Chapter IV: Part 4

"Sandys, the translator of 'Ovid's Metamorphoses,' and who travelled
in Turkey in 1610, gives the following passage in his 'Travailes,'
page 51 (edit. 1657). Speaking of the Turks, he says, 'Although they
be destitute of taverns, yet they have their coffee-houses, which
sometimes resemble them. There sit they chatting most of the day, and
sip of a drink called coffa, of the berry that it is made of, in
little china dishes, as hot as they can suffer it, black as soot,
which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity.'"

This pleasant sample of the puff indirect has also appended to it the naked sentence--

"_Adulterated with chicory, of which not less than half the sample
consists._"

The worst kinds of adulterated coffee are to be found in that which is sold in canisters. The value of the tin envelope cannot be less than 2d., and, as the coffee so sold is charged at the same price as that in a paper wrapper, it must be evident that a more extensive adulteration is necessary in order to make up the difference. Such, upon examination, proves to be the case, as it appeared--

"That the whole twenty-nine packages, bottles, and canisters submitted
to analysis, with a single exception,[5] were adulterated.

"That in these twenty-eight adulterated samples the falsification
consisted of so-called chicory, which in many instances constituted
the chief part of the article.

"That three of the samples contained mangold-wurzel, and two of them
roasted wheat-flour."

We have said it often happens that the adulterations are adulterated. Chicory is an instance of it. The original fraud is found to have ramified in an endless manner; and Sir Charles Wood will doubtless be astonished to hear of the hideous crop of falsifications his most unfortunate order has caused to spring out of the ground.

Immediately the process of transforming chicory into coffee became legalized by the Government, that article came into very extensive consumption, and factories were set up especially for its secret manufacture. The reason for this secrecy may be gathered from the list of articles which are made to subserve the purpose: roasted wheat, ground acorns, roasted carrots, scorched beans, roasted parsnips, mangold-wurzel, lupin-seeds, dog's biscuits, burnt sugar, _red earth_, roasted horse-chestnuts,--and above and beyond all _baked horses' and bullocks' livers_. This statement rests upon the authority of Mr. P. G. Simmonds, in a work entitled "Coffee as it is, and as it ought to be:"--

"In various parts of the metropolis," he says, "but more especially in
the east, are to be found 'liver bakers.' These men take the livers of
oxen and horses, bake them, and grind them into a powder, which they
sell to the low-priced coffeeshop-keepers, at from fourpence to
sixpence per lb., horse's liver coffee being the highest price. It may
be known by allowing the coffee to stand until cold, when a thick
pellicle or skin will be found on the top. It goes farther than
coffee, and is generally _mixed with chicory_, and other vegetable
imitations of coffee."

In confirmation of this horrible statement the sanitary commissioners of the Lancet state that, on analysis, this substance, which

"possessed a disagreeable animal smell, ... consisted of some
imperfectly-charred animal matter."

The new regulation, enjoining grocers to sell coffee and chicory properly labelled as such, is, no doubt, observed in respectable shops; but in the low neighbourhoods the mixture as before is passed off for genuine Mocha. However, the purchaser has the means of protection in his own hands. If he prefers coffee pure, let him buy the roasted berry and grind it himself; he will thus be sure of having the real article, and will get it in greater perfection than by purchasing it ready ground.

In close proximity to the tea and coffee-pots stand the milk-jug and the sugar-basin. What find we here? A few years ago the town was frightened from its propriety by a little work entitled "Observations on London Milk," published by a medical gentleman of the name of Rugg, which gave some fearful disclosures relative to the manner in which London milk was adulterated. Dr. Hassall's analyses go to show that, with the exception of the produce of the "iron-tailed cow," none of the supposed defilements really exist, and that the milkman is a sadly maligned individual. Water is added in quantities varying in different samples from 10 to 50 per cent.; and in the more unfashionable parts of the town _all_ the cream is abstracted to be forwarded to the West-end. If milk _must_ be adulterated in large towns, water is undoubtedly the most harmless ingredient; at the same time it will be seen what a fraud is perpetrated upon the public by selling milky water at 4d. a quart.

That the London milking-pail goes as often to the pump as to the cow we have no manner of doubt. To bring the diluted goods up to a delicate cream colour, it is common to swing round a ball of annatto in the can; and other careful observers and writers upon the adulteration of food have detected flour, starch, and treacle. All medical men know that children are often violently disordered by their morning or evening portion,--an effect which could not come from the mere admixture of water--and we must confess that we ourselves believe the milkman to be a very wicked fellow.

We are afraid, if we look into the sugar-basin, we shall not find much more comfort than in the milk-jug. We refer here to the ordinary brown sugars, such as are generally used at the breakfast-table for coffee. It is scarcely possible to procure moist sugar which is not infested with animalculæ of the acari genus, a most disgusting class of creatures. In many samples of sugars they swarm to that extent that the mass moves with them; and in almost every case, by dissolving a spoonful in a wine-glass of water, dozens of them can be detected by the naked eye, either floating upon the liquid or adhering to the edge of the glass. Those who are in the habit of "handling" sugars, as it is termed, are liable to a skin affection called the grocer's itch, which is believed to be occasioned by these living inhabitants of our sugar-basins. Horrible as it is to think that such creatures are an article in daily use, we cannot charge the grocer directly with their introduction; the evil is, however, increased by the manner in which he mixes, or "handles," as it is termed in the trade, higher-priced sugars with muscovados, bastards, and other inferior kinds, in which the animalculæ abound.

