[45] There are instances of convictions on record, of bakers having used gypsum, chalk, and pipe clay, in the manufacture of bread.
[46] See a Practical Treatise on the Use and Application of Chemical Tests, illustrated by experiments, 3d edit. p. 270, 231, 177, & 196.
[47] Phil. Trans. for 1817, part i.
Adulteration of Beer.
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 statute prohibits the brewer from using any ingredients in his brewings, except malt and hops; but it too often happens that those who suppose they are drinking a nutritious beverage, made of these ingredients only, are entirely deceived. The beverage may, in fact, be neither more nor less than a compound of the most deleterious substances; and it is also clear that all ranks of society are alike exposed to the nefarious fraud. The proofs of this statement will be shewn hereafter.[48]
The author[49] of a Practical Treatise on Brewing, which has run through eleven editions, after having stated the various ingredients for brewing porter, observes, "that however much they may surprise, however pernicious or disagreeable they may appear, he has always found them requisite in the brewing of porter, and he thinks they must invariably be used by those who wish to continue the taste, flavour, and appearance of the beer.[50] And though several Acts of Parliament have been passed to prevent porter brewers from using many of them, yet the author can affirm, from experience, he could never produce the present flavoured porter without them.[51] The intoxicating qualities of porter are to be ascribed to the various drugs intermixed with it. It is evident some porter is more heady than other, and it arises from the greater or less quantity of stupifying ingredients. Malt, to produce intoxication, must be used in such large quantities as would very much diminish, if not totally exclude, the brewer's profit."
The practice of adulterating beer appears to be of early date. By an Act so long ago as Queen Anne, the brewers are prohibited from mixing cocculus indicus, or any unwholesome ingredients, in their beer, under severe penalties: but few instances of convictions under this act are to be met with in the public records for nearly a century. To shew that they have augmented in our own days, we shall exhibit an abstract from documents laid lately before Parliament.[52]