"The wholesale mealman frequently purchases this spurious commodity, (which forms a separate branch of business in the hands of certain individuals,) in order to enable himself to sell his decayed and half-spoiled flour. "Other individuals furnish the baker with alum mixed up with salt, under the obscure denomination of stuff. There are wholesale manufacturing chemists, whose sole business is to crystallize alum, in such a form as will adapt this salt to the purpose of being mixed in a crystalline state with the crystals of common salt, to disguise the character of the compound. The mixture called stuff, is composed of one part of alum, in minute crystals, and three of common salt. In many other trades a similar mode of proceeding prevails. Potatoes are soaked in water to augment their weight. When these detestable artifices have succeeded in producing on our health the effects that might be anticipated from them, we naturally send to our friend the apothecary's for a dose of glauber, or proceed to fortify our viscera by a course of tonics. Mark the sequel. Nine-tenths of the most potent drugs and chemical preparations used in pharmacy, are vended in a sophisticated state by dealers who would be the last to be suspected. It is well known, that of the article Peruvian Bark, there is a variety of species inferior to the genuine; that too little discrimination is exercised by the collectors of this precious medicament; that it is carelessly assorted, and is frequently packed in green hides; that much of it arrives in Spain in a half-decayed state, mixed with fragments of other vegetables and various extraneous substances; and in this state is distributed throughout Europe. "But, as if this were not a sufficient deterioration, the public are often served with a spurious compound of mahogany saw-dust and oak wood, ground into powder, mixed with a proportion of good quinquina, and sold as genuine bark powder. "Every chemist knows that there are mills constantly at work in this metropolis, which furnish bark powder at a much cheaper rate than the substance can be procured for in its natural state. The price of the best genuine bark, upon an average, is not lower than twelve shillings the pound; but immense quantities of powder bark are supplied to the apothecaries at three or four shillings a pound. "It is also notorious, that there are manufacturers of spurious rhubarb powder, ipecacuanha powder, James's powder, and other simple and compound medicines of great potency, who carry on their diabolical trade on an amazingly large scale. Indeed, the quantity of medical preparations thus sophisticated exceeds belief. Cheapness, and not genuineness and excellence, is the grand desideratum with the unprincipled dealers in drugs and medicines. "Those who are familiar with chemistry, may easily convince themselves of the existence of the fraud, by subjecting to a che mical examination either spirits of hartshorn, magnesia, calcined magnesia, calomel, or any other chemical preparation in general demand. "Spirit of hartshorn is counterfeited by mixing liquid caustic ammonia with the distilled spirit of hartshorn, to increase the pungency of its odour, and to enable it to bear an addition of water. "Calcined magnesia is seldom met with in a pure state. It may be assayed by the same tests as the common magnesia. It ought not to effervesce at all with dilute sulphuric acid; and, if the magnesia and acid be put together into one scale of a ba lance, no diminution of weight should ensue on mixing them together. Calcined magnesia, however, is very seldom so pure as to be totally dissolved by diluted sulphuric acid; for a small insoluble residue generally remains, consisting chiefly of silicious earth, derived from the alkali employed in the preparation of it. The solution in sulphuric acid, when largely diluted, ought not to afford any precipitation by the addition of oxalate of ammonia. "The genuineness of calomel may ascertained by boiling, for a few minutes, one part, with part of muriate of ammonia in ten parts of distilled water. When carbonate of potash is added to the filtered solution, no precipitation will ensue if the calomel be pure. "Indeed, some of the most common and cheap drugs do not escape the adulterating hand of the unprincipled druggist. Syrup of buckthorn, for example, instead of being prepared from the juice of buckthorn ber ries, (rhamnus catharticus,) is made from the fruit of the blackberry-bearing alder, and the dogberry tree. A mixture of the berries of the buckthorn and blackberrybearing alder, and of the dogberry tree, may be seen publicly exposed for sale by some of the venders of medicinal herbs. This abuse may be discovered by opening the berries: those of buckthorn have almost always four seeds; of the alder, two; and of the dogberry, only one. Buckthorn ber ries, bruised on white paper, stain it of a green colour, which the others do not. "Instead of worm-seed (artemisia santonica), the seeds of tansy are frequently of fered for sale, or a mixture of both. are "A great many of the essential oils, obtained from the more expensive spices, frequently so much adulterated, that it is not easy to meet with