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Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc.

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No. 156.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1820.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

POISONING OF FOOD.

A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons; exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer,

Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Tea, Coffee,

Cheese, Pepper, Mustard, &c. &c. &c.
And methods of detecting them. By
Frederick Accum, &c. London, 1820.

pp. 372.

desire

PRICE 8d.

with in an adulterated state; and there are
he surely would have altered the excla-, single article of food which is not to be met
some substances which are scarcely over to
mation of Jacques,-
be procured genuine.

"As I do live by food I met a fool; "
for to be german to the matter, he
should say:-

:

"As I do die by food, I met a fool."

In short, Mr. Accum acts the part of
Dionysius with us; only the horse-hair

Some of these spurious compounds are comparatively harmless when used as food; and as in these cases merely substances of inferior value are substituted for more costly and genuine ingredients, the sophistication, though it may affect our purse, does not in

jure our health. Of this kind are the manufacture of factitious pepper, the adulterations of mustard, vinegar, cream, &c. Others, however, are highly deleterious; and to this class belong the adulterations of beer, wines, spirituous liquors, pickles, salad oil, and many others,

a

by which he suspends the sword over our heads allows the point gradually to enter the flesh, and we do not escape, like Damocles, with the simple fright There are particular chemists who make it As we may safely prognosticate that yet it is but justice to acknowledge, that this volume will soon be as widely dif-in almost every case he furnishes us fused as its curious and vitally important with tests whereby we can ascertain the porter or ale; others perform the same office character merits, we seize the earliest nature of our danger; and no man could regular trade to supply drags or nefarious to the wine and spirit merchant; and others opportunity of making it known to our do more towards enabling us to miti-preparations to the unprincipled brewer of readers, since in a very few weeks the gate or escape from it. Advising our readers to abstain from again to the grocer and the oilinan. The original would supersede, in every hand, our claim to novelty. We have heard perusing the annexed synopsis till after operators carry on their processes chiefly in ful establishment. at various times of this and that fraud, they have dined, that they may have secrecy, and under some delusive firm, with in the substitution of spurious and often one more meal in comfort ere they die, the ostensible denotements of a fair and lawdeleterious articles for the necessaries we proceed to the various heads under of life; but never could we conceive so which the author ranges his dread frightful a picture of imposition and vil-array. Of all the frauds (says he in his prelimilany as thus bringing the poisonous ingredients into one point of view pre-nary observations) practised by mercenary One has laughed at the whim- dealers, there is none more reprehensible, sical description of these cheats in and at the same time more prevalent, than Humphrey Clinker, but it is really im- the sophistication of the various articles of possible to laugh at Mr. Accum's exposition. It is too serious for a joke to see that in almost every thing which we eat or drink, we are condemned to swallow swindling, if not poison-that all the items of metropolitan, and many of country consumption, are deteriorated, deprived of nutritious properties, or rendered obnoxious to humanity by the vile arts and merciless sophistications of the their sellers. So general seems corruption, and so fatal the tendency of most of the corrupting materials, that we can no longer wonder at the prev1lence of painful disorders, and the briefness of existence (on an average) in spite of the great increase of medical knowledge, and the amazing improve-perienced judges. ment in the healing science, which disNo skill can pretinguish our era. vent the effects of daily poisoning; and no man can prolong his life beyond a short standard, where every meal ought to have its counteracting medicine. Had Shakspeare written now, in London, VOL IV.

sents.

food.

These illicit pursuits have assumed all the may severally claim to be distinguished as an order and method of a regular trade; they art and mystery; for the workmen employet in them are often wholly ignorant of the nature of the substances which pass through their hands, and of the purposes to which they are ultimately applied.

