sured me you could not live a week." It is quite in vain for Mr. Accum to allege, that "our bane and antidote are both before us;" that he has not only made us acquainted with the deadly frauds which are daily practised on our stomachs, but afforded us unerring chemical tests by which these frauds may be detected. Is it for a moment to be supposed, that we are not to eat a muffin or a slice of toast without first subjecting it to an experiment with muriate of barytes? Does Mr. Accum expect us to resort to the cider cellar, or the Burton ale house, loaded with retorts and crucibles, and with our pockets crammed with tincture of gall, ammonia, and prussiate of potash? Are we to refuse to partake of a bottle of old Madeira, whenever we may chance to have forgotten to provide ourselves with the solution of subacetate of lead? For our own part, we must say, that rather than submit to such intolerable restrictions as these, we should prefer (dreadful alternative!) to double the dose of poison, and put a speedy end to our existence, by devouring a second roll to breakfast, and swallowing twice as much wine and porter after dinner as we have hitherto been accustomed to.

'But in the dense and extended atmosphere of fraud, in which, it appears, we are condemned to live, move and have our being, what reason have we to expect, that the very chemical substances which are necessary to expose our danger have not themselves partaken of the general adulteration? Mr. Accum himself tells us, that "nine tenths of the most potent drugs and chemical preparations used in pharmacy are vended in a sophisticated state by dealers, who would be the last to be suspected." Let us therefore, since it must be so, reconcile ourselves to be poisoned with a good grace, and since we can have no hopes of a reprieve, imitate the Jemmy Jessamy thief, who behaves prettily on the scaffold, skips up the ladder with the air of a dancing master, ogles the girls while the halter is adjusting, and drops the handkerchief with all the graces of a Turkish petit-maitre in his Haraam.

'Mr. Accum's work is evidently written in the same spirit of dark and melancholy anticipation, which pervades Dr. Robinson'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

Hic Jacet

Frederick Accum,

Operative Chemist,
Old Compton Street,
Soho.

Judging from ourselves, Mr. Accum has been tolerably successful in communicating his own terror to his readers. 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 cus

VOL. II.

tard-eaters, in page 326 of the present work. We beg to assure our friends, therefore, that at this moment they may invite us to dinner with the greatest impunity. Our diet is at present quite similar to that of Parnell'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. V. S.

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.

The following extract from the prefatory observations of Mr. Accum, will give the reader a sort of a priori taste of what is to follow. Like the preliminary oysters of a Frenchman's dinner, they will serve to whet the appetite for the more substantial banquet which is to succeed.

"Of all the frauds practised by mercenary dealers, there is none more reprehensible, and at the same time more prevalent, than the sophistication of the various articles of food.

'This unprincipled and nefarious practice, increasing in degree as it has been found difficult of detection, is now applied to almost every commodity which can be classed among either the necessaries or the luxuries of life, and is carried on to a most alarming extent in every part of the United kingdom.

'It has been pursued by men, who, from the magnitude and apparent respectability of their concerns, would be the least obnoxious to public suspicion; and their successful ex

ample has called forth, from among the retail dealers, a multitude of competitors in the same iniquitous course.

'To such perfection of ingenuity has this system of adulterating food arrived, that spurious articles of various kinds are every where to be found, made up so skillfully as to baffle the discrimination of the most experienced judges.

'Among the number of substances used in domestic economy, which are now very generally found sophisticated, may be distinguished-tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, sallad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, and other articles of subsistence.

Indeed it would be difficult to mention a single article of food which is not to be met with in an adulterated state; and there are some substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine.

'There are particular chemists, who make it a regular trade to supply drugs or nefarious preparations to the unprincipled brewer of 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.

'These illicit pursuits have assumed all the order and method of a regular trade; they 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.

'To elude the vigilance of the inquisitive, to defeat the scrutiny of the revenue officer, and to ensure the secrecy of these mysteries, the processes are very ingeniously divided and subdivided among individual operators, and the manufacture is purposely carried on in separate establishments. The task of proportioning the ingredients for use is assigned

to one individual, while the composition and preparation of them may be said to form a distinct part of the business, and is entrusted to another workman. Most of the articles are transmitted to the consumer is a disguised state, or in such a form that their real nature cannot possibly be detected by the unwary. Thus the extract of cocculis indicus, employed by fraudulent manufacturers of malt liquors to impart an intoxicating quality to porter or ales, is known in the market by the name of black extract, ostensibly destined for the use of tanners and dyers. It is obtained by boiling the berries of the cocculus indicus in water, and converting, by a subsequent evaporation, this decoction into a stiff black tenacious mass, possessing, in a high degree, the narcotic and intoxicating quality of the poisonous berry from which it is prepared. Another substance, composed of extract of quassia and liquorice juice, used by fraudulent brewers to economise both malt and hops, is technically called multum.

'The quantities of cocculus 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 respecting 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 composition.

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

'It would be very easy to adduce, in support of these remarks, the testimony of numerous individuals, by whom I