In addition to this foreign animal element, grocers sometimes mix flour with their sugar, and, if we are to put any credit in popular belief, sand; but of the presence of this gritty ingredient we have never seen any trustworthy evidence. Nevertheless we have said enough to show that the tea-dealer and grocer do their best to supply the proverbial "peck of dirt" which all of us must eat before we die. Would that we were fed with nothing more deleterious or repulsive! Let us see, however, the base admixtures one is liable to swallow in taking--

A CUP OF TEA _or a_ CUP OF COFFEE.

_In the Tea._

If Green--
Prussian-blue.
Turmeric.
China clay or French chalk.
Used tea-leaves.
Copperas.
If Black--
Gum.
Black lead.
Dutch pink.
Used tea-leaves.
Leaves of the ash, sloe, hawthorn, and of many other kinds.

_In the Milk._

On an average 25 per cent. of water.
Annatto.
Treacle.
Flour.
Oxide of iron.
And other unknown ingredients.

_In the Sugar._

If Brown--
Wheat flour.
Hundreds of the sugar-insect.
If White--
Albumen of bullock's blood.

_In the Coffee._

Chicory.

_In the Chicory._

Roast wheat.
" acorn.
" mangold-wurzel.
" beans.
" carrots.
" parsnips
" lupin-seeds.
" dog-biscuits.
" horse-chestnuts.
Oxide of iron.
Mahogany sawdust.
Baked horse's liver.
" bullock's liver.

_In the Milk._

Water 25 per cent.
Annatto.
Flour.
Treacle.
Oxide of iron.
And other unknown ingredients.

_In the Sugar._

If Brown--
Wheat flour.
Hundreds of the sugar-insect.
If White--
Albumen of bullock's blood.

As we perceive the teetotalers are petitioning Parliament and agitating the towns for the closing of public-houses, we beg to present them, in either hand, with a cup of the above mixtures, with the humble hope that means will be found by them to supply the British public with some drink a little less deleterious to health, a little more pleasant to the palate, and somewhat less disgusting to the feelings. Some of the sugar impurities may be avoided by using the crystallized East-Indian kind--the size of the crystals not permitting of its being adulterated with inferior sorts.

We shall not dwell upon cocoa further than to state that it is a still rarer thing to obtain it pure than either tea or coffee. The almost universal adulterations are sugar, starch, and flours together with red colouring matter, generally some ferruginous earth; whilst, as far as we can see, what is termed homoeopathic cocoa is only distinguished from other kinds by the small quantity of that substance contained in it.

There is scarcely an article on the breakfast-table, in fact, which is what it seems to be. The butter, if salt, is adulterated with between 20 and 30 per cent. of water. A merchant in this trade tells the _Lancet_ that "between 40,000 and 50,000 casks of adulterated butter are annually sold in London, and the trade knows it as well as they know a bad shilling." Lard when cheap also finds its way to the butter-tub. Perhaps those who flatter themselves that they use nothing but "Epping" will not derive much consolation from the following letter, also published in the same journal:--

"_To the Editor of the Lancet._

"SIR,--Having taken apartments in the house of a butterman, I was
suddenly awoke at three o'clock one morning with a noise in the lower
part of the house, and alarmed on perceiving a light below the door of
my bed-room; conceiving the house to be on fire, I hurried down
stairs. I found the whole family busily occupied, and, on my
expressing alarm at the house being on fire, they jocosely informed me
they _were merely making Epping butter_. They unhesitatingly informed
me of the whole process. For this purpose they made use of
fresh-salted butter of a very inferior quality: this was repeatedly
washed with water in order to free it from the salt. This being
accomplished, the next process was to wash it frequently with milk,
and the manufacture was completed by the addition of a small quantity
of sugar. The amateurs of fresh Epping butter were supplied with this
dainty, which yielded my ingenious landlord a profit of at least 100
per cent., besides establishing his shop as being supplied with Epping
butter from one of the first-rate dairies.--I am, sir, your obedient
servant,

"A STUDENT."

If we try marmalade as a succedaneum, we are no better off--at least if we put any faith in "real Dundee, an excellent substitute for butter," to be seen piled in heaps in the cheap grocers' windows. Dr. Hassall's analysis proves that this dainty is adulterated to a large extent with turnips, apples, and carrots: we need not grumble so much at these vegetable products, excepting on the score that it is a fraud to sell them at 7d. a pound; but there is the more startling fact that, in twelve out of fourteen samples analysed, copper was detected, and sometimes in large and deleterious quantities!

Accum, in his "Death in the Pot," quotes, from cookery-books of reputation in his day, recipes which make uninitiated persons stare. For instance, "Modern Cookery, or the English Housewife," gives the following serious directions "to make Greening:"--"Take a bit of _verdigris the bigness of an hazel-nut_, finely powdered, half a pint of distilled vinegar, and a bit of alum-powder, with a little baysalt; put all in a bottle and shake it, and let it stand till clear. _Put a small teaspoonful into codlings, or whatever you wish to green!_"

Again, the "English Housekeeper," a book which ran through eighteen editions, directs--"to make pickles green _boil them with halfpence_, or allow them to stand for twenty-four hours in copper or brass pans!" Has the notable housewife ever wondered to herself how it is that all the pickles of the shops are of so much more inviting colour than her own? We will satisfy her curiosity in a word--she has forgotten the "bit of verdigris the bigness of a hazel-nut," for it is now proved beyond doubt that to this complexion do they come by the use of copper, introduced for the sole purpose of making them of a lively green. The analyses of twenty samples of pickles bought of the most respectable tradesmen proved, firstly, that the vinegar in the bottles owed most of its strength to the introduction of sulphuric acid; secondly, that, out of sixteen different pickles analysed for the purpose, copper was detected in various amounts. Thus, "two of the samples contained a small quantity; eight rather much, one a considerable quantity, three a very considerable quantity; in one copper was present in a highly deleterious amount, and in two _in poisonous amounts_. The largest quantity of this metal was found in the bottles consisting entirely of green vegetables, such as gherkins and beans."

