"And whereas commodities made in imitation of pepper have of late been sold and found in the possession of various dealers in pepper, and other persons in Great Britain; be it therefore enacted, that from and after the said 5th day of July, 1819, if any commodity or substance shall be prepared by any person in imitation of pepper, shall be mixed with pepper, or sold or delivered as and for, or as a substitute for, pepper, or if any such commodity or substance, alone or mixed, shall be kept for sale, sold, or delivered, or shall be offered or exposed to sale, or shall be in the custody or possession of any dealer or seller of pepper, the same, together with all pepper with which the same shall be mixed, shall be forfeited, with the packages containing the same, and shall and may be seized by any officer of excise; and the person preparing, manufacturing, mixing as aforesaid, selling, exposing to sale, or delivering the same, or having the same in his, her, or their custody or possession, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds."
The common white pepper is factitious, being prepared from the black pepper in the following manner:—The pepper is first steeped in sea water and urine, and then exposed to the heat of the sun for several days, till the rind or outer bark loosens; it is then taken out of the steep, and, when dry, it is rubbed with the hand till the rind falls off. The white fruit is then dried, and the remains of the rind blown away like chaff. A great deal of the peculiar flavour and pungent hot taste of the pepper is taken off by this process. White pepper is always inferior in flavour and quality to the black pepper.
However, there is a sort of native white pepper, produced on a species of the pepper plant, which is much better than the factitious, and indeed little inferior to the common black pepper.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] Thomson's Annals of Chemistry, 1816; also Repository of Arts, vol. i. 1816, p. 11.
[105] George III. c. 53, § 21, 1819.