Although it is generally acknowledged that the representations of the ephemeral writer who lately excited so much public notice, were no less preposterous than the symbols which decorated his volume,[576] yet it cannot be denied that a great part of our daily food, and a still greater portion of our luxuries, are the constant objects of fraudulent adulteration; and what reasonable hope can be entertained of any amendment, while the temptations remain so excessive, the detection so difficult, and the punishment so inadequate to the crime; or, above all, while the trouble and expense of prosecution continue to be so disproportioned to the injury sustained by an individual, as to prevent his seeking redress through the ordinary channels of the law? these observations, perhaps, apply with greater force to the adulteration of articles not subject to the revenue duties of excise or customs, such as bread, milk, &c. Against the substitution or sophistication of those whose sale enriches the treasury, we have numerous enactments, and were we to form our judgment from them alone, we should conclude that fraudulent adulterations were rather deprecated as offences against the revenue, than against the health of the citizen. It is, however, important to remark, that if the health of any person be impaired in consequence of the act of another, as by selling him bad wine, which injures the party’s health, an action (viz. a trespass on the case) will lie. 2 _Espin N. P._ 601; 1 _Rolle Abr._ 90. The adulteration of bread[577] is specially prohibited by several statutes; the 31 _Geo._ 2, _c._ 29, entitled “An act for the due making of bread, and to regulate the price and assize thereof, and to punish persons who shall adulterate meal, flour, or bread;” after reciting the[578] 51 _Hen._ 3, and 8 _Anne, c._ 18, and making various regulations as to the assize, enacts that bread made for sale shall be of meal or flour, and that no alum, or preparation or mixture in which alum shall be an ingredient, or any other mixture or ingredient whatsoever (except only the genuine meal or flour which ought to be put therein, and common salt, pure water, eggs, milk, yeast, and barm, or such leaven as shall at any time be allowed to be put therein by the court or magistrates.) And that no person shall knowingly put into any corn, meal, or flour, which shall be ground, dressed, bolted, or manufactured for sale, any ingredient, mixture, or thing whatsoever, or shall knowingly sell any thing which shall not be real and genuine meal or flour of the grain the same shall import to be.[579]