such as are at all fit for use; nor are these adulterations easily discoverable. "Most of the arrow-root, the fecula of the Maranta arudinacea, sold by druggists, is a mixture of potato starch and arrow-root. "The same system of adulteration extends to articles used in various trades and manufactures. For instance, linen tape, and various other household commodities of that kind, instead of being manufactured of linen thread only, are made up of linen and cotton. Colours for painting, not only those used by artists, such as ultramarine, carmine, and lake; Antwerp blue, chrome yellow, and Indian ink; but also the coarser colours used by the common house-painter, are more or less adulterated. Thus, of the latter kind, white lead is mixed with carbonate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion with red lead. "The eager and insatiable thirst for gain, which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention; and where lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of even a fellow creature's life is a secondary consideration. In reference to the deterioration of almost all the necessaries and comforts of existence, it may be justly observed, in a civil as well as a religious sense, that "in the midst of life we are in death." Melancholy as these details are, there is something almost ludicrous, we think, in the very extent to which the deceptions are carried. So inextricably are we all immersed in this mighty labyrinth of fraud, that even the venders of poison themselves are forced, by a sort of retributive justice, to swallow it in their turn. Thus the apothecary, who sells the poisonous ingredients to the brewer, chuckles over his roguery, and swallows his own drugs in his daily copious exhibitions of Brown stout. The brewer, in his turn, is poisoned by the baker, the wine-merchant, and the grocer. And, whenever the baker's stomach fails him, he meets his coup de grace in the adulterated drugs of his friend the apothecary, whose health he has been gradually contributing to undermine, by feeding him every morning on chalk and alum, in the shape of hot rolls. Our readers will now, we think, be able to form a general idea of the perils to which they are exposed by every meal. Even water drinkers are not safe, as the following extract will pretty satisfactorily demonstrate. "There can be no doubt that the mode of preserving water intended for food or drink in leaden reservoirs, is cxceedingly improper; and although pure water exercises no sensible action upon metallic lead, provided air be excluded, the metal is certainly acted on by the water when air is admitted: this effect is so obvious, that it cannot escape the notice of the least attentive observer. "The white line, which may be seen at the surface of the water preserved in leaden cisterns, where the metal touches the water and where the air is admitted, is a carbonate of lead, formed at the expence of the metal. This substance, when taken into the stomach, is highly deleterious to health. This was the reason which induced the ancients to condemn leaden pipes for the conveyance of water; it having been remarked, that persons who swallowed the sediment of such water, became affected with disorders of the bowels. con "Leaden water reservoirs were demned in ancient times by Hyppocrates, Galen, and Vitruvius, as dangerous: in addition to which, we may depend on the observations of Van Swieten, Tronchin, and others, who have quoted numerous unhappy examples of whole families poisoned by water which had remained in reservoirs of lead. Dr Johnston, Dr Percival, Sir George Baker, and Dr Lamb, have likewise recorded numerous instances where dangerous diseases ensued from the use of water impregnated with lead. "Different potable waters have unequal solvent powers on this metal. In some places the use of leaden pumps has been discontinued, from the expense entailed upon the proprietors by the constant want of repair. Dr Lamb states an instance where the proprietor of a well ordered his plumber to make the lead of a pump of double the thickness of the metal usually employed for pumps, to save the charge of repairs; be cause he had observed that the water was so hard, as he called it, that it corroded the lead very soon. "The following instance is related by Sir George Baker: "A gentleman was the father of a numerous offspring, having had one-and-twenty children, of whom eight died young, and thirteen survived their parents. During their infancy, and indeed until they had quitted the place of their usual residence, they were all remarkably unhealthy; being particularly subject to disorders of the stoThe father, during mach and bowels. many years, was paralytic; the mother, bilious obstructions. for a long time, was subject to colics and 66 6 After the death of the parents, the family sold the house which they had so long inhabited. The purchaser found it necessary to repair the pump. This was made of lead; which, upon examination, was found to be so corroded, that several perforations were observed in the cylinder, in which the bucket plays, and the cistern in the upper part was reduced to the thin ness of common brown paper, and was full of holes