If one of the principal characteristics of our epoch, in a commercial point of view, is the immense progress which every department of productive industry has achieved, it must be admitted that the arts of adulteration and sophistication have more than kept pace with that progress. These arts have invaded the luxuries and necessities of both the rich and the poor - raiment, food, medicine, furniture, the means of life, and the requirements of disease; all that can be mixed, hackled, twisted, ground, pulverized, woven, pressed - all articles of consumption in trade, in manufactures, in the arts, in a word, all that can be made matter of commerce and be sold, is adulterated, falsified, disguised, or drugged.<br><br>Yet it is necessary to make a distinction, for many things are denounced as adulterated, which, strictly speaking, are not so.