We trust after this the good housewife will feel jealous no longer, but rest satisfied that the home-made article, if less inviting and vivid in colour, is at least more wholesome. A simple test to discover the presence of copper in such articles is to place a bright knitting-needle in the vinegar, and let it remain there for a few hours, when the deleterious metal will speedily form a coating over it, dense or thin, according to the amount which exists. Wherever large quantities are found, it is wilfully inserted for the purpose of producing the bright green colour, but a small quantity may find its way into the pickles in the process of boiling in copper pans. Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell, the great pickle and preserve manufacturers in Soho, immediately they became aware, from the analyses of the _Lancet_, that such was the case, in a very praiseworthy manner substituted silver and glass, at a great expense, for all their former vessels. The danger arising from the introduction of this virulent poison into our food would not be so great if it were confined to pickles, of which the quantity taken is small at each meal, but it is used to paint all kinds of preserves, and fruits for winter pies and tarts are bloomed with death. The papa who presents his children the box of sweetmeats bedded in coloured paper, and enclosed in an elegant casket, may be corroding unawares the very springs of their existence. As a general rule, it is found that the red fruits, such as currants, raspberries, and cherries, are uncontaminated with this deleterious metal, but owe their deep hue to some red colouring matter, such as a decoction of logwood or an infusion of beetroot, in the same way that common white cabbage is converted into red by the nefarious pickle-merchant. The green fruits are not all deleterious in the same degree; there seems to be an ascending scale of virulence, much after the following manner:--Limes, gooseberries, rhubarb, greengages, olives--the last-mentioned fruit, especially those of French preparation, generally containing verdigris, or the acetate of copper, _in highly dangerous quantities_. The _Lancet_ publishes a letter from Mr. Bernays, F.C.S., dated from the Chemical Library, Derby, in which he shows the necessity of watchfulness in the purchase of these articles of food:--

"Of this," he says, "I will give you a late instance. I had bought a
bottle of preserved gooseberries from one of the most respectable
grocers in the town, and had its contents transferred to a pie. It
struck me that the gooseberries looked fearfully green when cooked;
and in eating one with a steel fork its intense bitterness sent me in
search of the sugar. After having sweetened and mashed the
gooseberries, with the same steel fork, I was about to convey some to
my mouth, when I observed the prongs to be completely coated with a
thin film of bright metallic copper. My testimony can be borne out by
the evidence of others, two of whom dined at my table."

It was fortunate that these three gentlemen used steel forks, which instantly disclosed the mischief; if they had chanced to use silver, all three might have fallen victims to these poisonous conserves.

But we are not yet at the worst. When Catherine de' Medici wished to get rid of obnoxious persons in an "artistic" manner, she was in the habit of presenting them with delicately made sweetmeats, or trinkets, in which death lurked in the most engaging manner; she carried--

"Pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket."

Her poisoned feasts are matters of history, at which people shudder as they read; but we question if the diabolical revenge and coldblooded wickedness of an Italian woman ever invented much more deadly trifles than our low, cheap confectioners do on the largest scale. We select from some of these articles of bonbonerie the following feast, which we set before doting mothers, in order that they may see what deadly dainties are prepared for the especial delectation of their children:--

"A FISH.

"_Purchased in Shepherd's Market, May Fair._

"The tip of the nose and the gills of the fish are coloured with the
usual pink, while the back and sides are highly painted with that
virulent poison _arsenite of copper_."

"A PIGEON.

"_Purchased in Drury Lane._

"The pigments employed for colouring this pigeon are light yellow for
the beak, red for the eyes, and orange yellow for the base or stand.
The yellow colour consists of the light kind of chromate of lead, for
the eyes bisulphate of mercury, and for the stand the deeper varieties
of chromate of lead, or orange chrome."

"APPLES.

"_Purchased in James Street, Covent Garden._

"The apples in this sample are coloured yellow, and on one side deep
red; the yellow colour extending to a considerable depth in the
substance of the sugar. The red consists of the usual non-metallic
pigment, and the yellow is due to the presence of CHROMATE OF LEAD in
really _poisonous amount_!"

"A COCK.

"_Purchased in Drury Lane._

"The beak of the bird is coloured bright yellow, the comb brilliant
red, the wings and tail are variegated, black, two different reds, and
yellow; while the stand, as in most of these sugar ornaments, is
painted green. The yellow of the beak consists of CHROMATE OF LEAD;
the comb and part of the red colour on the back and wings is
VERMILION; while the second red colour on the wings and tail is the
usual pink non-metallic colouring matter, and the stripes of yellow
consist of gamboge; lastly, the green of the stand is MIDDLE BRUNSWICK
GREEN, and, therefore, contains CHROMATE OF LEAD. In the colouring of
this article, then, no less than three active poisons are employed, as
well as that drastic purgative gamboge!"