To elude the vigilance of the inquisitive, This unprincipled and nefarious practice, to defeat the scrutiny of the revenue officer, increasing in degree as it has been found diffi- and to ensure the secrecy of these mysteries, cult of detection, is now applied to almost the processes are very ingeniously divided every commodity which can be classed and subdivided among individual operators, among either the necessaries or the luxuries and the manufacture is purposely carried on of life, and is carried on to a most alarming in separate establishments. The task of It has been pursued by men, who, from signed to one individual, while the compo extent in every part of the United Kingdom.proportioning the ingredients for use is astheir concerns, would be the least obnoxious to form a distinct part of the business, and is the magnitude and apparent respectability of sition and preparation of them may be said to public suspicion; and their successful ex- entrusted to another workman. Most of the ample has called forth, from among the retail articles are transmitted to the consumer in a real nature cannot possibly be detected by dealers, a multitude of competitors in the disguised state, or in such a form that their the unwary. Thus the extract of coculus in same iniquitous course. dicus, employed by fraudulent manufac cating quality to porter or ales, is known in ostensibly destined for the use of tanners an I turers of malt-liquors to impart an intothe market by the name of black ertrate, Among the number of substances used in dyers. It is obtained by boiling the berries domestic economy which are now very gene- of the coculus indicus in water, and convertrally found sophisticated, may be distinguish- ing, by a subsequent evaporation, this deons liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mus-possessing, in a high degree, the narcotic cd-tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spiritu-coction into a stif black tenacious mass, berry from which it is prepared. Another tard, cream, and other articles of sub- and intoxicating quality of the poisnuous Indeed, it would be difficult to mention a substance, composed of extract of quassia

To such perfection of ingenuity has this system of adulterating food arrived, that where to be found, made up so skilfully as spurious articles of various kinds are every to battle the discrimination of the most ex

sistence.

and liquorice juice, used by fraudulent brewers to economise both malt and hops, is technically called multum.

The quantities of coculus indicus berries, as well as of black extract, imported into this country for adulterating malt liquors, are enormous. It forms a considerable branch of commerce in the hands of a few brokers :

yet, singular as it may seem, no inquiry appears to have been hitherto made by the officers of the revenue repecting its application. Many other substances employed in the adulteration of beer, ale, and spirituous liquors, are in a similar manner intentionally disguised; and of the persons by whom they are purchased, a great number are totally unacquainted with their nature or compo

sition.

An extract, said to be innocent, sold in casks, containing from half a cwt. to five ewt. by the brewers' druggists, under the name of bittern, is composed of calcined sulphate of iron (copperas), extract of coculus indicus berries, extract of quassia, and Spanish liquorice.

During the long period devoted to the practice of my profession, I have had abundant reason to be convinced that a vast number of dealers, of the highest respectability, have vended to their customers articles absolutely poisonous, which they themselves considered as harmless; and which they would not have offered for sale, had they been apprised of the spurious and pernicious nature of the compounds, and of the purposes to which they were destined.

The baker (he continues) asserts that he does not put alun into bread; but he is well aware that, in purchasing a certain quantity of flour, he must take a sack of sharp whites (a term given to flour contaminated with a quantity of alum,) without which it would be impossible for him to produce light, white, and porous bread, from a half-spoiled material.

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 halfspoiled 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 crystallise 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 inode of proceeding prevails.-Potatoes are soaked in water to augment their weight.

The practice of sophisticating the necessaries of life, being reduced to systematic regularity, is ranked by public opinion among other mercantile pursuits; and is not only regarded with less disgust than formerly, but is almost generally esteemed as a justifiable way to wealth.

It is really astonishing that the penal law

licly exposed for sale by some of the venders of medicinal herbs.

Instead of worm-seed (artemisia santonica), the seeds of tansy are frequently offered for sale, or a mixture of both.

is not more effectually enforced against practices so inimical to the public welfare. The man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the high-way, is sentenced to death; while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community, escapes unpunished. A great many of the essential oils obtained from the more expensive spices, are freThus devoted to disease by baker,quently so much adulterated, that it is not brewer, grocer, &c. the physician is easy to meet with such as are at all fit for called to our assistance; but here again use: nor are these adulterations easily disthe pernicious system of fraud, as it coverable. has given the blow, steps in to defeat the remedy.

Most of the arrow-root, the fecula of the Maranta arudinaeea, sold by drnggists, is a mixture of potatoe starch and arrow-root.

