Part 7
“‘It is a custom among retailing distillers, which I have not taken notice of in this directory, to put one third or one fourth part of proof molasses brandy, proportionably, to what rum they dispose of; which cannot be distinguished, but by an extraordinary palate, and does not at all lessen the body or proof of the goods; but makes them about two shillings a gallon cheaper; and must be well mixed and incorporated together in your retailing cask. But you should keep some of the best rum, not adulterated, to please your customers, whose judgment and palate must be humoured.—When you are to draw a sample of goods to show a person that has judgment in the proof, do not draw your goods into a phial to be tasted, or make experiment of the strength thereof that way, because the proof will not hold except the goods be exceedingly strong. But draw the pattern of goods either into a glass from the cock, to run very small, or rather draw off a small quantity into a little pewter pot, and pour it into your glass, extending your pot as high above the glass as you can without wasting it, which makes the goods carry a better head abundantly, than if the same goods were to be put and tried in a phial.—You must be so prudent as to make a distinction of the persons you have to deal with. What goods you sell to gentlemen for their own use, who require a great deal of attendance, and as much for time of payment, you must take a considerably greater price than of others; what goods you sell to persons where you believe there is a manifest, or at least some hazard of your money, you may safely sell for more than common profit; what goods you sell to the poor, especially medicinally, (as many of your goods are sanative), be as compassionate as the cases require.—All brandies, whether French, Spanish, or English, being proof goods, will admit of one pint of _liquor_‘ (_water_) ‘to each gallon, to be made up and incorporated therewith in your cask, for retail, or selling smaller quantities. And all persons that insist upon having proof goods, which not one in twenty understand, you must supply out of what goods are not so reduced, though at a higher price.’” (P. 267-270.)
Some of the adulterations of spirituous liquors are exceedingly pernicious.
“Another method of fining spirituous liquors, consists in adding to it, first, a solution of sub-acetate of lead, and then a solution of alum. This practice is highly dangerous, because part of the sulphate of lead produced, remains dissolved in the liquor, which it thus renders poisonous.” (P. 284.) “The cordial called shrub frequently exhibits vestiges of copper.” (P. 285.)
Gloucester Cheese has been found contaminated with red lead. The article used in colouring cheese is anotto. In one instance, the anotto, being inferior, had been coloured with vermilion; and the vermilion adulterated by a druggist, (who little thought that it would ever enter into the composition of cheese,) with red lead. The account of the whole transaction as given by Mr. Accum, is worth reading, but too long to be extracted.
Cayenne pepper, “is sometimes adulterated with red lead, to prevent its becoming bleached on exposure to light.” (P. 305.) Pickles “are sometimes intentionally coloured by means of copper.” (P. 306.) “Mrs. E. Raffald directs, ‘to render pickles green, boil them with halfpence, or allow them to stand twenty-four hours in copper or brass pans.’” (P. 309.) “Vinegar is sometimes largely adulterated with sulphuric acid, to give it more acidity.” (P. 311.) “Red sugar drops are usually coloured with the inferior kind of vermilion. This pigment is generally adulterated with red lead. Other kinds of sweetmeats are sometimes rendered poisonous by being coloured with preparations of copper.” (P. 315, 316.) “The foreign conserves ... are frequently impregnated with copper.” (P. 317.) “Quantities” of catsup “are daily to be met with, which on a chemical examination, are found to abound with copper.” (P. 319.) “The quantity of copper which we have more than once detected in this sauce, used for seasoning, and which, on account of its cheapness, is much resorted to by people in the lower walks of life, has exceeded the proportion of lead to be met with in other articles employed in domestic economy.” (P. 320.) “The leaves of the cherry-laurel, _prunus laurocerasus_, a poisonous plant,” are used to flavour custards, _blanc-mange_, and other delicacies of the table. (P. 324.) An instance is given of the dangerous consequences of this practice. (P. 325, 326.) “The water distilled from cherry-laurel leaves is frequently mixed with brandy and other spirituous liquors.” (P. 327.) Several samples of anchovy sauce “have been found contaminated with lead.” (P. 328.) It is not unusual to employ, in preparing this sauce, “a certain quantity of Venetian red, added for the purpose of colouring it, which, if genuine, is an innocent colouring substance. But instances have occurred of this pigment having been adulterated with orange lead, which is nothing else than a better kind of minimum or red oxid of lead.” (P, 328, 329.) In lozenges, “the adulterating ingredient is usually pipe-clay, of which a liberal portion is substituted for sugar.” (P. 330.) Dr. T. Lloyd says, “‘I was informed,’” (at a _respectable_ chemist’s shop in the city) “‘that there were two kinds of ginger lozenges kept for sale, the one at three-pence the once, and the other at six-pence; and that the article furnished to me by mistake was the cheaper commodity. The latter were distinguished by the epithet _verum_, they being composed of sugar and ginger only. But the former were manufactured partly of white Cornish clay, with a portion of sugar only, with ginger and Guinea pepper. I was likewise informed, that of Tolu lozenges, peppermint lozenges, and ginger pearls, and several other sorts or lozenges, two kinds were kept; that the _reduced_ prices, as they were called, were manufactured for those very clever persons in their own conceit, who are fond of haggling, and insist on buying better bargains than other people, shutting their eyes to the defects of an article, so that they can enjoy the delight of getting it cheap: and, secondly, for those persons, who being but bad paymasters, yet as the manufacturer, for his own credit’s sake, cannot charge more than the usual price of the article, he thinks himself therefore authorized to adulterate it in value, to make up for the risk he runs, and the long credit he must give.’” (P. 332, 333.)