"ORANGES.

"_Purchased in Pilgrim Street, Doctors' Commons._

"This is a very unnatural imitation of an orange, it being coloured
with a coarse and very uneven coating of RED LEAD."

"MIXED SUGAR ORNAMENTS.

"_Purchased in Middle Row, Holborn._

"The confectionery in this parcel is made up into a variety of forms
and devices, as hats, jugs, baskets, and dishes of fruit and
vegetables. One of the hats is coloured yellow with CHROMATE OF LEAD,
and has a green hatband round it, coloured with ARSENITE OF COPPER; a
second hat is white, with a blue hatband, the pigment being
PRUSSIAN-BLUE. The baskets are coloured yellow with CHROMATE OF LEAD.
Into the colouring of the pears and peaches the usual non-metallic
pigment, together with CHROMATE OF LEAD and MIDDLE BRUNSWICK GREEN,
enter largely; while the carrots represented in a dish are coloured
throughout with a RED OXIDE OF LEAD, and the tops with BRUNSWICK
GREEN. This is one of the worst of all the samples of coloured sugar
confectionery submitted to analysis, as it contains no less than four
_deadly poisons_!"

The painted feast contains, then, among its highly injurious ingredients, ferrocyanide of iron or Prussian-blue, Antwerp-blue, gamboge, and ultramarine, and among its deadly poisons the three chrome yellows, red lead, white lead, vermilion, the three Brunswick greens, and Scheele's green or arsenite of copper. The wonder is that, considering we set such poison-traps for children, ten times more enticing and quite as deadly as those used to bane rats, that the greater number of youngsters who partake of them are not at once despatched; and so undoubtedly they would be if nurses were not cautious about these coloured parts, which have always enjoyed a bad name under the general denomination of "trash and messes." As it is, we are informed by Dr. Letheby that "no less than seventy cases of poisoning have been traced to this source" within three years!

In France, Belgium, and Switzerland the colouring of confectionery with poisonous pigments is prohibited, and the vendors are held responsible for all accidents which may occur to persons from eating their sugar confectionery. It is absolutely essential that some such prohibition should be made in England. Arsenic, according to law, must be sold coloured with soot, in order that its hue may prevent its being used by mistake for other substances; how absurd it is that we should allow other poisons, quite as virulent, to be mixed with the food of children and adults, merely for the sake of the colour! All kinds of sugar-plums, comfits, and "kisses," in addition to being often adulterated with large quantities of plaster of Paris, are always open to the suspicion of being poisoned. Necessity cannot be urged for the continuance of this wicked practice, as there are plenty of vegetable pigments which, if not quite as vivid as the acrid mineral ones, are sufficiently so to please the eye. Of late years a peculiar lozenge has been introduced, in which the flavour of certain fruits is singularly imitated. Thus we have essence of jargonel drops, essence of pine-apple drops, and many others of a most delicate taste. They really are so delicious that we scarcely like to create a prejudice against them; but the truth is great, and must prevail: all these delicate essences are made from a preparation of æther and rancid cheese and butter.

The manufacturer, perhaps unaware of the cumulative action of many of his chemicals, thinks that the small quantity can do no harm. We have seen, in the matter of preserved fruits and sugar confectionery, how fallacious is that idea. But the practice of adulteration often leads to lamentable results of the same nature, which are quite unintentional on the part of their perpetrators, and which occur in the most roundabout manner. An instance of this is related by Accum, which goes directly to the point. A gentleman, perceiving that an attack of colic always supervened upon taking toasted Gloucestershire cheese at an inn at which he was in the habit of stopping, and having also noticed that a kitten which had partaken of its rind was rendered violently sick, had the food analyzed, when it was found that lead was present in it in poisonous quantities. Following up his inquiries, he ascertained that the maker of the cheese, not finding his annatto sufficiently deep in colour, had resorted to the expedient of colouring the commodity with vermilion. This mixture, although pernicious and discreditable, was not absolutely poisonous, and certainly could not account for the disastrous effects of the food on the human system. Trying back still further, however, it was at last found that the druggist who sold the vermilion had mixed with it a portion of _red lead_, imagining that the pigment was only required for house paint. "Thus," as Accum remarks, "the druggist sold his vermilion, in a regular way of trade, adulterated with red lead, to increase his profit, without any suspicion of the use to which it would be applied; and the purchaser who adulterated the annatto, presuming that the vermilion was genuine, had no hesitation in heightening the colour of his annatto with so harmless an adjunct. Thus, through the diversified and circulatory operations of commerce, a portion of deadly poison may find admission into the necessaries of life in a way that can attach no criminality to the parties through whose hands it has successively passed." The curious aspect of this circuitous kind of poisoning is, that it occurs through the belief of each adulterating rogue in the honesty of his neighbour.

