Professor Mayer in 1883 made some experiments as to the digestibility and wholesomeness of butterine as compared with dairy butter. The experiments were made on two healthy male subjects; and the conclusion arrived at was, that there is not much difference between the digestibility of butterine and that of dairy butter. As to eggs or germs existing in butterine, whereby disease may be spread, there is as yet, happily, no instance on record. As far as nutritive qualities go, it stands on very nearly the same level as butter. We learn that an Act was passed, April 24, 1884, by the Senate of New York prohibiting the fabrication of any article out of margarine substances, intended to replace butter and cheese. A fine of one hundred dollars is attached to the breaking of the Act. In the preliminary inquiry made by a Committee, it is stated that twenty out of the thirty samples bought as dairy butter were proved to be butterine. The quantity of butterine manufactured and sent into the State of New York was estimated at forty million pounds annually. The ordinary butter, except the very best grades, was spoken of as rapidly disappearing from the market. One witness testified that something between one hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand packages of butterine, of fifty-five pounds each, were shipped at New York in 1882; and between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand packages in 1883. Another witness said that the gross receipts of the genuine butter-trade in New York are fifty per cent. less than what they would be but for the sale of butterine as butter. The passing of this Act is virtually a granting of protection for the American dairy industry, and gives effect to the voice of so far interested parties. Butterine has fared much better at the hands of scientific men. Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Frederick J. Bramwell, Sir F. Abel, Dr James Bell, and others, none of whom are in any way interested in its manufacture, have given a favourable verdict regarding butterine, looking upon it as a boon to the working population. Dr James Bell, in a paper read at the International Health Exhibition, said that butterine and oleo-margarine are, in the opinion of high authorities, legitimate articles of commerce, when honestly sold, and if made in a cleanly manner from sound fats, as they afford the poor a cheap and useful substitute for butter, especially during the winter months, when good butter is both scarce and dear.