Nine tenths of the most potent drugs and The same system of adulteration extends chemical preparations used in pharmacy, are to articles used in various trades and manuvended in a sophisticated state by dealers who factures. For instance, linen tape, and vawould be the last to be suspected. It is well rious other household commodities of that known, that in the article of Peruvian bark, kind, instead of being manufactured of linen there is a variety of species inferior to the thread only, are made up of linen and cotton. genuine; that too little discrimination is ex- Colours for painting, not only those used by ercised by the collectors of this precious ine-artists, such as ultramarine*, carmine +, and dicament; that it is carelessly assorted, and lake ; Antwerp blue §, chrome yellow, is frequently packed in green hides; that and Indian ink; but also the coarser coinuch of it arrives in Spain in a half-decayed lours used by the common house-painter are state, mixed with fragments of other vege- more or less adulterated. Thus, of the lattables and various extraneous substances; ter kind, white lead ** is mixed with carboand in this state is distributed throughout nate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion †† Europe. with red lead.

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.

Soap used in house-keeping is frequently adulterated with a considerable portion of fine white clay, brought from St. Stephens, in Cornwall. In the manufacture of printing paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is added to the paper stuff, to increase the weight of the manufactured article. The selvage of cloth is often dyed with a permanent colour, and artfully stitched to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugitive dye. The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewellery, exceed belief.

It is so horribly pleasant to reflect how we are in this way be-swindled, It is also notorious that there are manu-be-trayed, be-drugged, and be-devilled, facturers of spurious rhubarb powder, ipe- that we are almost angry with Mr. Accacuanha powder, James's powder, and cum for the great service he has done other simple and compound inedicines of the community by opening our eyes, at great potency, who carry on their diabolical the risk of shutting our mouths for ever. 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 chenical examination either spirits of hartshorn, magnesia, calcined magnesia, calomel, or any other chemical preparation in general demand.

*

* Genuine ultramarine should become deprived of its colour when thrown into concentrated nitric acid.

+ Genuine carmine should be totally soluble in liquid ammonia.

Genuine madder and carmine lakes should

be totally soluble by boiling in a concentrated solution of soda or potash.

§ Genuine Antwerp blue should not become deprived of its colour when thrown into liquid chlorine.

|| Genuine chrome yellow should not effervesce with nitric acid.

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 berries, rhamnus catharticus) is made from the fruit of the blackberry bearing alder, and the dogberry tree. Á mixture of the berries of the buckthorn and blackberry bearing alder, and of the dogberry tree, may be seen pub.

The best indian ink breaks splintery, with a smooth glossy fracture, and feels soft, and not gritty, when rubbed against the teeth. soluble in nitric acid, and the solution should remain transparent when mingled with a solution of sulphate of soda.

** Genuine white lead should be completely

++Genuine vermilion should become totally volatilised on being exposed to a red heat; and it should not impart a red colour to spirit of wine, when digested with it.

His account of water is so fearful, that we see there is no wisdom in the well; and if we then fly to wine, we find, from his analysis, that there is no truth in that liquid bread turns out to be a crutch to help us onward to the grave, instead of the staff of life; in porter there is no support, in cordials no consolation; in almost every thing poison, and in scarcely any medicine, cure. But we proceed to particulars.

WATER.-It is to the presence of common air and carbonic acid gas that common water owes its taste, and many of the good effects which it produces on animals and vegetables. Spring water, which contains more air, has a more lively taste than river water.

Hence the insipid or vapid taste of newly boiled water, from which these gases are expelled; fish cannot live in water deprived of

those elastic fluids.

in part the cause of the putrefaction which kinds of damaged foreign wheat, and other
it is well known to undergo at sea, and of cereal grains mixed with them in grinding
are brought into market. They are called
the carburetted and sulphuretted hydrogen the wheat into flower. In this capital, no
wooden cask is opened, after being kept a
gases which are evolved from it. When a fewer than six distinct kinds of wheaten flour
month or two, a quantity of carburetted fine flour, seconds, middlings, fine middlings,
and sulphuretted hydrogen escapes, and the coarse middlings, and twenty-penny flour.
water is so black and offensive as scarcely to Common garden beans, and pease, are also
be borne. Upon racking it off, however, frequently ground up among the London
into large earthen vessels, and exposing it to bread flour.
black slimy mud, becomes clear as crystal,
the air, it gradually deposits a quantity of
and remarkably sweet and palatable.

It might, at first sight, be expected that the water of the Thames, after having received all the contents of the sewers, drains, and water courses of a large town, should acquire thereby such impregnation with foreign matters, as to become very impure; but it appears, from the most accurate experiments that have been made, that those kinds of impurities have no perceptible influence on the salubrious quality of a mass of water so immense, and constantly kept in motion by the action of the tides.

