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AND Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc. This Journal is supplied Weekly, or Monthly, by the principal Booksellers and Newsmen throughout the Kingdom: but to those who may desire he surely would have altered the excla- single article of food which is not to be inet with in an adulterated state; and there are some substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine. Some of these spurious compounds are comparatively harınless 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 injure 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. 1 In short, Mr. Accum acts the part of Dionysius with us; only the horse-hair 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 yet it is but justice to acknowledge, that in almost every case he furnishes us with tests whereby we can ascertain the There are particular chemists who make it nature of our danger; and no man could regular trade to supply drugs or nefarious do more towards enabling us to miti-preparations to the unprincipled brewer of gate or escape from it. porter or ale; others perform the same office to the wine and spirit merchant; and others again to the grocer and the oilman. The operators carry on their processes chiefly in secrecy, and under some delusive firm, with the ostensible denotements of a fair and lawful establishment. Advising our readers to abstain from perusing the annexed synopsis till after they have dined, that they may have one more meal in comfort ere they die, we proceed to the various heads under which the author ranges his dread array. food. a order and method of a regular trade; they These illicit pursuits have assumed all the may severally claim to be distinguished as an art and mystery; for the workmen employed 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. As we may safely prognosticate that this volume will soon be as widely diffused as its curious and vitally important character merits, we seize the earliest opportunity of making it known to our readers, since in a very few weeks the original would supersede, in every hand, our claim to novelty. We have heard at various times of this and that fraud, in the substitution of spurious and often deleterious articles for the necessaries of life, but never could we conceive so frightful a picture of imposition and villany as thus bringing the poisonous in- Of all the frauds (says he in his prelimigredients into one point of view pre-nary observations) practised by mercenary sents. 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 To elude the vigilance of the inquisitive, possible to laugh at Mr. Accum's exposition. It is too serious for a joke to and to ensure the secrecy of these mysteries, to defeat the scrutiny of the revenue officer, see that in almost every thing which we the processes are very ingeniously divided eat or drink, we are condemned to and subdivided among individual operators, swallow swindling, if not poison-that and the manufacture is purposely carried on all the items of metropolitan, and many in separate establishinents. The task of of country consumption, are deteriorated, proportioning the ingredients for use is nsdeprived of nutritious properties, or signed to one individual, while the comporendered obnoxious to humanity by the to form a distinct part of the business, and is sition and preparation of them may be said vile arts and merciless sophistications of entrusted to another workman. Most of the their sellers. So general seems the articles are transmitted to the consumer in a corruption, and so fatal the tendency of disguised state, or in such a form that their most of the corrupting materials, that real nature cannot possibly be detected by we can no longer wonder at the prey To such perfection of ingenuity has this the unwary. Thus the extract of coculus inlence of painful disorders, and the brief-system of adulterating food arrived, that dicus, employed by fraudulent manufacness of existence (on an average) in spurious articles of various kinds are every turers of malt-liquors to impart an intoxiwhere to be found, made up so skilfully as cating quality to porter or ales, is known in spite of the great increase of medical to baffle the discrimination of the most ex- the market by the naine of black extract, knowledge, and the amazing improve-perienced judges. ostensibly destined for the use of taimers and ment in the healing science, which dis- Among the number of substances used in dyers. It is obtained by boiling the berries No skill can pre- domestic economy which are now very gene- of the coculus indleus in water, and converts rent the effects of daily poisoning; and rally found sophisticated, may be distinguishing, by a subsequent evaporation, this deno man can prolong his life beyond aed-tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spiritu-coction into a stiff black tenacious mass, tard, cream, and other articles of sub- and intoxicating quality of the prisonous ous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mus-possessing, in a high degree, the narcotic berry from which it is prepared. Another Indeed, it would be difficult to mention a substance; composed of extract of quarsiz tinguish our era. short standard, where every meal ought to have its counteracting medicine. Had Shakspeare written now, in London, VOL IV. increasing in degree as it has been found diff- It has been pursued by men, who, from 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 ewt. to five cwt. 