Since the portion of this bulletin relating to malt liquors was written, a bill has been introduced into the British Parliament dealing with the question of the use of substitutes for hops and malt in beer brewing; the text of this bill is as follows:1

A BILL for better securing the purity of beer. (A. D. 1887.)

Whereas it is expedient, with a view to enable the public to distinguish between beer brewed from hops and malt from barley and beer composed of other ingredients, to amend the law relating to the sale of beer:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

(Short title.) 1. This act may be cited as the Pure Beer Act, 1887.

(Declaration of ingredients on selling beer.) 2. Every person who sells or exposes for sale, by wholesale or retail, any beer brewed from or containing any ingredients other than hops and malt from barley shall keep conspicuously posted at the bar or other place where such beer is sold or exposed for sale, a legible notice stating what other ingredients are contained in such beer. Any person who sells or exposes for sale any such beer as aforesaid without complying with the above enactment shall be liable to a fine not exceeding in the case of the first offense five pounds, and in the case of the second or any subsequent offense twenty pounds. Any fine incurred under this section may be recovered summarily by any informer, and one-half of the fine shall in every case be paid to the informer.

(Definition of beer.) 3. In this act the term "beer" includes beer (other than black or spruce beer), ale, and porter.

(Commencement of act.) 4. This act shall come into operation on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight.

A BILL for better securing the purity of beer. (A. D. 1887.)

Whereas it is expedient, with a view to the better protection of the public from adulteration of beer, to amend the law relating to the sale of beer:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :

(Short title.) 1. This act may be cited as the Beer Adulteration Act, 1887.

(Penalty on selling beer containing other ingredients than hops and malt without giving notice.) 2. Every person who sells or exposes for sale by wholesale or retail any beer brewed from or containing any ingredients other than hops and malt from barley, shall keep conspicuously posted at the bar, or other place where such beer is sold or exposed for sale, a legible notice stating that other ingredients are contained in such beer.

1 Analyst, 1887, 99.

Any person who sells or exposes for sale any such beer as aforesaid, without complying with the above enactment, shall he liable to a fine not exceeding in the case of the first offense forty shillings, and in the case of the second or any subsequent offense ten pounds.

Any fine incurred under this section may he recovered summarily by any informer, and one-half of the fine shall in every case be paid to the informer.

(Definition of beer.) 3. In this act the term "beer" includes beer (other than black or spruce beer), ale, and porter.

(Extent of act.) 4. Tbis act shall not extend to Ireland.

(Commencement of act.) 5. This act shall come into operation on the first day of January, one thousand light hundred and eighty-eight.

This bill naturally excited considerable interest among food analysts, to whom would fall the duty of determining the question that would arise, under its enforcement, as to whether beers bad been made from bop or malt substitutes, and a circular was sent out by the president of the Society of Public Analysts to the members of the society drawing their attention to the bill and asking them to report to the secretary any information they might have on the points whether the substances used as substitutes for hops could be detected and identified with certainty by chemical analysis, and what opinion, if any, they might have as to the effect on health of habitual small doses of such hop substitutes.1

This circular called forth a few responses, among them the following paper by Mr. Allen:2