100 cubic inches of the New River water, with which part of this metropolis is sup Some traces of animal matter may, plied, contains 2,25 of carbonic acid, and 1,25 of common air. The water of the river ever, be detected in the water of the Thames; Thames contains rather a larger quantity of for if nitrate of lead be dropped into it," you common air, and a smaller portion of car-will find that it becomes milky, and that a bonic acid.

Rain water collected with every precaution as it descends from the clouds, and at a distance from large towns, or any other object capable of impregnating the atmosphere with foreign matters, approaches more nearly to a state of purity than perhaps

Even collected any other natural water. under these circumstances, however, it invariably contains a portion of common air and carbonic acid gas. The specific gravity of rain water scarcely differs from that of distilled water; and from the minute portions of the foreign ingredients which it generally contains, it is very soft, and admirably adapted for many culinary purposes, and various processes in different manufactures

and the arts.

From experiments, (continues the author, after describing the process of baking at length) in which I have been employed, with the assistance of skilful bakers, I ain authorised to state, that without the addition of alum, it does not appear possible to make white, light, and porous bread, such as is of the very best quality. used in this metropolis, unless the flour be

Another substance employed by fraudulent bakers, is subcarbonate of ammonia. With this salt, they realise the important consideration of producing light and porous called sour flour. This salt, which becomes bread, from spoiled, or what is technically how-wholly converted into a gaseous state during the operation of baking, causes the dough to swell up into air bubbles, which carry before them the stiff dough, and thus it renders white powder falls to the bottoin, which dis- the dough porous; the salt itself is, at the solves without effervescence in nitric acid. same time, totally volatilised during the opeIt is, therefore, (says Dr. Thomson) a com-ration of baking. Thus not a vestige of carThis salt is also largely employed by the bisbination of oxide of lead with some animal bonate of ammonia remains in the bread. cuit and ginger-bread bakers. matter."

There are a great many other ex-
on the various
cellent observations
sorts of water, and the modes of con-
veying and preserving them for use:
it appears generally that leaden pipes
and cisterns, and copper vessels are
highly dangerous; but we must refer
to the book for the details.

BREAD. We have already given a
taste of this subject, but the adulteration
of so important a necessary, demands
further notice.

Some rivers, however, that do not take This is one of the sophistications of the their rise from a rocky soil, and are indeed at first considerably charged with foreign mat- articles of fool most commonly practised in ter, during a long course, even over a richly this metropolis, where the goodness of bread cultivated plain, become remarkably pure as is estimated entirely by its whiteness. It is to saline contents; but often fouled with therefore usual to add a certain quantity of mud containing much animal and vegetable alum to the dough; this improves the look natter, which are rather suspended than held of the bread very much, and renders it whiter in true solution. Such is the water of the and firmer. Good, white, and porous bread, river Thames, which, taken up at London at may certainly be manufactured from good low water mark, is very soft and good; and, wheaten flour alone; but to produce the deafter rest, it contains but a very small por-gree of whiteness rendered indispensable by tion of any thing that could prove pernicious, the caprice of the consumers in London, it or impede any manufacture. It is also ex- is necessary (unless the very best flour is emcellently fitted for sea-store; but it then un-ployed), that the dough should be bleached; dergoes a remarkable spontaneous change, when preserved in wooden casks. No water carried to sea becomes putrid sooner than that of the Thames.

Whoever will consider the situation of the Thames, and the immense population along its banks for so many miles, must at once perceive the prodigious accumulation of antinal matters of all kinds, which by means of the common sewers constantly make their way into it. These matters are, no doubt,

and no substance has hitherto been found to
answer this purpose better than alum.

Potatoes are likewise largely, and perhaps constantly, used by fraudulent bakers, as a cheap ingredient, to enhance their profit. The potatoes being boiled, are triturated, passed through a sieve, and incorporated with the dough by kneading. This adulterThe bakers assert, that the bad quality of ation does not materially injure the bread. the flour renders the addition of potatoes adpurchaser, and that without this admixture a baker. Vantageous as well to the baker as to the in the manufacture of bread, it would be impossible to carry on the trade of But the grievance is, that the same price is taken for a potatoe loaf, as for a loaf of genuine bread, though it must cost the baker less.