Well—there is then some honesty left in the world. What a pleasure it is to have to deal with a _respectable_ man. But we return to the practices of the _knaves_.
Olive oil “is sometimes contaminated with lead.” (P. 334.) The dealers in this commodity assert that lead or pewter “prevents the oil from becoming rancid. And hence some retailers often suffer a pewter measure to remain immersed in the oil.” (P. 336.) “The beverage called soda water is frequently contaminated both with copper and lead.” (P. 351.) Mr. Johnston, of Greek Street, Soho, was the first who pointed out the danger to the public. “Many kinds of viands are frequently impregnated with copper, in consequence of the employment of cooking utensels made of that metal. By the use of such vessels in dressing food, we are daily liable to be poisoned.” (P. 352.) “Mr. Thiery, who wrote a thesis on the noxious quality of copper, observes that ‘our food receives its quantity of poison, in the kitchen by the use of copper pans and dishes. The brewer mingles poison in our beer, by boiling it in copper vessels. The sugar-baker employs copper pans. The pastry-cook bakes our tarts in copper moulds. The confectioner uses copper vessels. The oilman boils his pickles in copper or brass vessels, and verdigrise is plentifully formed by the action of the vinegar upon the metal.’” (P. 353, 354.) Moreover, “various kinds of food, used in domestic economy, are liable to become impregnated with lead.” (P. 359.)
Mr. Accum, speaking on the subject of Beer, says,
“It will be noticed that some of the sophistications are comparatively harmless, whilst others are affected by substances deleterious to health.” (P. 185.)
We think, however, that the candour of Mr. Accum leads him to make too much allowance for this consideration throughout. Surely, though many articles of food be not absolutely poisonous, a diet consisting of drugs and chemical compounds and articles never intended by nature to be eaten or drunk, articles for which, presented simple, the hungriest stomach would feel no appetite or inclination, cannot be wholesome. Brick and mortar are not poison; yet we cannot, like the dragon of Wantley, swallow a church, and pick our teeth with the steeple. Many can eat oysters, but few could manage the oyster-knife. Even the Welshman of King Arthur’s court, fond as he was of toasted cheese, would inevitably have been choked by the mouse that ran down his throat to eat it, had he not “pulled him out by the tail.”
We could give farther extracts; but must refer the reader to the work itself, which contains much interesting matter, besides what we have selected. THE MONEY THAT IS OFTEN LAID OUT IN THE PURCHASE OF COOKERY BOOKS, WHICH TEACH THE ART OF EXCITING DISEASE AND PAIN BY DUBIOUS COMBINATIONS AND CULINARY POISONS, MIGHT, WE THINK, BE MUCH BETTER EXPENDED UPON A BOOK LIKE THE PRESENT; EVERY PAGE OF WHICH GIVES WARNING OF SOME DANGER, OF WHICH WE OUGHT ALL TO BE AWARE.
A
Treatise on Adulterated Provisions.
BY FREDRICK ACCUM.
THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT.
II. KINGS—CHAP. VI. VERSE XI.
(_From Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, No. XXXV. Page 542._)
Mr. Accum, it appears, is one of those very good-natured friends, who is quite resolved not to allow us to be cheated and poisoned as our fathers were before us, and our children will be after us, without cackling to us of our danger, and opening our eyes to abysses of fraud and imposition, of the very existence of which we had until now the good fortune to be entirely ignorant. His book is a perfect death’s head, a memento mori, the perusal of any single chapter of which is enough to throw any man into the blue devils for a fortnight. Mr. Accum puts us something in mind of an officious blockhead, who, instead of comforting his dying friend, is continually jogging him on the elbow with such cheering assurances as the following. “I am sorry there is no hope; my dear fellow, you must kick the bucket soon. Your liver is diseased, your lungs gone, your bowels as impenetrable as marble, your legs swelled like door-posts, your face as yellow as a guinea, and the doctor just now assured me you could not live a week.”
