shall be labeled so as to plainly
indicate that they are mixtures, combinations, compounds, or
blends, and not included in definition fourth of this section.

"8. If it contains methyl or wood alcohol or any of its forms,
or any methylated preparation made from it."

These provisions, just mentioned, are provisions of the New York State
Health Law, and violations are in defiance of that law, the penalties
for which are specifically stated to be $100 for every such violation.

There is also in New York a police code that prohibits adulteration of
food, and in this code the adulteration of maple sirup or fruit juices
or spoiled articles of food of all sorts, of milk from which part of the
cream has been removed, and the sale of any article which is printed or
labeled in such a way as to misrepresent the article, is called a
misdemeanor, the penalty for which is left to the discretion of the
judge and which would, under ordinary conditions, be a fine of several
hundred dollars or imprisonment in a county jail for a term of months,
or both.

_Basis of pure food laws._

Adulteration of food may be considered from two points of view, the
hygienic and the economic, and, while the laws are generally intended to
preserve the public from impure food on account of the economic loss
involved thereby, the hygienic aspect is really the more important.
Adulterations which are plainly injurious to health are very few in
number, and it is rather desirable that the economic phase should be the
one to command attention of legislators, since, when that objection to
adulteration has been so voiced as to result in laws prohibiting
adulteration, the health of the public will be promoted by the
elimination of objectionable foodstuffs. The long-continued discussion
over the use of benzoate of soda in foods is an example of this twofold
aspect; some, arguing against its use, protested that when long
continued, it had a decidedly injurious effect upon the health of those
eating or drinking it; others objected to the chemical, but contended
that its use enabled spoiled fruits, like tomatoes, to be substituted
for fresh fruits, and the price of the latter obtained where the value
of the former only was given. No one seriously thinks that butter with a
small amount of butter color added could have any injurious effect upon
the human system, yet it is, in the eyes of the law, an adulteration
because its appearance indicates