I have witness, that five bushels of flour, three ounces of alum, six pounds of salt, one bushel of potatoes boiled into a stiff paste, and three quarts of yeast, with the requisite quantity of water, produce a white, light, and highly palatable bread.

Such are the artifices practised in the preparation of bread †.

WINE. It is sufficiently obvious, that few of those commodities, which are the obgreater extent than wine. All persons mojects of commerce, are adulterated to a Without this salt it is impossible to make derately conversant with the subject, are bread, from the kind of flour usually em- aware, that a portion of alum is added to ployed by the London bakers, so white, as young and meagre red wines, for the purwood, or the husks of elderberries and bilthat which is commonly sold in the metro-pose of brightening their colour; that Brazil polis.

The best flour is mostly used by the bis-
The
cuit bakers and pastry-cooks, and the infe-
rior sorts in the making of bread.
bakers' flour is very often made of the worst

+ There are instances of convictions on record, of balers having used gypsum, chalk, and pipe clay, in the man Lafcture of bread.

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wine is by some preparations of lead, which "The statute prohibits the brewer from possess the property of stopping the progress using any ingredients in his brewings, exof acescence of wine, and also of rendering cept malt and hops; but it too often hapwhite wines, when muddy, transparent. I pens that those who suppose they are drinkhave good reason to state that lead is certain-ing a nutritious beverage, made of these ingredients only, are entirely deceived. The beverage may, in fact, be neither more nor less than a compound of the most deleterious substances; and it is also clear that all ranks of society are alike exposed to the nefarious fraud."

berries §, 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 ad-
ditional astringency is imparted to immature
red wines by means of oak-wood saw-ly employed for this purpose. The effect is
dust, and the husks of filberts; and that a very rapid; and there appears to be no other
mixture of spoiled foreign and home-made method known, of rapidly recovering ropy
wines is converted into the wretched com- wines. Wine merchants persuade them-
pound frequently sold in the town by the selves that the minute quantity of lead em-
name of genuine old Port.
ployed for that purpose is perfectly harm-
less, and that no atom of lead remains in the
wine. Chemical analysis proves the con-
trary; and the practice of clarifying spoiled
white wines by means of lead, must be pro-
nounced as highly deleterious.

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 wincs, are sweet-brier, orisroot, clary, cherry laurel water, and elderflowers.

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.

Lead, in whatever state it be taken into the stomach, occasions terrible diseases; and wine, adulterated with the minutest quantity of it, becomes a slow poison. The merchant or dealer who practises this dangerous sophistication, adds the crime of murder to that of fraud, and deliberately scatters the seeds of disease and death among those consumers who contribute to his emolument.

Perhaps the following extract on this subject will convey information to the The sophistication of wine with sub-majority of our readers, though unconstances not absolutely noxious to health, is nected with the poisoning practice.

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.

The particular and separate department in this factitious wine trade, called crusting, consists in lining the interior surface 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 crystalize within them; and after this simula tion of maturity is perfected, they are filled with the compound called Port wine.

Other artisans are regularly employed in staining the lower extremities of bottle-corks with a fine red colour, to appear, on being drawn, as if they had been long in contact

When the must is separated from the husk of the red grape before it is fermented, the wine has little or no colour: these are called white wines. If, on the contrary, the husks are allowed to reinain in the must while the fermentation is going on, the alcohol dissolves the colouring matter of the husks, and the wine is coloured: such are called red wines. Hence white wines are often prepared from red grapes, the liquor being drawn off before it has acquired the red colour; for the skin of the grape only gives the colour.

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In the reign of Queen Anne, an act was passed prohibiting the use of cocculus indicus, or any other unwholesome ingredients in brewing; but it was not till our time that the adulteration of this beverage became so general and pernicious.

"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. 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.