If we could possibly eliminate, from the mass of human disease, that occasioned by the constant use of deleterious food, we should find that it amounted to a very considerable percentage on the whole, and that one of the best friends of the doctor would prove to be the adulterator. But even our refuge fails us in our hour of need; the tools of the medical man, like those of the sappers and miners before Sebastopol, often turn out to be worthless. Drugs and medical comforts are perhaps adulterated as extensively as any other article. To mention only a few familiar and household medicines for instance: Epsom salts are adulterated with sulphate of soda; carbonate of soda with sulphate of soda--a very injurious substitute. Mercury is sometimes falsified with lead, tin, and bismuth; gentian with the poisonous drugs aconite and belladonna; rhubarb with turmeric and gamboge; cantharides with black pepper; and cod-liver and castor-oils with common and inferior oils; whilst opium, one of the sheet-anchors of the physician, is adulterated to the greatest extent in a dozen different ways. Medical comforts are equally uncertain. Thus potato-flour forms full half of the so-called arrowroots of commerce; sago-meal is another very common ingredient in this nourishing substance. Out of fifty samples of so-styled arrowroot, Dr. Hassall found twenty-two adulterated, many of them consisting _entirely_ of potato-flour and sago-meal. One half of the common oatmeals to be met with are adulterated with barley-meal, a much less nutritious substance--an important fact, which boards of guardians should be acquainted with. Honey is sophisticated with flour-starch and sugar-starch. And lastly, we wish to say something important to mothers. Put no faith in the hundred and one preparations of farinaceous food for infants which are paraded under so many attractive titles. They are all composed of wheat-flour, potato-flour, sago, &c.,--very familiar ingredients, which would not take with anxious parents unless christened with extraordinary names, for which their compounders demand an extraordinary charge. To invalids we would also say, place no reliance on the Revalentas and Ervalentas advertised through the country as cures for all imaginary diseases. They consist almost entirely of lentil-powder, barley-flour, &c., which are charged cent. per cent. above their real value.

Of all the articles we have touched upon, not one is so important as water. It mixes more or less with all our solid food, and forms nine-tenths of all our drinks. Man himself, as a sanitary writer has observed, is in great part made up of this element, and if you were to put him under a press you would squeeze out of him 8-1/2 pailfuls. That it should be furnished pure to the consumer is of the first importance in a sanitary and economic point of view. We are afraid, however, that but feeble attempts have been made to secure this advantage to the metropolis. At present London, with its two and a half millions of population, is mainly supplied by nine water companies, six of which derive their supply from the Thames, one from the New River, one from the Ravensbourne, and a third from ponds and wells. Besides this supply, which ramifies like a network over the whole metropolis, we find dotted about both public and private wells of various qualities. We do not intend to follow Dr. Hassall into his microscopic representations of the organic matter, vegetable and animal, by which the customers of one company can compare the water served to them with that dealt out to others, and thus at a glance assure themselves that they have not more than their share of many-legged, countless-jointed, hideous animalculæ, which look formidable enough to frighten one from ever touching a drop of London water, but shall content ourselves with giving the general characteristics of the whole of them. With one exception they were all of a hardness ranging from 11 to 18 degrees. This hardness depends upon the earthy salts present, such as sulphates and bicarbonates of lime and magnesia. They were also to some extent saline, as all the salt used in the metropolis ultimately finds its way into the Thames, or great sewer-stream. Not long ago two, at least, of these six Thames water companies procured their supply within a short distance of the mouths of great drains, and all of them resorted to the river at different points below Battersea, or that portion of it which receives the drainage of the metropolis, and is consequently crowded with animal and vegetable matter, both living and dead, and thick with the mud stirred up by the passage to and fro of the steamers. The violent outcry made, however, by the Board of Health, caused an Act to be passed by parliament against the supply of the sewage rates, and now all the companies taking their supplies from the Thames, are compelled to go at least as high as Kingston, and to submit them to a process of filtration; but even at this point the river is in some degree sewage-tainted, and the chemically-combined portion of baser matter cannot be removed by any filter.

The impurities of the Thames are not all we have to deal with--its hardness must cost the Londoners hundreds of thousands a year in the article of soap alone. The action upon lead is also marked; hence we find poisonous carbonates of that metal held in solution. Plumbers are well aware of this fact, and frequently meet with leaden cisterns deeply corroded. This corrosion may arise from either chemical or voltaic action. The junction of lead and solder, or iron, immersed in water impregnated with salts or acid of any kind, will cause erosion of the metal. A familiar instance of this is seen in the rapid manner in which iron railings rust away just where they are socketed in the stonework with lead. The presence of a piece of mortar on the lead of a cistern may even set up this action, and result in giving a whole family the colic.

The pumps of the metropolis are liable to even more contamination than river-water, inasmuch as the soil surrounding them is saturated with the sewage of innumerable cesspools, and with that arising from the leakage of imperfect drains. Medical men entertained the opinion that the terrible outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Golden Square, in 1854, arose from the fact that the people in the neighbourhood were in the habit of visiting a public pump which was proved to be foul with drain-water, and the handle of which was taken off, to prevent further mischief. Some of these public pumps appear to yield excellent water--cold, clear, and palatable; but the presence of these qualities by no means proves that they are pure. The bright sparkling icy water issuing from the famous Aldgate pump, according to Mr. Simon, the city officer of health, owes its most prized qualities to the nitrates which have filtered into the well from the decaying animal matter in an adjoining churchyard.