like a sieve.' "I have myself seen numerous instances where leaden cisterns have completely corroded by the action of water with which they were in contact: and there is, perhaps, not a plumber who cannot give testimony of having experienced numerous similar instances in the practice of his trade. "I have been frequently called upon to examine leaden cisterns, which had become leaky on account of the action of the water which they contained; and I could adduce an instance of a legal controversy having taken place to settle the disputes between the proprietors of an estate and a plumber, originating from a similar cause, the plumber being accused of having furnished a faulty reservoir, whereas the case was proved to be owing to the chemical action of the water on the lead. Water containing a large quantity of common air and carbonic acid gas, always acts very sensibly on metallic lead. "Water which has no sensible action, in its natural state, upon lead, may acquire the capability of acting on it by heterogeneous matter, which it may accidentally receive. Numerous instances have shewn that vegetable matter, such as leaves, falling into leaden cisterns filled with water, imparted to the water a considerable solvent power of action on the lead, which, in its natural state, it did not possess. Hence the necessity of keeping leaden cisterns clean; and this is the more necessary, as their situations expose them to accidental impurities. The noted saturnine colic of Amsterdam, described by Tronchen, originated from such a circumstance; as also the case related by Van Swieten, of a whole family afflicted with the same complaint, from such a cistern. And it is highly probable that the case of disease recorded by Dr Duncan, proceeded more from some foulness in the cistern, than from the solvent power of the water. In this instance, the officers of the packet-boat used water for their drink and cooking out of a leaden cistern, whilst the sailors used the water taken from the same source, except that theirs was kept in wooden vessels. The consequence was, that all the officers were seized with the colic, and all the men continued healthy." From water, a liquor not the most consonant to our taste, we gladly turn to wine, the inspirer of love and of valour, the friend of generous sentiments and heroic deeds. We sincere ly trust that our own wine-merchant, at least, can conscientiously plead not guilty to the following indictment: "It is sufficiently obvious, that few of those commodities, which are the objects of commerce, are adulterated to a greater extent than wine. All persons moderately conversant with the subject are aware, that a portion of alum is added to young and meagre red wines, for the purpose of brightening their colour; that Brazil wood, or the husks of elderberries and bilberries, are employed to impart a deep rich purple tint to red Port of a pale, faint colour; that gypsum is used to render cloudy white wines transparent; that an additional astringency is imparted to immature red wines by means of oak-wood sawdust and the husks of filberts; and that a mixture of spoiled foreign and home-made wines is converted into the wretched compound frequently sold in this town by the name of genuine old Port. "Various expedients are resorted to for the purpose of communicating particular flavours to insipid wines. Thus a nutty flavour is produced by bitter almonds; factitious Port wine is flavoured with a tincture drawn from the seeds of raisins; and the ingredients employed to form the bouquet of high-flavoured wines, are sweet-brier, oris-root, clary, cherry laurel water, and elder-flowers. "The flavouring ingredients used by manufacturers, may all be purchased by those dealers in wine who are initiated in the mysteries of the trade; and even a manuscript receipt-book for preparing them, and the whole mystery of managing all sorts of wines, may be obtained on payment of a considerable fee. "The sophistication of wine with substances not absolutely noxious to health, is carried to an enormous extent in this metropolis. Many thousand pipes of spoiled cyder are annually brought hither from the country, for the purpose of being converted into factitious Port wine. The art of manufacturing spurious wine is a regular trade of great extent in this metropolis. "There is, in this city, a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who work under ground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of liquors, and by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and valleys of France. They can squeeze Bourdeaux out of the sloe, and draw Champagne from an apple. Virgil, in that remarkable prophecy, Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva. Virg. Ecl. iv. 29. The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn, seems to have hinted at this art, which can vineyard. These adepts are known among turn a plantation of northern hedges into a one another by the name of Wine-brewers; and, I am afraid, do great injury, not only to her Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects.' "The particular and separate depart ment in this factitious wine trade, called crusting, consists in lining