Such

"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 memory, 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 proAll wines (besides brandy, or alcohol,) fitable trade of teaching his mystery to the contain also a free acid; hence they turn brewers for a handsome fee. From that blue tincture of cabbage, red. The acid time forwards, written directions, and refound in the greatest abundance in grape ceipt-hooks for using the chemical preparawines, is tartaric acid. Every wine contains tions to be substituted for malt and hops, likewise a portion of supertartrate of potash, were respectively sold; and many adepts and extractive matter, derived from the soon afterwards appeared every where, to juice of the grape. These substances de- instruct brewers in the nefarious practice, posit slowly in the vessel in which they are first pointed out by Mr. Jackson. From The preparation of an astringent extract, kept. To this is owing the improvement of that time, also, the fraternity of brewers' to produce, from spoiled home-made and wine from age. Those wines which effer- chemists took its rise. They made it their foreign wines, a "genuine old Port," by vesce or froth, when poured into a glass, chief business to send travellers all over the mere admixture; or to impart to a weak contain also carbonic acid, to which their country with lists and samples exhibiting vine a rough austere taste, a fine colour, briskness is owing. The peculiar flavour the price and quality of the articles manuand a peculiar flavour; forms one branch of and odour of different kinds of wines pro-factured by them for the use of brewers the business of particular wine coopers: bably depend upon the presence of a volatile only. Their trade spread far and wide, but while the mellowing and restoring of spoiled oil, so small in quantity that it cannot be it was amongst the country brewers chiefly white wines, is the sole occupation of men that they found the most customers; and who are called refiners of wine. it is amongst them, up to the present day, tors, on whose veracity I can rely, that the as I am assured by some of these operagreatest quantities of unlawful ingredients are sold."

with the wine.

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Casks are crusted as well as bottles;

separated.

BEER. If from wine we descend to

beer, we learn that we run still greater

but

The most dangerous adulteration of § Dried bilberries are imported from Germaay, under the fallacious name of berry-dye.

Sawdust for this purpose is chiefly supplied by the ship-builders, and forms a regular article

of commerce of the brewers' druggists.

risks.

"Malt liquors, and especially 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 commit

ted.

The author relates the origin and progress of Porter brewing, and gives a curious account of the "Entire Butt Beer," as it is called. From observing this "Entire" on all publicans signs, one would fancy that it was the ne plus ultra of admirable porter!

66

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Brandy and rum is also frequently sophisticated with British molasses, or sugarspirit, coloured with burnt sugar.

66

"It consists of some beer brewed ex-ed, at first, as minor crimes practised by to it a tincture of grains of paradise and pressly for the purpose of keeping: it like- fraudulent brewers, when compared with the Guinea pepper. These substances impart to wise contains a portion of returns from pub- methods employed by them for rendering weak brandy or rum, an extremely hot and licans; a portion of beer from the bottoms of beer noxious to health by substances abso-pungent taste. vats; the beer that is drawn off from the lately injurious. pipes, which convey the beer from one vat to another, and from one part of the premises to another. This beer is collected and put into vats. Mr. Barclay also states that it contains a certain portion of brown stout, which is twenty shillings a barrel dearer than common beer; and some bottling beer, which is ten shillings a barrel dearer; and that all these beers, united, are put into vats, and that it depends upon various circumstances, how long they may remain in those vats before they become perfectly bright. When bright, this beer is sent out to the publicans, for their entire beer, and there is sometimes a small quantity of mild beer mixed with it.

"The present entire beer, therefore, is a very heterogeneous mixture, composed of all the waste and spoiled beer of the publicans-the bottoms of butts-the leavings of the pots-the drippings of the machines for drawing the beer the remnants of beer that lay in the leaden pipes of the brewery, with a portion of brown stout, bottling beer, and mild beer."

But disagreeable as this, the best, is, there is below the lowest depth a lower still. "A more easy, expeditious, and economical method has been discovered to convert any sort of beer into entire beer, merely by the admixture of a portion of sulphuric acid. An imitation of the age of eighteen months is thus produced in an instant. This process is technically called to bring beer forward, or to make it hard.

The genu"The practice is a bad one. ine, old, or entire beer, of the honest brewer, is quite a different compound; it has a rich, generous, full-bodied taste, without being acid, and a vinous odour: but it may, perhaps, not be generally known, that this kind of beer always affords a less proportion of alcohol than is produced from mild beer. The practice of bringing beer forward, it is to be understood, is resorted to only by fraudulent brewerst.

