“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:—