Mr. Accum’s work is evidently written in the same spirit of dark and melancholy anticipation, which pervades Dr. Robison’s celebrated “Proofs of a Conspiracy, &c. against all the crowned heads of Europe.” The conspiracy disclosed by Mr. Accum is certainly of a still more dreadful nature, and is even more widely ramified than that which excited so much horror in the worthy professor. It is a conspiracy of brewers, bakers, grocers, wine-merchants, confectioners, apothecaries, and cooks, against the lives of all and every one of his majesty’s liege subjects. It is easy to see that Mr. Accum’s nerves are considerably agitated, that—
“Sad forebodings shake him as he writes.”
Not only at the festive board is he haunted by chimeras dire of danger—not only does he tremble over the tureen—and faint over the flesh-pot: but even in his chintz night-gown, and red morocco slippers, he is not secure. An imaginary sexton is continually jogging his elbow as he writes, a death’s head and cross bones rise on his library table; and at the end of his sofa he beholds a visionary tomb-stone of the best granite—
ON WHICH ARE INSCRIBED THE DREADFUL WORDS—
Since we read his book, our appetite has visibly decreased. At the Celtic club, yesterday, we dined almost entirely on roast beef; Mr. Oman’s London-particular Madeira lost all its relish, and we turned pale in the act of eating a custard, when we recollected the dreadful punishment inflicted on custard-eaters, in page 326 of the present work. We beg to assure our friends, therefore, that at the present moment they may invite us to dinner with the greatest impunity.—Our diet is at present quite similar to that of Parnel’s hermit,
“Our food the fruits, our drink the crystal well;”
though we trust a few days will recover us from our panic, and enable us to resume our former habits of life. Those of our friends, therefore, who have any intention of pasturing us, had better not lose the present opportunity of doing so. So favourable a combination of circumstances must have been quite unhoped for on their part, and most probably will never occur again.[24] V. S.
Footnote 24:
To save some trouble, we may announce that we are already engaged to dinner, on the 23d, 27th, and 28th of this month, and to evening parties, on the 22d, 23d, 26th, 28th, and 29th, and 3d of March.
Since, by the publication of Mr. Accum’s book, an end has been for ever put to our former blessed state of ignorance, let us arm ourselves with philosophy, and boldly venture to look our danger in the face; or, as the poet beautifully expresses it, in language singularly applicable,
“Come, Christopher, and leave all meaner things, To low ambition and the pride of kings; Let us, since life can little else supply; Than just to swallow poison and to die; Expatiate free o’er all this dreadful field, Try what the brewer, what the baker yield; Explore the druggists’ shop, the butchers’ stall; Expose their roguery, and—damn them all!” POPE.
Melancholy as the details are, there is something almost ludicrous, we think, in the very extent to which the deceptions are carried. So inextricably are we all immersed in this mighty labyrinth of fraud, that even the venders of poison themselves are forced, by a sort of retributive justice, to swallow it in their turn.—Thus the apothecary, who sells the poisonous ingredients to the brewer, chuckles over his roguery, and swallows his own drugs in his daily copious exhibitions of Brown stout. The brewer in his turn, is poisoned by the baker, the wine-merchant, and the grocer. And, whenever the baker’s stomach fails him, he meets his _coup de grace_ in the adulterated drugs of his friend the apothecary, whose health he has been gradually contributing to undermine, by feeding him every morning on chalk and alum, in the shape of hot rolls.
Our readers will now, we think, be able to form a general idea of the perils to which they are exposed by every meal.
Mr. Accum’s details on the adulteration of wine are extremely ample, and so interesting, that we regret our limits prevent our making more copious extracts, and oblige us to refer our readers for farther information to the work itself.
Having thus laid open to our view the arcana of the cellar, Mr. Accum next treats us with an expose of the secrets of the brew-house. Verily, the wine-merchant and brewer are _par nobile fratrum_; and after the following disclosures, it will henceforth be a matter of the greatest indifference to us, whether we drink Perry or Champaigne, Hermitage or Brown stout. _Latet anguis in poculo_, there is disease and death in them all, and one is only preferable to the other, because it will poison us at about one-tenth of the expense.
“Malt liquors, and particularly porter, the favourite beverage of the inhabitants of London and of other large towns, is amongst those articles, in the manufacture of which the greatest frauds are frequently committed.
“The practice of adulterating beer appears to be of early date. To shew that they have augmented in our own days, we shall exhibit an abstract from documents laid lately before Parliament.