If, on the contrary, the brewer has too large a stock of old beer on his hands, recourse is had to an opposite practice of converting stale, half-spoiled, or sour beer, into mild beer, by the simple admixture of an alkali, or an alkaline earth. Oyster-shell powder and subcarbonate of potash, or soda, are usually employed for that purpose. These substances neutralise the excess of acid, and render sour beer somewhat palatable. By this process the beer becomes very liable to spoil."

One would think that this were enough; but no !

To increase the intoxicating quality of The flavour which characterises French beer, the deleterious vegetable substance, called cocculus indicus, and the extract of this poisonous berry, technically called brandy, and which is owing to a small black extract, or, by some, hard multum, are portion of a peculiar essential oil contained employed. Opium, tobacco, nux vomica, in it, is imitated by distilling British molasses and extract of poppies, have also been used. spirit over wine lees; but the spirit, prior "This fraud constitutes by far the most to being distilled over wine lees, is previouscensurable offence committed by unprinci- ly deprived, in part, of its peculiar disagreepled brewers and it is a lamentable re-able flavour, by rectification over fresh-burnt flection to behold so great a number of charcoal and quicklime. Other brandy merbrewers prosecuted and convicted of this chants employ a spirit obtained from raisin crime; nor is it less deplorable to find the wine, which is suffered to pass into an incinames of druggists, eminent in trade, im- pient ascescency. The spirit thus procured plicated in the fraud, by selling the unlaw- partakes strongly of the flavour which is chaful ingredients to brewers for fraudulent racteristic of foreign brandy. purposes."

:

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 effi-
cacious than it would be without the liquor.
The effect may he gradual; and a strong
constitution, especially 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 well-established fact, that porter
palsy, without taking this narcotic poison."
drinkers are very liable to apoplexy and

To this appalling description, we shall only
add, that many other vile ingredients, worm-
wood, quassia, capsicum, grains of paradise,
&c. are used for similar purposes, and defy
chemical skill to detect them; and, finally,
that even the froth or cauliflower head, is
produced by a deleterious mixture called
beer-leading," composed of common green
vitriol, (sulphate of iron), alum, and salt.

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TEA. This substance has been so fully before the public of late, that we shall not enter into Mr. Accum's details, founded on the examination of Twenty-seven samples of imitation leaves !!!

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Oak saw-dust, and a spirituous tincture of raisin stones, are likewise used to impart to new brandy and rum a ripe taste, resembling brandy or rum long kept in oaken casks, and a somewhat oily consistence, so as to form a durable froth at its surface, when strongly agitated in a vial. The colouring substances are burnt sugar, or molasses; the latter gives to imitative brandy a luscious taste, and fulness in the mouth. These properties are said to render it particularly fit for the retail London customers.

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The following is the method of compounding or making up, as it is technically called, brandy † for retail:

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"To ten puncheons of brandy
Add flavoured raisin spirit
Tincture of grains of paradise
Cherry laurel water
Spirit of Almond cakes

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118

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1207

"Add also 10 handfuls of oak saw-dust; Arrack is imitated by adding a small quanand give it complexion with burnt sugar." tity of pyroligneous acid, and some flower or acid of benzoe to rum; and gin is doctored in a variety of fraudulent ways, which often render it expedient to fine it with a highly dangerous, because part of the solution of sub-acetate of lead-a practice, sulphate of lead produced, remains dissolved All the samples of spurious green tea (he in the liquor, which it thus renders poisontells us) (nineteen in number) which I have ous. Unfortunately, this method of clarityexamined, were coloured with carbonate of ing spirituous liquors, I have good reason to the preceding method, because its action is copper (a poisonous substance), and not by believe, is more frequently practised than means of verdigrise, or copperas". COFFEE, is counterfeited to an equal ex-more rapid; and it imparts to the liquor a hence some vestiges of lead may often be tent, principally by means of pigeon's beans fine complexion, or great refractive power; and peas. detected in malt spirit.

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"These sophistications may be consider

* Mr. Barclay has not specified the relative proportions of brown stout and of bottling beer which are introduced at such an augmentation of expence.

Mr. Child. in his Treatise on Brewing, p. 23, directs, to make new beer older, use oil of vitriol.

* Mr. Twining, an eminent tea merchant, asserts, that the leaves of spurious tea are boiled in a copper, with copperas and sheep's dung.

This operation forms part of the business of the so-called brewers' druggists. It forms the article in their Price-Currents, called Spirit Pla

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