Law̕s grocers̕ manual : a practical guide for tea and provision dealers, Italian warehousemen, chandlers, drysalters, bakers, confectioners, fruiterers and general storekeepers / comp. and arranged by James J. Law.

Law, James J.

Date:: [between 1900 and 1999]

Credit: Law̕s grocers̕ manual : a practical guide for tea and provision dealers, Italian warehousemen, chandlers, drysalters, bakers, confectioners, fruiterers and general storekeepers / comp. and arranged by James J. Law. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$ss | Kew | Preface. é . . I5 \ + Ecc vthiie on earth is perishable, but most of the articles dealt in by. the trades here referred to are peculiarly so, and often deteriorate very * quickly, while very few improve by long keeping. Some are apt to ferment, Prose flavour, colour, or other virtue, and so become stale and useless, others get soiled and spoilt for sale from improper treatment in handling or storage. It is nod exaggeration to assert that many thousands of pounds worth of goods are lost or wasted yearly in retail shops from ignorant or careless management and other-preventable causes within the art of efficient aders or assistants to avert, or at least to minimise to a fraction by com- ges a little original thought with a wide gleaning of known facts. The system of packeting pores in small parcels with spicy titles, which has been coming more and more into vogue since 1856; when wholesale firms began grinding, has operated very unfortunately on the retailer. Not only has it undermined the probability of his ever obtaining any “ goodwill” for a business to which he may have devoted the labours of a lifetime, but in conjunction with an ill-considered Adulteration Act it has exposed im to other costly perils, such as—(1) the cupidity of unscrupulous im- orters, manufacturers, and wholesale dealers; (2) the traps and trickeries of heming inspectors ; ( 3) the errors and quibbles of incompetent analysts ; id (4) the idiosyncrasies or prejudices of different magistrates. It is oriously a scandal to justice and legislature alike that there is scarcely a cer in the country who has not been mulcted in fines or other expenses, and held up to ignominy through no fault of his own! Penalties for ee tion should admittedly be inflicted on guilty parties, but anyone at all acquainted with the inner workings of a retail concern knows that there practically no adulteration there, nor indeed anywhere else on the tler’s behalf. e8 The old crusted stories about wooden nutmegs, turnip preserves, sanded gar, hawthorn-leaf tea, &c., are probably too amusing ever to die out; ut if glucose be, as no doubt it often is, substituted for sugar in honey, larmalades, &c.; rotten figs for jam; exhausted spices for genuine; ground walnut shells for cinnamon ; powdered olive stones or fine earth for ground pepper; pellets of clay or coloured farina for peppercorns, coffee tries, &c. ; ; perfumed glue or paraffin wax at 2d. per lb. for gum at Is. per ., and so forth : everyone, even magistrates should know perfectly well at. it is not the retail shopkeeper who is the guilty counterfeiter, but the nufacturers with-extensive plant, the importers or the wholesalers, who in’ hundredweights and tons, and among the more unscrupulous of there is constant emulation as to who can discover, employ, and keep cret the cheapest substitute for any honest and wholesome ingredient itherto used. The fabrication-of the more costly products by syuthesis has oubtless been found highly lucrative! Tests have, of course, been dis- covered by which many forms of adulteration may be determined with sasonable certainty, and most of these have been noted in this book; but rtunately, sophisticators are no less expert and active. No sooner isa aluable test discovered than some way is found to circumvent it. Each knows remarkably well what it is selling and sending out, but the busy | ler is too frequently left in the dark as to what he jis buying. He locently sells it as received, trusting all is well, and only discovers the hen hauled before the magistrates, ruthlessly. fined, and often ruined }$