The porter and stout of the metropolis have long been famous. The virtues of the latter drink are celebrated all over the world; and a royal duke, ascribed the great mortality among the guards in the East to the want of their favourite beverage. No doubt the pure liquor, as it comes from the great brewers, is wholesome and strengthening; but it no sooner gets into the possession of the publicans than, in a great majority of cases, the article is made up. A stranger would naturally suppose that the foaming tankard of Meux's entire which he quaffs at the "Marquis of Granby" has an identical flavour with that at the "Blue Boar," where the same brewer's name shines resplendent on the house-front. Not a bit of it: one shall be smooth, pleasantly bitter, slightly acid, and beaded with a fine and persistent froth; the other, bitter with the bitterness of soot, salt, clammy, sweet, and frothing with a coarse and evanescent froth. The body of the liquor is undoubtedly the same, but the variations are all supplied by the publicans and sinners. We do not make _émeutes_, as they are continually doing in Bavaria, on account of our beer; but we have strong feelings on a matter of such national importance; and the wicked ways of brewers and publicans have been made, over and over again, the subject of parliamentary inquiry. The reports of various committees prove that, in times past, porter and stout were doctored in the most ingenious manner, and so universally and unreservedly, that a trade sprang up termed brewers' druggists, whose whole business it was to supply to the manufacturers and retailers of the national beverage, ingredients for its adulteration; nay, to such an extent did the taste for falsifying beer and porter extend, that one genius, hight Jackson, wrote a hand-book to show the brewers how to make Beer _without any Malt or Hops at all_! Accum has preserved, in his now antique pages, some of the recipes in vogue in his day. The boldness with which our fathers went to work is amusing. For instance, Mr. Child, in his "Practical Treatise on Brewing," after having made his non-professional reader aghast by mentioning a score of pernicious articles to be used in beer, remarks, in the mildest possible manner,--

"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 effervescence of
the beer. And, though several acts of Parliament have been passed to
prevent porter brewers 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 stupefying 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."

It is clear from this extract that Mr. Child considered the end of all successful brewing was to make people dead-drunk at the cheapest possible rate, regardless of consequences. Among the ingredients that Mr. Morris, another instructor in the art of brewing, tells us are requisite to produce a popular article, are--cocculus indicus and beans, as intoxicators; calamus aromaticus, as a substitute for hops; quassia, as a bitter; coriander-seeds to give flavour; capsicums, carraway-seeds, ginger, and grains of paradise, to give warmth; whilst oyster-shells are recommended to afford a touch of youth to old beer, and alum to give a "smack of age" to new; and when it is desired to bring it more rapidly "forward," the presiding Hecate is told to drop sulphuric acid into her brew; by this means an imitation of the age of eighteen months was given in a few instants. Even the "fine cauliflower head," which is held to be the sign of excellence in stout, was--and, for all we know, still is--artificially made by mixing with the article a detestable compound called "beer-headings," composed of common green vitriol, alum, and salt, and sometimes by the simple addition of salts of steel. That these articles were commonly employed we have the evidence of the Excise Department, which published a long list of such ingredients seized by them on the premises of brewers and brewers' druggists.[6] Many of these glaring adulterations are probably no longer in general use, although, from the evidence given before a recent committee of the House of Commons, it is believed that sulphuric acid, salt of steel, sulphate of iron, and cocculus indicus are still resorted to by the smaller brewers, especially those living in the country--a belief very much strengthened by the very odd taste we sometimes find in ales and porters, and which is certainly not derived from malt and hops. The common method of adulterating the national liquor is by mixing water with it. This is done almost universally by the publican, and to a very extraordinary extent. A comparison between the per-centage of alcohol to be found in a given number of samples of porter and stout, procured from what is termed brewers' taps, or agents, with that existing in a similar number of samples purchased of publicans, proves this fact in a very convincing manner. Dr. Hassall informs us that, with regard to the stouts,--

"The alcohol--of specific gravity 796, temperature 60°
Fahr.--contained in the former samples ranged from 7·15 per cent. the
highest, to 4·53 the lowest; whereas that of the stouts procured from
publicans varied, with one exception, from 4·87 per cent. to 3·25 per
cent."

The same difference of strength also existed between the various samples of porter procured from the two sources; the amount of alcohol in that obtained from the taps varying from 4·51 per cent. to 2·42 per cent., whereas that purchased of publicans ranged from 3·97 per cent. to 1·81 per cent. The mixture of water, of course, reduces the colour, to bring up which both burnt sugar and molasses are extensively used; and, in order that "the appetite may grow with what it feeds on," tobacco and salt are copiously added by the publican. Beer, porter, and stout are also liable to be contaminated by the presence of lead. The universal use of pumping machines and the storing of the casks in the cellars, sometimes at a considerable distance from the bar, necessitates the use of long leaden pipes, in passing through which the liquid, if "stale" or sour, oxidates a portion of the lead. This fact is so well known both to public and publican, that the first pot or two drawn in the morning is generally set aside, as, from having lain all night in the pipe, it is justly considered injurious. The liberality of the barmaid in thus sacrificing a portion of the liquor is more apparent than real. The reader has, perhaps, noticed that most public-house counters are fitted up with metal tops, in which gratings are inserted to drain off all the spilt liquor, drainings of glasses, heel-taps of pots, &c.: down these gratings goes "the first draught," with its dose of oxide of lead. The receptacle below, which contains all this refuse together with that at the bottoms of barrels, the publican either returns to the brewer, or empties it himself into half-filled casks.

