What is infinitely worse, however, than any of those frauds, sophistications, we are informed, are carried on to an equal extent in all the essential articles of subsistence or comfort. So long as our dishonest dealers do not intermeddle with these things, their deceptions are comparatively harmless; the evil in all such cases amounting only to so much pecuniary damage. But when they begin to tamper with food, or with articles connected with the table, their frauds are most pernicious: in all cases the nutritive quality of the food is injured, by the artificial ingredients intermixed with it; and when these ingredients, as frequently happens, are of a poisonous quality, they endanger the health and even the life of all to whom they are vended. We cannot conceive any thing more diabolical than those contrivances; and we consider their authors in a far worse light than ordinary felons, who, being known, can be duly guarded against. But those fraudulent dealers conceal themselves under the fair show of a reputable traffic—they contrive in this manner to escape the infamy which justly belongs to them—and, under the disguise of wealth, credit, and character, to lurk in the bosom of society, wounding the hand that cherishes them, and scattering around them poison and death.
It is chiefly for the purpose of laying open the dishonest artifices of this class of dealers, that Mr. Accum has published the present very interesting and popular work; and he gives a most fearful view of the various and extensive frauds which are daily practised on the unsuspecting public.
‘Among the number of substances used in domestic economy, which are now very generally found sophisticated, may be distinguished—tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, and other articles of subsistence.—Indeed, it would be difficult to mention a single article of food which is not to be met with in an adulterated state; and there are some substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine.—Some of these spurious compounds are comparatively harmless when used as food; and as, in these cases, merely substances of inferior value are substituted for more costly and genuine ingredients, the sophistication, though it may affect our purse, does not injure our health. Of this kind are the manufacture of factitious pepper, the adulterations of mustard, vinegar, cream, &c. Others, however, are highly deleterious; and to this class belong the adulterations of beer, wines, spirituous liquors, pickles, salad oil, and many others.’ pp. 2-4.
There are, it appears, particular chemists who make it their sole employment to supply the unprincipled brewer of porter and ale with drugs, and other deleterious preparations; while others perform the same office to the wine and spirit merchant, as well as to the grocer and oilman—and these illicit pursuits have assumed all the order and method of a regular trade.
‘The eager and insatiable thirst for gain’ (Mr. Accum justly observes), which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention; and where lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of a fellow-creature’s life is a secondary consideration.’
Mr. Accum having exhibited this general view of his subject, proceeds to enter into an examination of the articles most commonly counterfeited, and to explain the nature of the ingredients used in sophisticating them. He commences with a dissertation on the qualities of good water, in which he briefly points out the dangerous sophistications to which it is liable, from the administration of foreign ingredients.
But in the case of water, the adulteration is purely accidental, which cannot be said of the other articles specified by Mr. Accum. In the making of Bread, more especially in London, various ingredients are occasionally mingled with the dough. To suit the caprice of his customers, the baker is obliged to have his bread light and porous, and of a pure white. It is impossible to produce this sort of bread from flour alone, unless it be of the finest quality. The best flour, however, being mostly used by the biscuit-bakers and pastry-cooks, it is only from the inferior sorts that bread is made; and it becomes necessary, in order to have it of that light and porous quality, and of a fine white, to mix alum with the dough. Without this ingredient, the flour used by the London bakers would not yield so white a bread as that sold in the metropolis.
Wine appears to be a subject for the most extensive and pernicious frauds.
‘All persons (Mr. Accum observes) moderately conversant with the subject, are aware, that a portion of alum is added to young and meagre red wines, for the purpose of brightening their colour; that Brazil wood, or the husks of elderberries and bilberries, which are imported from Germany, under the fallacious name of berry-dye, are employed to impart a deep rich purple tint to red port of a pale colour; that gypsum is used to render cloudy white wines transparent; that an additional astringency is imparted to immature red wines by means of oak-wood and sawdust, and the husks of filberts; and that a mixture of spoiled foreign and home-made wines is converted into the wretched compound frequently sold in the metropolis by the name genuine old Port.’
Other expedients are resorted to, in order to give flavour to insipid wines. For this purpose bitter almonds are occasionally employed; factitious port wine is also flavoured with a tincture drawn from the seeds of raisins; and other ingredients are frequently used, such as sweet brier, orris root, clary, cherry-laurel water, and elder flowers.