“Mr. Accum not only amply proves, that unwholesome ingredients are used by fraudulent brewers, and that very deleterious substances are also vended both to brewers and publicans for adulterating beer, but that the ingredients mixed up in the brewer’s enchanting cauldron are placed above all competition, even with the potent charms of Macbeth’s witches:
‘Root of hemlock, digg’d i’ the dark, * * * * * * * * For a charm of pow’rful trouble. Like a hell-broth boil and bubble; Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.’
Mr. Accum very properly gives us a list of those miscreants who have been convicted of adulterating their porter with poisonous ingredients, and want of room alone prevents us from damning them to everlasting fame, by inserting their names along with that of the Rev. Sennacherib Terrot, in the imperishable pages of this miscellany.
Mr. Accum gives us a long dissertation on counterfeit tea, and another on spurious coffee; but as these are impositions by which we are little affected, we shall not allow them to detain us. The leaves of the sloe-thorn are substituted for the former, and roasted horse beans for the latter. These frauds, it appears, are carried to a very great extent.
We must now draw our extracts to a close; but we can assure our readers, that we have not yet introduced them to one tythe of the poisonous articles in common use, detected by Mr. Accum. We shall give the titles of a few to satisfy the curious:—Poisonous confectionary, poisonous pickles, poisonous cayenne pepper, poisonous custards, poisonous anchovy sauce, poisonous lozenges, poisonous lemon acid, poisonous mushrooms, poisonous ketchup, and poisonous soda water! Read this, and wonder how you live!
While we thus suffer under accumulated miseries brought upon us by the unprincipled avarice and cupidity of others, it is surely incumbent on us not wantonly to increase the catalogue by any negligence or follies of our own. Will it be believed, that in the cookery book, which forms the prevailing oracle of the kitchens in this part of the island, there is an express injunction to “_boil greens with halfpence_ in order to improve their _colour_?”—That our puddings are frequently seasoned with laurel leaves, and our sweetmeats almost uniformly prepared in copper vessels? Why are we thus compelled to swallow a supererogatorary quantity of poison which may so easily be avoided? And why are we constantly made to run the risk of our lives by participating in custards, trifles, and blancmanges, seasoned by a most deadly poison extracted from the _prunus lauro-cerasus_? Verily, while our present detestable system of cookery remains, we may exclaim with the sacred historian, that there is indeed “Death in the Pot.”
A Treatise on Adulterations of Food,
AND CULINARY POISONS,
Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, &c. and Methods of detecting them.
BY FREDRICK ACCUM.
(_From the Edinburgh Review, No. LXV. Page 131._)
It is curious to see how vice varies its forms, and maintains its substance, in all conditions of society;—and how certainly those changes, or improvements as we call them, which diminish one class of offences, aggravate or give birth to another.—In rude and simple communities, most crimes take the shape of violence and outrage—in polished and refined ones, of Fraud. Men sin from their animal propensities in the first case, and from their intellectual depravation in the second. The one state of things is prolific of murders, batteries, rapines, and burnings—the other of forgeries, swindlings, defamations, and seductions. The sum of evil is probably pretty much the same in both—though probably greatest in the civilized and enlightened stages; the sharpening of the intellect, and the spread of knowledge, giving prodigious force and activity to all criminal propensities.
Among the offences which are peculiar to a refined and enlightened society, and owe their birth, indeed, to its science and refinement, are those skilful and dexterous adulterations of the manifold objects of its luxurious consumption, to which their value and variety, and the delicacy of their preparation, hold out so many temptations; while the very skill and knowledge which are requisite in their formation, furnish such facilities for their sophistication. The very industry and busy activity of such a society, exposes it more and more to such impostures;—and by the division of labour which takes place, and confines every man to his own separate task, brings him into a complete dependence on the industry of others for a supply of the most necessary articles.
The honesty of the dealer, and of the original manufacturer, is the only security to the public for the genuineness of the article in which he deals. The consumer can in general know nothing of their component parts; he must take them as he finds them; and, even if he is dissatisfied, he has in general no effectual means of redress.
It will be found, that as crimes of violence decrease with the progress of society, frauds are multiplied; and there springs up in every prosperous country a race of degenerate traders and manufacturers, whose business is to cheat and to deceive; who pervert their talents to the most dishonest purposes, prefering the illicit gains thus acquired to the fair profits of honorable dealing; and counter-working, by their sinister arts, the general improvement of society.
In almost every branch of manufacture, there are fraudulent dealers, who are instigated by the thirst of gain, to debase the articles which they vend to the public, and to exact a high price for what is comparatively cheap and worthless. After pointing out various deceptions of this nature, Mr. Accum, the ingenious author of the work before us, proceeds in his account of those frauds, in the following terms.
‘Soap used in house-keeping is frequently adulterated with a considerable portion of fine white clay, brought from St. Stephen’s 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.’ pp. 27-29.