Nor is this the worst consequence of the immoral and unsocial act: for the unhappy wretch who is addicted to the habitual and vicious use of ardent spirits, besides subjecting himself to the attack of “the whole army of diseases” which assault the human frame from intoxication, often exhibits a more awful demonstration of the consequences of violating the laws of morality and social decency: I allude to the extraordinary fact of the spontaneous combustion of the body, which has often terminated the existence of old and inveterate drunkards.
This combustion is occasioned in such persons from the whole fabric of the body being so changed, by the constant practice of spirit-drinking, with inflammable matter (probably hydrogen); or, chemically speaking, it acquires so powerful an attraction for oxygen, that it suddenly takes fire, (in some instances spontaneously, in others from the flame of a candle or too powerful a heat of the fire,) and the body is reduced to a cinder.
The persons in whom this dreadful visitation of apparently supernatural punishment for the violation of the laws of nature has occurred, have been chiefly women. In some cases the unhappy sufferers have been found burning, “sometimes with an open flame flickering over the body, sometimes with a smothered heat or fire, without any open flame whatever; whilst the application of water has occasionally seemed rather to quicken than impede the combustion.
“In no instance has the fire or flame thereby excited in the body been so powerful as essentially to injure the most combustible substances immediately adjoining it, as linen or woollen furniture.
“The event has usually taken place at night, when the sufferer has been alone, and has commonly been discovered by the fœtid penetrating scent of sooty films, which have spread to a considerable distance. The unhappy subject has in every instance been found dead, and more or less completely burnt up.”
The above awful account is quoted from Dr. Mason Good’s “Study of Medicine;” but relations of numerous cases of the above horrid termination of existence may be found in the Philosophical Transactions, Vols. 63 and 64, in Dr. Young’s “Medical Literature,” and in a variety of Foreign Journals, medical as well as general.
Let all those who are addicted to habitual intoxication and the consumption of the infernal compositions of nefarious dealers in spirits, read and re-read the above quotation, and may they take warning, and renounce that unhappy propensity.
It is true that wine and malt liquors, and even occasionally spirits, are far from prejudicial, when properly made, and used with discretion; but as it is almost impossible to find them in that state, except when home-made or home-brewed, there is certainly much risk in drinking them. Yet, strange to say, though the stoutest among us has no predilection for the “King of Terrors,” inclination and habit are so strong and seductive, that the greater part of mankind still persevere in habits with a perfect knowledge of their inevitable consequences,—that they are destructive of health and inductive of death. For the purpose of awakening the attention of those who are under this unhappy delusion, is the design of the present publication. The most grateful sensation to a well disposed heart is the salvation of a fellow creature from misery and perdition. I beseech heaven that I may be successful in my undertaking.
But the base and iniquitous adulterations of wines and spirits are not the whole of the “illicit doings” of the advertisers and placarders, and their worthy compeers, the commission-men, the wine-hawkers, and the dock wine-merchants. “Among the deceptions practised by this class of dealers,” says the author of Wine and Spirit Adulterators Unmasked, p. 157, and he is no indifferent authority on the subject, “may be reckoned the delivering of a less quantity of wine than is charged for in the invoice, the disposing of a wine with a false description of its being of some particularly fine and noted vintage; the sending of another wine, of an inferior quality, as the one which had been tasted and sold; together with a variety of other peculations. The gin-shop-keepers and advertising dealers in spirits not only give short measure of their adulterated ingredients, but if they sell any thing like the genuine article they dilute it much below (often one hundred per cent.) the legal strength, namely, seventeen per cent. below proof, according to Sykes’s hydrometer.”
For the following valuable information respecting the ingenious devices of the “gentlemen” wine-merchants, I am indebted to the pages of “The Private Gentleman and Importing Merchant’s Wine and Spirit Cellar Directory:”—A work replete with the most useful information on the subject, as containing the best and most practical instructions on the selection, purchase, management, medication, and preservation of foreign wines, of any work extant in any language. It has been well said by a judicious critic, “No book is more wanted than a good, practical, and complete one on this important subject: it would be worth its weight in gold, and its author would be a public benefactor to his country. More than nine-tenths of the wine imported into this country is either spoiled or impoverished by the ignorance or mismanagement of the wine-dealer or the purchaser; as at present conducted, the management of a wine-cellar is, in most cases, all random, hap-hazard, and guess-work. Ought we to be surprised at the result, the consequent loss or injury of the wine? It is, therefore, with considerable satisfaction we recommend this little work as a valuable addition to our domestic economy.”