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. is not more effectually forced against prac- Thus devoted to disease by baker, licly exposed for sale by some of the venders of medicinal herbs. Instead of worm-secd (artemisia santonica), the seeds of tansy are frequently offered for sale, or a mixture of both. A great many of the essential oils obtained from the more expensive spices, are 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 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 me-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 comuch of it arrives in Spain in a half-decayed lours used by the common house-painter are During the long period devoted to the state, mixed with fragments of other vege- more or less adulterated. Thus, of the lat practice of my profession, I have had abun-tables and various extraneous substances; ter kind, white lead ** is mixed with carbodant reason to be convinced that a vast num- and in this state is distributed throughout nate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion †† ber of dealers, of the highest respectability, Europe. with red lead. 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 alum 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. 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. 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 Every chemist knows that there are mills weight of the manufactured article. The constantly at work in this metropolis, which selvage of cloth is often dyed with a permafurnish bark powder at a much cheaper ratenent colour, and artfully stitched to the edge than the substance can be procured for in its of cloth dyed with a fugitive dye. The natural state. The price of the best genuine frauds committed in the tanning of skins bark, upon an average, is not lower than and in the manufacture of cutlery and jew twelve shillings the pound; but immense ellery, exceed belief. quantities of powder bark are supplied to the apothecaries at three or four shillings a pound. It is so horribly pleasant to reflect how we are in this way be-swindled The wholesale mealman frequently pur- It is also notorious that there are manu-be-trayed, be-drugged, and be-devilled chases this spurious commodity, (which facturers of spurious rhubarb powder, ipe- that we are almost angry with Mr. Ac forms a separate branch of business in the cacuanha powder, James's powder, and cum for the great service he has done hands of certain individuals,) in order to en- other simple and compound medicines of the community by opening our eyes, a able himself to sell his decayed and half-great potency, who carry on their diabolical the risk of shutting our mouths for ever 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 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 mode of proceeding prevails-Potatoes are soaked in water to augment their weight. trade on an amazingly large scale. Indeed, Those who are familiar with chemistry * Indeed, some of the most common and cheap drugs do not escape the adulterating saries of life, being reduced to systematic of buckthorn, for example, instead of being The practice of sophisticating the neces-hand of the unprincipled druggist. Syrup regularity, is ranked by public opinion prepared from the juice of buckthorn berries, among other mercantile pursuits; and is not (rhamnus catharticus) is made from the fruit only regarded with less disgust than formerly, of the blackberry bearing alder, and the but is almost generally esteemed as a justi- dogberry tree. A mixture of the berries of fiable way to wealth. the buckthorn and blackberry bearing alder, and of the dogberry tree, may be seen pub It is really astonishing that the penal law Genuine ultramarine should become deprive of its colour when thrown into concentrate nitric acid. † Genuine carmine should be totally solubl in liquid ammonia. Genuine madder and carmine lakes shoul be totally soluble by boiling in a concentrate solution of soda or potash. § Genuine Antwerp blue should not becom deprived of its colour when thrown into liqu chlorine. Genuine chrome yellow should not effe vesce with nitric acid.* The best indian ink breaks splintery, wi a smooth glossy fracture, and feels soft, and soluble in nitric acid, and the solution sho gritty, when rubbed against the teeth. remain transparent when mingled with a so tion of sulphate of soda. Genuine white lead should be complet ++ Genuine vermilion should become tots volatilised on being exposed to a red heat; it should not impart a red colour to spiri 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. in part the cause of the putrefaction which kinds of damaged foreign wheat, and other * From experiments, (continues the author, after describing the process of baking at length) in which I have been employed, with It might, at first sight, be expected that the assistance of skilful bakers, I am authothe water of the Thames, after having re-rised to state, that without the addition of ceived all the contents of the sewers, drains, alum, it does not appear possible to make and water courses of a large town, should white, light, and porous bread, such as is acquire thereby such impregnation with fo- used in this metropolis, unless the flour be reign matters, as to become very impure; of the very best quality. Hence the insipid or vapid taste of newly but it appears, from the most accurate exboiled water, from which these gases are experiments that have been made, that those pelled; fish cannot live in water deprived of 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. those elastic Anids. 100 cubic ihes of the New River water, with which part of this metropolis is sup plied, contains 2,25 of carbonic acid, and Some traces of animal matter may, how1,25 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 white powder falls to the bottom, which dis- cellent observations on Another substance employed by fraudulent bakers, is subcarbonate of ammonia. With this salt, they realise the important consideration of producing light and porous bread, from spoiled, or what is technically called sour flour. This salt, which becomes 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 the dough porous; the salt itself is, at the same time, totally volatilised during the operation of baking. Thus not a vestige of carbonate of ammonia remains in the bread. This salt is also largely employed by the biscuit and ginger-bread bakers. 