the interior sur face of empty wine-bottles, in part, with a red crust of super-tartrate of potash, by suffering a saturated hot solution of this salt, coloured red with a decoction of Brazil-wood, to crystallize with them; and after this simulation of maturity is perfected, they are filled with the compound called Port wine. "Other artisans are regularly employed in staining the lower extremities of bottlecorks with a fine red colour, to appear, on being drawn, as if they had been long in contact with the wine. ་ "The preparation of an astringent extract, to produce, from spoiled home-made and foreign wine, a genuine old Port,' by mere admixture; or to impart to a weak wine a rough austere taste, a fine colour, and a peculiar flavour,-forms one branch of the business of particular wine-coopers; while the mellowing and restoring of spoiled white wines, is the sole occupation of men who are called refiners of wine. "We have stated that a crystalline crust is formed on the interior surface of bottles, for the purpose of misleading the unwary into a belief that the wine contained in them is of a certain age. A correspondent operation is performed on the wooden cask; the whole interior of which is stained artificially with a crystalline crust of super-tartrate of potash, artfully affixed in a manner precisely similar to that before stated. Thus the wine-merchant, after bottling off a pipe of wine, is enabled to impose on the understanding of his customers, by taking to pieces the cask, and exhibiting the beautiful dark-coloured and fine crystalline crust, as an indubitable proof of the age of the wine; a practice by no means uncommon, to flatter the vanity of those who pride themselves in their acute discrimination of wines. "These and many other sophistications, which have long been practised with impunity, are considered as legitimate by those who pride themselves for their skill in the art of managing, or, according to the familiar phrase, doctoring wines. The plea alleged in exculpation of them is, that, though deceptive, they are harmless; but even admitting this as a palliation, yet they form only one department of an art which includes other processes of a tendency absolutely criminal. Several well-authenticated facts have convinced me, that the adulteration of wine with substances deleterious to health, is certainly practised oftener than is perhaps suspected; and it would be easy to give some instances of very serious effects having arisen from wines contaminated with deleterious substances, were this a subject on which I meant to speak. The following statement is copied from the Monthly Magazine for March 1811, p. 188. "On the 17th of January, the passengers by the Highflyer coach, from the north, dined, as usual, at Newark. A bottle of Port wine was ordered; on tasting which, one of the passengers observed that it had an unpleasant flavour, and begged that it might be changed. The waiter took away the bottle, poured into a fresh de canter half the wine which had been obje cted to, and filled it up from another bottle. This he took into the room, and the grea ter part was drank by the passengers, who, after the coach had set out towards Grantham, were seized with extreme sickness; one gentleman in particular, who had taken more of the wine than the others, it was thought would have died, but has since recovered. The half of the bottle of wine sent out of the passengers' room was put aside for the purpose of mixing negus. In the evening, Mr Bland, of Newark, went into the hotel, and drank a glass or two of wine and water. He returned home at his usual hour, and went to bed; in the middle of the night he was taken so ill, as to induce Mrs Bland to send for his brother, an apothecary in the town; but before that gentleman arrived he was dead. An inquest was held, and the jury, after the fullest inquiry, and the examination of the surgeons by whom the body was opened, returned a verdict of—Died by poison.” Mr Accum's details on the adulteration of wine are extremely ample, and so interesting, that we regret our limits prevent our making more copious extracts, and oblige us to refer our readers for farther information to the work itself. Having thus laid open to our view the arcana of the cellar, Mr Accum next treats us with an expose of the secrets of the brew-house. the wine-merchant and brewer are Verily, par nobile fratrum; and after the following disclosures, it will henceforth be a matter of the greatest indifference to us, whether we drink Perry or Champaigne, Hermitage or Brown stout. Latet anguis in poculo, there is disease and death in them all, and because it will poison us at about oneone is only preferable to the other, tenth of the expense. "Malt liquors, and particularly porter, the favourite beverage of the inhabitants of London and of other large towns, is amongst those articles, in the manufacture of which the greatest frauds are frequently committed. "The author of a Practical Treatise on Brewing, which has run through eleven editions, after having stated the various ingredients for brewing porter, observes, that however much they may surprise, however pernicious or disagreeable they may