The public were very needlessly alarmed some years ago by a statement made by M. Payen, a celebrated French chemist, that strychnine was being made for England, where it was used in the manufacture of the bitter beer of this country. This statement was copied by the _Medical Times_, and from thence, finding its way to Printing-house Square, became generally diffused, to the horror and discomfiture of pale-ale drinkers; and not without reason, when it is remembered that one-sixth of a grain of this poison has been known to prove fatal, and a very much smaller quantity daily taken, to have the effect of inducing tetanic spasms, and of otherwise seriously injuring the nervous system. We are happy to be able to state that the lovers of Bass and Allsopp may quaff their tonic draught in future without any fear of such terrible results. The bitterness of pale ale has been found, on analysis, to be entirely due to the extract of hops. Furthermore, this beverage, when selected from the stores of the brewers or their agents, has universally proved to be perfectly pure. We say, from the stores of the Burton brewers or their agents, because there is no absolute certainty of procuring the article genuine from any other source. The label on the bottle is no sure guarantee; for used bottles, with their labels intact, are in many instances refilled by publicans with an inferior article, and sold, of course, at the price of the real. We have good reason to believe that this trick is very often practised in a variety of instances, to the manifest injury of the public and brewers.

Wine is far too wide a subject to be treated here. The great mass of ports at a cheap and moderate price are made up, it is well known, of several kinds, and doctored according to cost. There is one compound, however, which particularly claims our attention, "publicans' port." We are all of us familiar with the announcement to be seen in the windows of such tradesmen, "Fine old crusty port, 2_s._ 9_d._ a bottle;" and the extraordinary thing is, that upon opening the sample we often find that _it is_ crusted, and that the cork is deeply stained. How can they afford to sell an article bearing the appearance of such age and quality at so low a price? The answer is simple: wine, crust, and stained cork are fabricated. There is a manufactory in London, where, by a chemical process, they get up beeswing to perfection, and deposit it in the bottles so as exactly to imitate the natural crust; here corks are also stained to assume any age that is required. The wine itself contains a very little inferior port, the rest being composed of cheap red French wine, brandy, and logwood as a colouring matter, if required. The port wine sold over the bar at 3_d._ a glass--and we are assured that this article is making its way in preference to gin in the low neighbourhoods, one gin palace, to our knowledge, selling a butt a week over the counter--is an inferior article even to this, and its taste is quite sufficient to prove that only an infinitesimal portion of it ever came from Oporto.

London gin, under a hundred names, is notoriously a compound. Most people flatter themselves that its peculiar flavour is due to the admixture of sugar and juniper-berries alone. It is, however, a much more elaborate concoction than the public imagine. Those accustomed to the unsweetened West Country gin think the London article only fit to drink when raw, and in many cases they are right; for the publican and inferior spirit-dealers, like milkmen, are great customers of the pump. It appears that some of the samples examined by the analyst contained only half as much alcohol as was present in others; and as the gin of commerce is never above proof, it follows that these specimens were scarcely as good as "stiff" gin-and-water. So much for the pure spirit; now for the fancy work or "flavourings." The quantity of sugar in the samples examined ranged from 3 oz. 4 drms. 23 grains, to 13 oz. 4 drms.; two of them contained oil of cinnamon, or, more probably, of cassia; seven contained cayenne pepper, some of them in very large quantities; and most of the samples contained combined sulphates; whilst there is good authority for stating that sulphate of zinc, or white vitriol, is often used. The very "beaded bubbles winking at the brim," which are considered to be a proof of the strength of the article, are produced artificially. Mr. Mitchell, in his "Handbook of Commerce," states that this is done by adding a mixture compounded of alum, carbonate of potash, almond-oil, sulphuric acid, and spirits of wine. "The earth hath bubbles as the water hath, and these are of them." One would think that it would be to the interest of the trade to keep their illicit practices "dark:" but the publican has his "Handbook" to teach him how to adulterate spirit as well as beer. For instance, in a little work on Brewing and Distilling, written by a Mr. Shannon, the following recipe is given:--

"_To reduce unsweetened Gin._

A tun of fine gin 252 gallons.
Water 36 "
---
Which added together makes 288 "
_The doctor is now put on_, and
it is further reduced with water 19 "
---
Which gives 307 gallons.

"This done, let one pound of alum be just covered with water, and
dissolved by boiling; _rummage_ the whole together, and pour in the
alum, and the whole will be fine in a few days."

We wonder that Mr. Gough, the great temperance advocate, never armed himself with one of these recipes, in order to convince people of the noxious liquids they are invited to drink under the most inviting names. In every quarter of the town we see gin-palaces seizing upon the corner houses of the streets, just as scrofula seizes upon the joints of the human frame, and through their ever-open doors streams of squalid wretches are continually pouring in and out. Could they be informed that they enter to gulp oil of vitriol, oil of turpentine, and sulphuric acid, among other acrid and deleterious compounds--that the tap of the publican spouts corroding fire, like that which leaped up from the wooden table at the command of Mephistopheles, in Auerbach's cellar, they would feel inclined to exclaim with Siebald to the fiend:--

"What, sir, how dare you practise thus
Your hocus-pocus upon us?"

Gin, it appears, is almost exclusively doctored in this highly deleterious manner, although all spirits are open to sophistication, but especially brandy, which, on account of its price, pays well for the trouble. Mr. Shannon, deeply versed in the "art and mystery" of the trade of the publican, informs us that brandy should be "made up" for "retail" by the addition of 10 per cent. of flavoured raisin wine, a little of the tincture of grains of paradise, cherry-laurel water, and spirit of almond-cake: "add also 10 handfuls of oak sawdust, and give it _complexion_ with burnt sugar."