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 adulter any other natural water. Even collected 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 por-highly dangerous; but we must referation does not materially injure the bread. tions of the foreign ingredients which it gene- to the book for the details. rally contains, it is very soft, and admirably adapted for many culinary purposes, and various processes in different manufactures and the arts. BREAD. We have already given a taste of this subject, but the adulteration of so important a necessary, demands further notice. The bakers assert, that the bad quality of the flour renders the addition of potatoes adVantageous as well to the baker as to the purchaser, and that without this admixture in the manufacture of bread, it would be impossible to carry on the trade of a baker. 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. Some rivers, however, that do not take their rise from a rocky soil, and are indeed at This is one of the sophistications of the first considerably charged with foreign mat-articles of food 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 I have witness, that five bushels of flour, mud containing much animal and vegetable alum to the dough; this improves the look three ounces of alum, six pounds of salt, matter, which are rather suspended than held of the bread very much, and renders it whiter one bushel of potatoes boiled into a stiff in true solution. Such is the water of the and firmer. Good, white, and porous bread, paste, and three quarts of yeast, with the river Thames, which, taken up at London at may certainly be manufactured from good requisite quantity of water, produce a white, low water mark, is very soft and good; and, wheaten flour alone; but to produce the de-light, and highly palatable bread. after 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, and no substance has hitherto been found to when preserved in wooden casks. No water answer this purpose better than alum. 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 animal matters of all kinds, which by means of the common sewers constantly make their way into it. These matters are, no doubt, Without this salt it is impossible to make bread, from the kind of flour usually employed by the London bakers, so white, as that which is commonly sold in the metropolis. The best flour is mostly used by the biscuit bakers and pastry-cooks, and the inferior sorts in the making of bread. The bakers' flour is very often made of the worst Such are the artifices practised in the preparation of bread †. WINE. 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 bil berries §, are employed to impart a deep | wine is by some preparations of lead, which 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 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 thempound frequently sold in the town by the selves that the minute quantity of lead emname of genuine old Port. ployed for that purpose is perfectly harm-farious fraud." less, and that no atom of lead remains in the In the reign of Queen Anne, an act was wine. Chemical analysis proves the con- passed prohibiting the use of cocculus inditrary; and the practice of clarifying spoiled cus, or any other unwholesome ingredients white wines by means of lead, must be pro-in brewing; but it was not till our time that nounced as highly deleterious. the adulteration of this beverage became so general and pernicious. "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. 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 inore 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 ne 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, 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 metro polis. Many thousand pipes of spoiled cyder are annually brought hither froin 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 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 bottle-corks with a fine red colour, to appear, on being drawn, as if they had been long in contact with the wine. 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 remain 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. 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 has been the amount brought into this counduty was laid upon this commodity. Such try 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 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-books 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 kept. To this is owing the improvement of that time, also, the fraternity of brewers' wine from age. Those wines which effer- chemists took its rise. They made it their vesce or froth, when poured into a glass, chief business to send travellers all over the contain also carbonic acid, to which their country with lists and samples exhibiting briskness is owing. The peculiar flavour the price and quality of the articles manuand odour of different kinds of wines pro-factured by them for the use of brewers bably depend upon the presence of a volatile oil, so small in quantity that it cannot be separated. only. Their trade spread far and wide, but it was amongst the country brewers chiefly that they found the most customers; and as I am assured by some of these operait is amongst them, up to the present day, tors, on whose veracity I can rely, that the greatest quantities of unlawful ingredients are sold." 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 is was the ne plus ultra of admirable porter ! |