Nor is the general and immoderate use of ardent spirits only destructive to the body, but it acts eminently as powerful incentives to vice of every kind. Does the robber pause in his vocation? Does the murderer hesitate to deprive his fellow-creatures of life? They are presently wound up to a reckless sense of their crimes at the gin-shop.—Has the seducer tried all his arts in vain to despoil his unsuspecting victim of peace and innocence? The seductive liquor offers him an easy prey, and leaves his immolated victim polluted, disgraced, and lost to society. The brothel is more indebted to this source than to all the lures of seduction. In fact, the seductive productions of the distillery and the winepress impair the physical strength of the country, and induce incorrigible habits of vice and intemperance.
A reflecting writer has expressed an opinion that the life of man would generally be extended to a hundred years were it not for his excesses and the adulteration of his food; and when we consider how many attain even a greater age, under every disadvantage, we must allow that there is probability in this opinion. When we observe the early disfigurement of the human form, the swollen or shrunk body, the bloated and self-caricatured face, with the signs of imbecility and decrepitude which we continually see, at an age when life should be in its fullest vigour;—when, at every turn we meet the doctor’s carriage; in every street, behold a rivalry of medical attraction; it is impossible not to feel a conviction that something must be essentially wrong in our way of living. This is principally assignable to our improper and unwholesome diet, but more especially to the vile adulterations to which every article of diet is now impudently and wickedly subjected. As the author of the “Oracle of Health and Long Life” observes, in a note to page 31, “it is no doubt to the unprincipled adulterations of food, spirits, malt liquors, &c. that a great number of the sudden deaths, which are constantly happening in and about the metropolis, is assignable. The adulteration, it is true, is not sufficient to cause instant death, but it operates slowly, and silently, and imperceptibly; so as not to excite sufficient suspicion and inquiry respecting the cause. This is not an idle or a random remark, but one founded on much observation and on very probable grounds. It is hoped that it will awaken public attention and inquiry respecting these nefarious transactions.” Following this valuable advice, I will exert myself to the utmost to promote and call into action this necessary duty, and with this intent the following pages were composed, for the collection of the materials of which I have had singular opportunities afforded me.
PART I.
WINES AND SPIRITS.
I shall divide this interesting portion of my work into two sections; first, the Adulteration of Wines and Spirits, and the Tricks of Wine and Spirit Dealers; and, secondly, the Tests or Methods of ascertaining the Good and Bad Qualities of Wines and Spirits.
Section I.—The Adulteration of Wines and Spirits, and the Tricks of Wine and Spirit Dealers.
1. WINES.
The frauds and malpractices in use among the wine and spirit brewers and compounders of the metropolis, and the noxious and deleterious ingredients with which those unprincipled men “make up” the poisonous compounds, that they are daily vending to the public, under the names of wines and spirits, exceed the devices, and are, if possible, of a more deadly operation than the sophistications and vitiated manufactures palmed upon the public by the wicked and avaricious cozeners of all other adulterating trades.
The art or mystery of manufacturing spurious and counterfeit wines and liquors forms a regular trade of great extent in this metropolis, and is carried on with so much skill and ingenuity, and has attained so great perfection, as to render the irony of the witty author of the Tatler no longer figurative; namely, that “the transmutation of liquors under the streets of London was so perfect, that the operators by the power of magical drugs could convert a plantation of northern hedges into a vineyard; could raise the choicest products of the hills and valleys of France under the streets of London; could squeeze Bourdeaux out of the sloe, and Champagne from the apple.”
Nor has the reprobation of the contaminations of wines and spirits with substances deleterious to health been confined to former times; they have been stigmatised on account of their alarming and deadly increase in numerous recent publications. I quote the following artless lines, in which an honest country lad is represented as expressing his abhorrence of his relative, a London wine-merchant’s sophistications, not for the elegance of the poetry, but as conveying an important truth in a plain garb; perhaps its unaffected satire is not ill adapted to awaken attention: