themselves as mediums of publicity, by comparing their charges for the
same advertisement. Thus the contents of the _Quarterly Review_ for
January, 1855, precisely similar as far as length is concerned, was
charged for insertion as an advertisement by the different papers as
follows:--_Times_, 4s.; _Illustrated News_, 1_l._ 8s.; _Morning
Chronicle_, 5s. 6d.; _Morning Post_, 6s.; _Daily News_, 5s. 6d.;
_Spectator_, 7s. 6d.; _Morning Herald_, 6s.; _Punch_, 15s.; _Observer_,
9s. 6d.; _English Churchman_, 5s. 6d.; _Examiner_, 3s. 6d.; _John Bull_,
5s. 6d.; _Athenæum_, 10s. 6d. Now the _Times_ did not "display" the
advertisement as all the others did, it is true, and therefore squeezed it
into half the space; but with this difference, its charge was absolutely
the lowest in the list, with the single exception of that of the
_Examiner_. How this moderation on the part of the Leading Journal is to
be accounted for we know not; but the apparent dearness of the
_Illustrated News_ meets a ready solution, and affords us an opportunity
of showing how vastly the prime cost of an advertisement, during the
present high price of paper especially, is augmented by a great increase
of the circulation of the paper in which it appears, and what the
advertiser really gets for his money. If we take the advertisement of our
contents (_Quarterly Review_), it will be found to measure about one inch
in depth; it is obvious, then, that we must multiply this measure by
170,000, the number of separate copies in which it appeared. Now 170,000
inches yield a strip of printed paper the width of a newspaper
column--_upwards of two miles and three-quarters long!_ Thus we have at a
glance the real amount of publicity which is procurable in a great
journal; and with so remarkable a statement it will be well to close our
paper.
FOOD AND ITS ADULTERATIONS.
A story is told of a European who, wishing to convince a Brahmin of the
folly of his faith in interdicting, as an article of food, anything that
once possessed life, showed him, by the aid of the microscope, that the
very water which he drank was full of living things. The Indian, thus
suddenly introduced to an unseen world, dashed the instrument to the
ground, and reproached his teacher for having so wantonly destroyed the
guiding principle of his life. We, too, have at home a Hindoo, in the
shape of the believing British public, to whose eye Dr. Hassall nicely
adjusts the focus of his microscope, and bids him behold what unseen
villanies are daily perpetrated upon his purse and person.
The world at large has almost forgotten Accum's celebrated work, "Death in
the Pot;" a new generation has indeed sprung up since it was written, and
fraudulent tradesmen and manufacturers have gone on in silence, and, up to
this time, in security, falsifying the food and picking the pockets of the
people. Startling indeed as were the revelations in that remarkable book,
yet it had little effect in reforming the abuses it exposed. General
denunciations of grocers did not touch individuals of the craft, and they
were consequently not driven to improve the quality of their wares. The
_Lancet_ Commission went to work in a different manner. In Turkey, when of
old they caught a baker giving false weight, or adulterating the staff of
life, they nailed his ear to the door-post, "pour encourager les autres."
Dr. Hassall, like a modern Al Raschid, perambulated the town himself, or
sent his trustworthy agents to purchase articles, upon all of which the
inexorable microscope was set to work, and every fraudulent sample, after
due notice given, subjected its vendor to be pinned for ever to the
terrible pages of the Commissioners' report. In this manner direct
responsibility was obtained. If the falsification denounced was not the
work of the retailer, he was glad enough to shift the blame upon the
manufacturer; and thus the truth came out.
A gun suddenly fired into a rookery could not cause a greater commotion
than this publication of the names of dishonest tradesmen; nor does the
daylight, when you lift a stone, startle ugly and loathsome things more
quickly than the pencil of light, streaming through a quarter-inch lens,
surprised in their naked ugliness the thousand and one illegal substances
which enter more or less into every description of food that it will pay
to adulterate. Nay, to such a pitch of refinement has the art of
falsification of alimentary substances reached, that the very articles
used to adulterate are adulterated; and while one tradesman is picking the
pockets of his customers, a still more cunning rogue is, unknown to
himself, deep in his own!
The manner in which food is adulterated is not only one of degree, but of
kind. The most simple of all sophistications, and that which is most
harmless, is the mixture of inferior qualities of the same substance.
Indeed, if the price charged were according to quality, it would be no
fraud at all; but this adjustment rarely takes place. Secondly, the
mixture of cheaper articles of another kind. Thirdly, the surreptitious
introduction of materials which, taken in large quantities, are
prejudicial to health; and, fourthly, the admixture of the most deadly
poisons in order to improve the appearance of the article "doctored."
The microscope alone is capable of detecting at one operation the nature
and extent of the more harmless but general of these frauds. When once the
investigator, by the aid of that instrument, has become familiar with the
configurations of different kinds of the same chemically composed
substances, he is armed with far greater detective power than chemical
agents could provide him with. It is beyond the limit of the test-tube to
show the mind the various forms of animal and vegetable life which exist
in impure water; delicate as are its powers, it could not indicate the
presence of the sugar-insect, or distinguish with unerring nicety an
admixture of the common Circuma arrowroot with the finer Maranta.
Chemistry is quite capable of telling the component parts of any article:
what are the definite forms and natures of the various ingredients which
enter into a mixture, it cannot so easily answer. This the microscope can
at once effect; and in its present application consists Dr. Hassall's
advantage over all previous investigators in the same field. The precision
with which he is enabled to state the result of his labours leaves no
appeal: he shows his reader the intimate structures of a coffee-grain, and
of oak or mahogany sawdust; and then a specimen of the two combined, sold
under the title of genuine Mocha. Many manufacturers and retailers who
have been detected falsifying the food of the public, have threatened
actions; but they all flinched from the test of this unerring instrument.
The system of adulteration is so wide-spread, and embraces so many of the
items of the daily meal, that we scarcely know where to begin--what corner
of the veil first to lift. Let us hold up the cruet-frame, for example,
and analyze its contents. There is mustard, pepper (black and cayenne),
vinegar, anchovy and Harvey sauce--so thinks the unsuspecting reader; let
us show him what else beside. To begin with mustard. "Best Durham," or
"Superfine Durham," no doubt it was purchased for; but we will summarily
dismiss this substance by stating that it is impossible to procure it pure
at all: out of forty-two samples bought by Dr. Hassall at the best as well
as inferior shops, all were more or less adulterated with wheaten flour
for bulk, and with turmeric for colour. Vinegar also suffers a double
adulteration. It is first watered, and then pungency is given to it by the
addition of sulphuric acid. A small quantity of this acid is allowed by
law; and this is frequently trebled by the victuallers. The pepper-castor
is another stronghold of fraud--fraud so long and openly practised, that
we question if the great mass of the perpetrators even think they are
doing wrong. Among the milder forms of sophistication to which this
article is subjected, are to be found such ingredients as wheaten flour,
ground rice, ground mustard-seeds, and linseed-meal. The grocer maintains
a certain reserve as to the generality of the articles he employs in
vitiating his wares; but pepper he seems to think is given up to him by
the public to "cook" in any manner he thinks fit. This he almost
invariably does by the addition of what is known in the trade as P. D., or
pepper-dust, _alias_ the sweepings from the pepper warehouses. But there
is a lower depth still: P. D. is too genuine a commodity for some markets,
and it is accordingly mixed with D. P. D., or dirt of pepper-dust.
A little book, published not long since, entitled "The Successful
Merchant," which gives the minute trade history of a gentleman very much
respected in Bristol, Samuel Budgett, Esq., affords us a passage bearing
upon this P. D. which is worthy of notice.
"In Mr. Budgett's early days," says his biographer, "pepper was under
a heavy tax, and in the trade universal tradition said that out of the
trade everybody expected pepper to be mixed. In the shop stood a cask
labelled P. D., containing something _very like_ pepper-dust,
wherewith it was usual to mix the pepper before sending it forth to
serve the public. The trade tradition had obtained for the apocryphal
P. D. a place amongst the standard articles of the shop, and on the
strength of that tradition it was vended for pepper by men who thought
they were honest. But as Samuel went on in life, his ideas on trade
morality grew clearer; this P. D. began to give him much discomfort.
He thought upon it till he was satisfied that, after all that could be
said, the thing was wrong: arrived at this conclusion, he felt that no
blessing could light upon the place while it was there. He instantly
decreed that P. D. should perish. It was night; but back he went to
the shop, took the hypocritical cask, carried it out to the quarry,
then staved it, and scattered P. D. among the clods and slag and
stones."
Would we could say that the reduction of the tax upon pepper had
stimulated the honesty of other grocers to act a similar part to that of
Mr. Budgett; but P. D. flourishes as flagrantly as ever; and if every
possessor of the article in London were to stave his casks in the roadway,
as conscientiously as did the "Successful Merchant," there would be hard
work for the scavengers. In the days of Accum it was usual to manufacture
peppercorns out of oiled linseed-cake, clay, and cayenne-pepper, formed
into a mass, and then granulated: these fraudulent corns were mixed with
the real to the extent of seventeen per cent. This form of imposition,
like that of wooden nutmegs among our American friends, has, we are happy
to say, long been abandoned. The adulterations we have mentioned are
simply dirty and fraudulent; but in the cayenne-cruet we find, in
addition, a deadly poison. Out of twenty-eight samples submitted to
examination, no less than twenty-four were adulterated with white
mustard-seed, brickdust, salt, ground rice, and _deal sawdust_, by way of
giving bulk; but as all of these tend to lighten the colour, it is
necessary to heighten it to the required pitch. And what is employed to do
this? Hear and tremble, old Indians and lovers of high-seasoned food--with
RED LEAD. Out of twenty-eight samples, red lead, and _often in poisonous
quantities_, was present in thirteen! Who knows how many "yellow admirals"
at Bath have fallen victims to their cayenne-cruets? Nor can it be said
that the small quantity taken at a time could do no permanent mischief;
for lead belongs to the class of poisons which are cumulative in their
effects.
He who loves cayenne, as a rule is fond of curry-powder; and here also the
poisonous oxide is to be found in large quantities. Some years ago, a
certain amiable duke recommended the labouring population, during a season
of famine, to take a pinch of this condiment every morning before going to
work, as "warm and comforting to the stomach." If they had followed his
advice, thirteen out of every twenty-eight persons would have imbibed a
slow poison. Those who are in the habit of using curry, generally take it
in considerable quantities, and thus the villanous falsification plays a
more deadly part than even in cayenne-pepper. Imagine a man for years
pertinaciously painting his stomach with red lead! We do not know whether
medical statistics prove that paralysis prevails much among "Nabobs;" but
of this we may be sure, that there could be no more fruitful source of it
than the two favourite stimulants we have named.
The great staple articles of food are not subject to adulteration in the
same proportion as many other articles of minor demand. We need scarcely
say that meat is exempt so long as it remains in the condition of joints;
but immediately it is prepared in any shape in which its original fibre
and form can be hidden, the spirit of craft begins to work. The public
have always had certain prejudices against sausages and polonies, for
example; and, if we are to believe a witness examined on oath before the
Smithfield Market Commissioners in 1850, not without reason. It is a very
old joke that there are no live donkeys to be found within twenty miles of
Epping; but if all the asinine tribe in England were to fall victims to
the chopping-machine, we question if they could supply the _à-la-mode_,
polony, and sausage establishments. Mr. J. Harper, for instance, being
under examination, upon being asked what became of the diseased meat
brought into London, replied:--
"It is purchased by the soup-shops, sausage-makers, the _à-la-mode_
beef and meat-pie shops, &c. There is one soup-shop, I believe, doing
five hundred pounds per week in diseased meat. This firm has a large
_foreign_ trade [thank goodness!]. The trade in diseased meat is very
alarming, as anything in the shape of flesh can be sold at about one
penny per pound, or eightpence per stone.... I am certain that if one
hundred carcases of cows were lying dead in the neighbourhood of
London, I could get them all sold within twenty-four hours: _it don't
matter what they died of_."
It must not be imagined that the _à-la-mode_ beef interest is supplied
with this carrion by needy men, whose necessities may in some degree
palliate their evil dealings. In proof of this we quote further from Mr.
Harper's evidence. In answer to the question, "Is there any slaughtering
of bad meat in the country for the supply of the London market?" he
says,--
"The London market is very extensively supplied with diseased meat
from the country. There are three insurance offices in London in which
graziers can insure their beasts from disease. It was the practice of
one of these offices to send the unsound animals dying from disease to
their own slaughter-houses, situate a hundred and sixty miles from
London, to be dressed and sent to the London market.... Cattle, sheep,
&c., are insured against all kinds of diseases; and one of the
conditions is, that the diseased animal, when dead, becomes the
property of the insurance company, the party insuring receiving
two-thirds of the value of the animal and one-third of the salvage;
or, in other words, one-third of the amount the beast is sold for when
dead."
Upon being asked, "Do you believe it is still the habit of this company to
send up the diseased animals to London?" he replied,--
"Yes, I do; until lately they were regularly consigned to a
meat-salesman in Newgate market of the name of Mathews.... The larger
quantities are sold to people who manufacture it into soup, meat-pies,
sausages, &c."
We have no wish to destroy the generally robust appetite of the persons
who visit such shops by any gratuitous disclosure; but we question whether
the most hungry crossing-sweeper would look any more with a longing eye
upon the huge German sausages, rich and inviting as they appear, if, like
Mr. Harper, he knew the too probable antecedents of their contents. The
only other preparations of flesh open to adulteration are preserved meats.
Some years ago, "the Goldner canister business" so excited the public
against this invaluable method of storing perishing articles of food, that
a prejudice has existed against it ever since; and a more senseless
prejudice could not be. Goldner's process, since adopted by Messrs. Cooper
and Aves, is simple and beautiful. The provisions, being placed in tin
canisters having their covers soldered down, are plunged up to their necks
in a bath of chloride of calcium (a preparation which imbibes a great heat
without boiling), and their contents are speedily cooked; at the same time
all the air in the meat, and some of the water, are expelled in the form
of steam, which issues from a pin-hole in the lid. The instant the cook
ascertains the process to be complete, he drops a plug of solder upon the
hole, and the mass is thus hermetically sealed. Exclusion of air, and
coagulation of the albumen, are the two conditions which enable us to hand
the most delicate-flavoured meats down to remote generations,--for as
long, in fact, as a stout painted tin canister can maintain itself intact
against the oxidating effect of the atmosphere. We have ourselves partaken
lately of a duck that was winged, and of milk that came from the cow, as
long as eight years ago. Fruit which had been gathered whilst the
free-trade struggle was still going on, we found as delicate in flavour as
though it had just been plucked from the branch. Out of the many cases of
all kinds of provisions opened and examined by Dr. Hassall, scarcely any
have been found to be bad. When we remember that the graves of so many of
our soldiers in the Crimea may be justly inscribed, "Died of salt pork,"
we cannot forbear to call attention to a neglected means of feeding our
troops with good and nutritious food, instead of with the tough fibre
called meat, from which half the blood-making qualities have been
extracted by the process of boiling, whilst the remaining half is rendered
indigestible by the action of salt, and poisonous by the extraction of one
of its most important constituents. It would seem as if we were living in
the days of Anson, who lost 626 men of scurvy, out of a crew of 961,
before he could reach the island of Juan Fernandez, or of the still later
cruise of Sir C. Hardy, who sent 3,500 to hospital with this fatal
disease, after a six weeks' sail with the Channel fleet. It may be urged
that the sailors in the late war did not sicken on salt pork; but while
they had the necessary amount of potass, which the stomach requires to
make blood, in the lime-juice served out to them, our troops were without
this indispensable accompaniment, and consequently died. In the preserved
meats, which are made up with potatoes and other vegetables, the needful
potass exists, and such food may be purchased as cheaply as the pernicious
salt junk which is patronized by the Government.
Bread, the great blood-producer, claims particular attention. It often
surprises persons who walk about the metropolis to find that prices vary
according to the locality; thus the loaf that costs in the Borough or the
New Cut 7_d._ a quartern, is 10-1/2_d._ at the West End. Can plate-glass
windows and rent cause all this difference? Certainly not. We are glad,
however, to find that many of the adulterations mentioned by our older
writers have vanished with free trade. Prince and Accum mention plaster of
Paris, bone-dust, the meal of other cereal grains, white clay, alum,
sulphate of copper, potatoes, &c. All of these sophistications have
disappeared, with the exception of potatoes, which are occasionally
employed when the difference between their value and that of flour makes
it worth while for the baker or miller to introduce them. When we see a
loaf marked under the market price, we may rest assured that it is made of
flour ground from inferior and damaged wheat. In order to bring this up to
the required colour, and to destroy the sour taste which often belongs to
it, bakers are in the habit of introducing a mixture called in the trade
"hards" and "stuff," which is nothing more than alum and salt, kept
prepared in large quantities by the druggists. The quantity of alum
necessary to render bread white is certainly not great--Mitchell found
that it ranged from 116 grains to 34-1/2 grains in the four-pound loaf;
but the great advantage the baker derives from it, in addition to
improving the colour of his wares, is, that it absorbs a large quantity of
water, which he sells at the present time at the rate of 2_d._ a pound.
Out of twenty-eight loaves of bread bought in every quarter of the
metropolis, Dr. Hassall did not find one free from the adulteration of
alum; and in some of the samples he found considerable quantities. As a
general rule, the lower the neighbourhood, the cheaper the bread, and the
greater the quantity of this "hards" or "stuff" introduced. We must not,
however, lay all the blame upon the baker. This was satisfactorily shown
by the Sanitary Commissioners, when dealing with the bread sold by the
League Bread Company, whose advertisement to the following effect is
constantly to be seen in the _Times_:--
"The object for which the above company was established, and is now in
operation, is to insure to the public bread of a pure and nutritious
character. Experience daily proves how much our health is dependent
upon the quality and purity of our food; consequently, how important
it is that an article of such universal consumption as bread should be
free from adulteration. That various diseases are caused by the use of
_alum_ and other deleterious ingredients in the manufacture of bread,
the testimony of many eminent men will fully corroborate. Pure
unadulterated bread, full weight, best quality, and the lowest
possible price."
Upon several samples of this _pure bread_, purchased of various agents of
the company, being tested, they were found to be contaminated with _alum_!
Here was a discovery. The company protested that the analyses were
worthless; and all their workmen made a solemn declaration that they had
never used any alum whilst in their employ. The agents of the company
also declared that they never sold any but their bread. The analyst looked
again through his microscope, and again reiterated his charge, that alum
their bread contained. It was then agreed to test the flour supplied to
the company, and three samples were proved to contain the obnoxious
material. Thus we find that the miller still, in some instances, maintains
his doubtful reputation, and is at the bottom of this roguery.
Our succeeding remarks will fall, we fear, like a bomb upon many a
tea-table, and stagger teetotalism in its stronghold. A drunkard's stomach
is sometimes exhibited at total-abstinence lectures, in every stage of
congestion and inflammation, painted up to match the fervid eloquence of
the lecturer. If tea is our only refuge from the frightful maladies
entailed upon us by fermented liquors, we fear the British public is in a
perplexing dilemma. Ladies, there is death in the teapot! Green-tea
drinkers, beware! There has always been a vague idea afloat in the public
mind about hot copper plates--a suspicion that gunpowder and hyson do not
come by their colour honestly. The old duchess of Marlborough used to
boast that she came into the world before "nerves were in fashion." We
feel half inclined to believe this joke had a great truth in it; for since
the introduction of tea, nervous complaints of all kinds have greatly
increased; and we need not look far to find one at least of the causes in
the teapot. There is no such a thing as pure green tea to be met with in
England. It is adulterated in China; and we have lately learnt to
adulterate it at home almost as well as the cunning Asiatic. The pure
green tea made from the most delicate green leaves grown upon manured
soil, such as the Chinese use themselves, is, it is true, wholly
untainted; and we are informed that its beautiful bluish bloom, like that
upon a grape, is given by the third process of roasting which it
undergoes. The enormous demand for a moderately-priced green tea which has
arisen both in England and China since the opening of the trade, has led
the Hong merchants to imitate this peculiar colour; and this they do so
successfully as to deceive the ordinary judges of the article. Black tea
is openly coloured in the neighbourhood of Canton in the most wholesale
manner.
Mr. Robert Fortune, in his very interesting work, "The Tea Districts of
China and India," gives us a good description of the manner in which this
colouring process is performed, as witnessed by himself:--