Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine,
Spirituous Liquors, &c. and Methods of detecting them.
By FREDRICK ACCUM.
(From the Edinburgh Review, No. LXV. Page 131.)
It is curious to see how vice varies its forms, and maintains its substance, in all conditions of society;—and how certainly those changes, or improvements as we call them, which diminish one class of offences, aggravate or give birth to another.—In rude and simple communities, most crimes take the shape of violence and outrage—in polished and refined ones, of Fraud. Men sin from their animal propensities in the first case, and from their intellectual depravation in the second. The one state of things is prolific of murders, batteries, rapines, and burnings—the other of forgeries, swindlings, defamations, and seductions. The sum of evil is probably pretty much the same in both—though probably greatest in the civilized and enlightened stages; the sharpening of the intellect, and the spread of knowledge, giving prodigious force and activity to all criminal propensities.
Among the offences which are peculiar to a refined and enlightened society, and owe their birth, indeed, to its science and refinement, are those skilful and dexterous adulterations of the manifold objects of its luxurious consumption, to which their value and variety, and the delicacy of their preparation, hold out so many temptations; while the very skill and knowledge which are requisite in their formation, furnish such facilities for their sophistication. The very industry and busy activity of such a society, exposes it more and more to such impostures;—and by the division of labour which takes place, and confines every man to his own separate task, brings him into a complete dependence on the industry of others for a supply of the most necessary articles.
The honesty of the dealer, and of the original manufacturer, is the only security to the public for the genuineness of the article in which he deals. The consumer can in general know nothing of their component parts; he must take them as he finds them; and, even if he is dissatisfied, he has in general no effectual means of redress.
It will be found, that as crimes of violence decrease with the progress of society, frauds are multiplied; and there springs up in every prosperous country a race of degenerate traders and manufacturers, whose business is to cheat and to deceive; who pervert their talents to the most dishonest purposes, prefering the illicit gains thus acquired to the fair profits of honorable dealing; and counter-working, by their sinister arts, the general improvement of society.
In almost every branch of manufacture, there are fraudulent dealers, who are instigated by the thirst of gain, to debase the articles which they vend to the public, and to exact a high price for what is comparatively cheap and worthless. After pointing out various deceptions of this nature, Mr. Accum, the ingenious author of the work before us, proceeds in his account of those frauds, in the following terms.
‘Soap used in house-keeping is frequently adulterated with a considerable portion of fine white clay, brought from St. Stephen’s in Cornwall. In the manufacture of printing paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is added to the paper stuff, to increase the weight of the manufactured article. The selvage of cloth is often dyed with a permanent colour, and artfully stitched to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugitive dye. The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and in the manufacture of cutlery, and jewellery, exceed belief.’ pp. 27-29.