appear, he has always found them requisite in the brewing of porter, and he thinks they must invariably be used by those who wish to continue the taste, flavour, and appearance of the beer. And though several Acts of Parliament have been passed to prevent porterbrewers from using many of them, yet the author can affirm, from experience, he could never produce the present flavoured porter without them. The intoxicating qualities of porter are to be ascribed to the various drugs intermixed with it. It is evident some porter is more heady than other, and it arises from the greater or less quantity of stupifying ingredients. Malt, to produce intoxication, must be used in such large quantities as would very much diminish, if not totally exclude, the brewer's profit.' "The practice of adulterating beer appears to be of early date. By an act so long ago as Queen Anne, the brewers are prohibited from mixing Cocculus Indicus, or any unwholesome ingredients, in their beer, under severe penalties: but few instances of convictions under this act are to be met with in the public records for nearly a century. To shew that they have augmented in our own days, we shall exhibit an abstract from documents laid lately before Par liament. "These will not only amply prove, that unwholesome ingredients are used by fraudulent brewers, and that very deleterious substances are also vended both to brewers and publicans for adulterating beer, but that the ingredients mixed up in the brewer's enchanting cauldron are placed above all competition, even with the potent charms of Macbeth's witches: • Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark, For a charm of pow'rful trouble, "The fraud of imparting to porter and ale an intoxicating quality by narcotic substances, appears to have flourished during the period of the late French war: for, if we examine the importation lists of drugs, it will be noticed, that the quantities of cocculus indicus imported in a given time prior to that period, will bear no comparison with the quantity imported in the same space of time during the war, although an additional duty was laid upon this commodity. Such has been the amount brought into this country in five years, that it far exceeds the quantity imported during twelve years anterior to the above epoch. The price of this drug has risen within these ten years from two shillings to seven shillings the pound. "It was at the period to which we have alluded, that the preparation of an extract of cocculus indicus first appeared, as a new saleable commodity, in the price-currents of brewers'-druggists. It was at the same time, also, that a Mr Jackson, of notorious me mory, fell upon the idea of brewing beer from various drugs, without any malt and hops. This chemist did not turn brewer himself; but he struck out the more pro fitable trade of teaching his mystery to the brewers for a handsome fee. From that time forwards, written directions, and receipt-books for using the chemical preparations to be substituted for malt and hops, were respectively sold; and many adepts soon afterwards appeared every where, to instruct brewers in the nefarious practice, first pointed out by Mr Jackson. From that time, also, the fraternity of brewers'chemists took its rise. They made it their chief business to send travellers all over the country, with lists and samples exhibiting the price and quality of the articles manufactured by them for the use of brewers only. Their trade spread far and wide, but it was amongst the country brewers chiefly that they found the most customers; and it is amongst them, up to the present day, as I am assured by some of these operators, on whose veracity I can rely, that the greatest quantities of unlawful ingredients are sold." The following extract relates to the same subject, and we are glad to find by it, that none of the eleven great por ter brewers have ever been detected in any illegal sophistication of their beer. Mr Accum very properly gives us a list of those miscreants who have been convicted of adulterating their porter with poisonous ingredients, and want of room alone prevents us from damning them to everlasting fame, by inserting their names along with that of the Rev. Sennacherib Terrot, in the imperishable pages of this miscellany. That a minute portion of an unwhole. some ingredient, daily taken in beer, cannot fail to be productive of mischief, admits of no doubt; and there is reason to believe that a small quantity of a narcotic substance (and cocculus indicus is a powerful narcotic) daily taken into the stomach, together with an intoxicating liquor, is highly more efficacious than it would be without the liquor. The effect may be gradual; and a strong constitution, espe cially if it be assisted with constant and hard labour, may counteract the destructive consequences perhaps for many years; but it never fails to shew its baneful effects at last. Independent of this, it is a wellestablished fact, that porter drinkers are very liable to apoplexy and palsy, without taking this narcotic poison. "If we judge from the preceding lists of prosecutions and convictions furnished by the Solicitor of the Excise, it will be evident |