Our readers will now, we think, be able to form a general idea of the perils to which they are exposed by every meal.
Mr. Accum’s details on the adulteration of wine are extremely ample, and so interesting, that we regret our limits prevent our making more copious extracts, and oblige us to refer our readers for farther information to the work itself.
Having thus laid open to our view the arcana of the cellar, Mr. Accum next treats us with an expose of the secrets of the brew-house. Verily, the wine-merchant and brewer are par nobile fratrum; and after the following disclosures, it will henceforth be a matter of the greatest indifference to us, whether we drink Perry or Champaigne, Hermitage or Brown stout. Latet anguis in poculo, there is disease and death in them all, and one is only preferable to the other, because it will poison us at about one-tenth of the expense.
“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 practice of adulterating beer appears to be of early date. To shew that they have augmented in our own days, we shall exhibit an abstract from documents laid lately before Parliament.
“Mr. Accum not only amply proves, that unwholesome ingredients are used by fraudulent brewers, and that very deleterious substances are also vended both to brewers and publicans for adulterating beer, but that the ingredients mixed up in the brewer’s enchanting cauldron are placed above all competition, even with the potent charms of Macbeth’s witches:
‘Root of hemlock, digg’d i’ the dark,
* * * *
* * * *
For a charm of pow’rful trouble.