity of man, is as much changed as the farmer himself.

Much to the relief of everyone, the general election has come and gone and with it the boring television drivel; the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour/Trade Union movement with a severe beating, the worst for half a century, a disaster they have certainly been asking for. Taking a line from the backwoods wisdom of Abraham Lincoln — “You can't fool all the people all the time!” Now, all that most people desire is not to live easy — life is never that and by the nature of things, it cannot be — but to have a reasonably settled, peaceful existence, to work out what they would consider to be their destiny; to be spared the attentions of the planners, the plotters, provocateurs, down to the wilful spoilers and wreckers. They have a right to expect Government protection. We cannot help recalling the memory of a brilliant Saturday, but one of the darkest days of the War, when the earth beneath our feet trembled at the destructive might of fleets of massive bombers overhead, the small silvery Messerschmits weaving above them. Believing all to be lost, we heaped curses on successive Governments which had wrangled over rearmament, especially the “Butter before Guns” brigade, who at the word conscription almost had apoplexy, and left its people exposed to destruction. Now, as then, the question is “Have they learned anything?” With all the countless millions Government costs, its people have the right to claim something for their money, not the least of which is the right to industrial and domestic peace.

The author argues that contemporary college culture is predicated on hedonism indicated by a use of predominantly social time in which parties, alcohol, casual sex, and lax academics pervade students' experiences. Coincident with this culture, however, is a deleterious pattern among students that has developed dramatically: their compromised mental health. The situation presents an apparent paradox: why are many students suffering when enveloped by fun? This chapter draws a connection between fun and suffering by treating each as conditions that spring from the sociohistorical context that situates institutions of higher education. In so doing, a theory is set forth to explain why despair is rendered applicable and how it is institutionally installed in the minds of modern-day college students.

In a volume of the Cornhill Magazine published in the year 1860 we have discovered an article entitled “Adulteration and its Remedy” which well deserves the attention of those persons who imagine that we have made “wonderful progress” during the past half century and that the trade morality of to‐day is infinitely superior to the trade morality of the past. The unknown author of this article must have had a very clear appreciation of the nature of the gigantic evil upon which he wrote and of the character and probable effectiveness of the remedies to be applied. The adulteration of the period is described by him as a “strange, disgusting and poisonous demon” and while it is true that at the time, as shown by the revelations of the “Lancet Sanitary Commission,” there existed many forms of gross, disgusting and poisonous adulteration which are but rarely detected nowadays, our author's somewhat hyperbolic definition may still be regarded as applicable. For many of the grosser forms of adulteration prevalent fifty years ago were largely due to the ignorance of the adulterator. His prototype of the present day is no more troubled with moral scruples than he was. The dissemination and absorption of knowledge has not been accompanied, as some rabid “educationalists’ would have us believe, by any improvements in morality and virtue. The “faker ” of to‐day is merely a more skilful “faker” than his predecessor. He knows the value and makes full use of “expert” assistance, both scientific and legal, for the purpose of facilitating his escape—easy enough in any case—from what grip there is in that cranky and lumbering legislative machinery which is innocently supposed by the majority of people in this country to act as a sufficiently effective deterrent and repressant.

After great Wars, the years that follow are always times of disquiet and uncertainty; the country is shabby and exhausted, but beneath it, there is hope, expectancy, nay! certainty, that better times are coming. Perhaps the golden promise of the fifties and sixties failed to mature, but we entered the seventies with most people confident that the country would turn the corner; it did but unfortunately not the right one! Not inappropriate they have been dubbed the “striking seventies”. The process was not one of recovery but of slow, relentless deterioration. One way of knowing how your country is going is to visit others. At first, prices were cheaper that at home; the £ went farther and was readily acceptabble, but year by year, it seemed that prices were rising, but it was in truth the £ falling in value; no longer so easily changed. Most thinking Continentals had only a sneer for “decadent England”. Kinsmen from overseas wanted to think well of us but simply could not understand what was happening.