If we can give the dram-drinker little comfort, we can at least reassure the smoker. "Everybody says" that common cigars are made out of cabbages, and tobacco has always been suspected of containing many adulterations. These charges have been made, however, at random, and the result of chemical analysis and examinations by the microscope has proved that this article of daily consumption is remarkably pure. The carefully-searching microscope of Dr. Hassall has not succeeded in finding any other than the genuine leaf among forty samples of manufactured tobacco; neither were there any sophistications discovered, with the exceptions of salt, sugar, and water. An inquiry into the specimens of the rolled and twisted article was equally consoling to the maker and chewer. Now and then, it is true, the excise officers make seizures in the warehouses of the tobacco manufacturers, of dock, rhubarb, coltsfoot, and other leaves, but to a very insignificant extent, considering the value of the article and the heavy duty upon it.

He who, like Byron, prefers the naked beauties of the leaf in the shape of a cigar, will be equally gratified to hear that such a thing as adulteration scarcely exists in this form of tobacco--at least, not when purchased in the shops. Even if we descend to a penny "Pickwick," we find nothing in it but the pure leaf. Out of fifty-seven samples examined, only one was sophisticated, and that, apparently from its contents, by accident. The only adulterated samples discovered at all, were exactly where we might have expected to have found them, in the possession of a hawker at Whitechapel. These, on examination, turned out to be made up of two twisted wrappers or layers of thin paper, tinted of a bistre colour, while the interior consisted entirely of hay, not a particle of tobacco entering into their composition. The second example of a spurious cigar was purchased at a review in Hyde Park. It consisted externally of tobacco-leaf, but was made internally of hay. Our readers are familiar enough with the fellows who vend these fraudulent articles, made to sell and not to smoke; they are generally to be found at fairs and races, or any crowded place in the open air, where they can escape speedily from their victimized customers. There is a class of men who make a very good livelihood in the metropolis by perambulating the streets and looking out for ingenuous youths. Towards such they furtively approach, and, like the tempter of old, whisper in their ear of forbidden fruit. The unwary are constantly taken in by one of these serpents, in the shape of a sailor straight from the docks, who intimates, in a hurried manner, that, if we wanted any "smuggled cigars," he has just a box to sell cheap round the corner. In general these worthies need not fear the exciseman, as the article they have to sell does not come under the name of tobacco at all.

If, however, cigars are not open to the charge of being adulterated, they are the subject of innumerable frauds, inasmuch as those of English manufacture are passed off as foreign ones. Thus, the so-called Bengal cheroots are _all_ home-made imitations of Chinsurah cheroots. In order to pass them off as the genuine article they are sold in boxes, branded and labelled in exact imitation of those sent from India. It may be asked why such cigars, if made out of the tobacco-leaf, are not as good as those of Eastern or Spanish manufacture. The real reason is, that the tobacco loses much of its fine flavour and aroma by packing and keeping; otherwise the English cigar would be equal to any other. The old impression that the Manilla cheroot is impregnated with opium would not appear to be correct, from the investigations of Dr. Hassall, who has failed to discover that narcotic in any of the specimens which he tested for it.

We have to mention one preparation of tobacco of which we cannot speak quite so favourably as of the others. Snuff is, we are sorry to say, vilely adulterated, and some kinds poisonously. The law allows the use of salt and water and lime-water in its manufacture--a privilege which the snuff-makers take advantage of to increase its weight, all moist snuffs averaging full twenty-five per cent. of water. If these were the only adulterations to the titillating powder, no harm would be done; but we have positive evidence afforded us in the report of the "Lancet" Commission, that, in addition to ferruginous earths, such as red and yellow ochre, no less than three poisonous preparations are also introduced into it--chromate of lead, red-lead, and bichromate of potash! When a man taps his snuff-box and takes out a pinch, he little dreams that he is introducing an enemy into his system, which in the long-run might master his nerves and produce paralysis; nevertheless it is an undoubted fact. Many persons have been deprived of the use of their limbs through a persistence in taking snuff adulterated with lead in less proportions than that found in the samples examined by Dr. Hassall. Bi-chromate of potash is a still more deadly poison. M. Duchâtel of Paris found that dogs were destroyed by doses of from one twenty-fifth of a grain to one five-hundredth of a grain. We have heard of inveterate snuffers keeping this comfort open in their waistcoat pockets, and helping themselves by fingers'-full at a time; if their snuff contained anything like the proportion of deleterious ingredients now to be found in the same article, "dropped hands" and colic would soon have cured them of this dirty and disagreeable habit.

It is not our purpose to follow further the trail which Accum and others, and more lately and particularly Dr. Hassall, have discovered for us. Before closing the pages of the latter gentleman's report, however, from which we have drawn so largely, we cannot avoid stating that the community is under the greatest obligation to both himself and the editor of the _Lancet_--to the one for the energy with which he pursued his subject, and to the other for his singular boldness in rendering himself liable for the many actions which the publication of the names of evil-doers was likely to bring upon his journal, a liability which Dr. Hassall has since taken upon himself by the reprint of the report under his own name. This report is, in fact, as far as it goes, a handbook to the honest and fraudulent food-dealers in the metropolis; and every man who values wholesome aliment, and thinks it a duty to society to support the honest tradesman in preference to the rogue, should procure it as a valuable work of reference. We have not followed the author into personalities, as no further purpose could be served by so doing; but we have shown enough to convince the public that the grossest fraud reigns throughout the British public commissariat. Like a set of monkeys, every man's hand is seen in his neighbour's dish. The baker takes in the grocer, the grocer defrauds the publican, the publican "does" the pickle manufacturer, and the pickle-maker fleeces and poisons all the rest.[7]