successful brewing was to make people dead-drunk at the cheapest possible
rate, regardless of consequences. Among the ingredients that Mr. Morris,
another instructor in the art of brewing, tells us are requisite to
produce a popular article, are--cocculus indicus and beans, as
intoxicators; calamus aromaticus, as a substitute for hops; quassia, as a
bitter; coriander-seeds to give flavour; capsicums, carraway-seeds,
ginger, and grains of paradise, to give warmth; whilst oyster-shells are
recommended to afford a touch of youth to old beer, and alum to give a
"smack of age" to new; and when it is desired to bring it more rapidly
"forward," the presiding Hecate is told to drop sulphuric acid into her
brew; by this means an imitation of the age of eighteen months was given
in a few instants. Even the "fine cauliflower head," which is held to be
the sign of excellence in stout, was--and, for all we know, still
is--artificially made by mixing with the article a detestable compound
called "beer-headings," composed of common green vitriol, alum, and salt,
and sometimes by the simple addition of salts of steel. That these
articles were commonly employed we have the evidence of the Excise
Department, which published a long list of such ingredients seized by them
on the premises of brewers and brewers' druggists.[6] Many of these
glaring adulterations are probably no longer in general use, although,
from the evidence given before a recent committee of the House of
Commons, it is believed that sulphuric acid, salt of steel, sulphate of
iron, and cocculus indicus are still resorted to by the smaller brewers,
especially those living in the country--a belief very much strengthened by
the very odd taste we sometimes find in ales and porters, and which is
certainly not derived from malt and hops. The common method of
adulterating the national liquor is by mixing water with it. This is done
almost universally by the publican, and to a very extraordinary extent. A
comparison between the per-centage of alcohol to be found in a given
number of samples of porter and stout, procured from what is termed
brewers' taps, or agents, with that existing in a similar number of
samples purchased of publicans, proves this fact in a very convincing
manner. Dr. Hassall informs us that, with regard to the stouts,--
"The alcohol--of specific gravity 796, temperature 60°
Fahr.--contained in the former samples ranged from 7·15 per cent. the
highest, to 4·53 the lowest; whereas that of the stouts procured from
publicans varied, with one exception, from 4·87 per cent. to 3·25 per
cent."
The same difference of strength also existed between the various samples
of porter procured from the two sources; the amount of alcohol in that
obtained from the taps varying from 4·51 per cent. to 2·42 per cent.,
whereas that purchased of publicans ranged from 3·97 per cent. to 1·81 per
cent. The mixture of water, of course, reduces the colour, to bring up
which both burnt sugar and molasses are extensively used; and, in order
that "the appetite may grow with what it feeds on," tobacco and salt are
copiously added by the publican. Beer, porter, and stout are also liable
to be contaminated by the presence of lead. The universal use of pumping
machines and the storing of the casks in the cellars, sometimes at a
considerable distance from the bar, necessitates the use of long leaden
pipes, in passing through which the liquid, if "stale" or sour, oxidates a
portion of the lead. This fact is so well known both to public and
publican, that the first pot or two drawn in the morning is generally set
aside, as, from having lain all night in the pipe, it is justly considered
injurious. The liberality of the barmaid in thus sacrificing a portion of
the liquor is more apparent than real. The reader has, perhaps, noticed
that most public-house counters are fitted up with metal tops, in which
gratings are inserted to drain off all the spilt liquor, drainings of
glasses, heel-taps of pots, &c.: down these gratings goes "the first
draught," with its dose of oxide of lead. The receptacle below, which
contains all this refuse together with that at the bottoms of barrels, the
publican either returns to the brewer, or empties it himself into
half-filled casks.
The public were very needlessly alarmed some years ago by a statement made
by M. Payen, a celebrated French chemist, that strychnine was being made
for England, where it was used in the manufacture of the bitter beer of
this country. This statement was copied by the _Medical Times_, and from
thence, finding its way to Printing-house Square, became generally
diffused, to the horror and discomfiture of pale-ale drinkers; and not
without reason, when it is remembered that one-sixth of a grain of this
poison has been known to prove fatal, and a very much smaller quantity
daily taken, to have the effect of inducing tetanic spasms, and of
otherwise seriously injuring the nervous system. We are happy to be able
to state that the lovers of Bass and Allsopp may quaff their tonic draught
in future without any fear of such terrible results. The bitterness of
pale ale has been found, on analysis, to be entirely due to the extract of
hops. Furthermore, this beverage, when selected from the stores of the
brewers or their agents, has universally proved to be perfectly pure. We
say, from the stores of the Burton brewers or their agents, because there
is no absolute certainty of procuring the article genuine from any other
source. The label on the bottle is no sure guarantee; for used bottles,
with their labels intact, are in many instances refilled by publicans with
an inferior article, and sold, of course, at the price of the real. We
have good reason to believe that this trick is very often practised in a
variety of instances, to the manifest injury of the public and brewers.
Wine is far too wide a subject to be treated here. The great mass of
ports at a cheap and moderate price are made up, it is well known, of
several kinds, and doctored according to cost. There is one compound,
however, which particularly claims our attention, "publicans' port." We
are all of us familiar with the announcement to be seen in the windows of
such tradesmen, "Fine old crusty port, 2_s._ 9_d._ a bottle;" and the
extraordinary thing is, that upon opening the sample we often find that
_it is_ crusted, and that the cork is deeply stained. How can they afford
to sell an article bearing the appearance of such age and quality at so
low a price? The answer is simple: wine, crust, and stained cork are
fabricated. There is a manufactory in London, where, by a chemical
process, they get up beeswing to perfection, and deposit it in the bottles
so as exactly to imitate the natural crust; here corks are also stained to
assume any age that is required. The wine itself contains a very little
inferior port, the rest being composed of cheap red French wine, brandy,
and logwood as a colouring matter, if required. The port wine sold over
the bar at 3_d._ a glass--and we are assured that this article is making
its way in preference to gin in the low neighbourhoods, one gin palace, to
our knowledge, selling a butt a week over the counter--is an inferior
article even to this, and its taste is quite sufficient to prove that only
an infinitesimal portion of it ever came from Oporto.
London gin, under a hundred names, is notoriously a compound. Most people
flatter themselves that its peculiar flavour is due to the admixture of
sugar and juniper-berries alone. It is, however, a much more elaborate
concoction than the public imagine. Those accustomed to the unsweetened
West Country gin think the London article only fit to drink when raw, and
in many cases they are right; for the publican and inferior
spirit-dealers, like milkmen, are great customers of the pump. It appears
that some of the samples examined by the analyst contained only half as
much alcohol as was present in others; and as the gin of commerce is never
above proof, it follows that these specimens were scarcely as good as
"stiff" gin-and-water. So much for the pure spirit; now for the fancy
work or "flavourings." The quantity of sugar in the samples examined
ranged from 3 oz. 4 drms. 23 grains, to 13 oz. 4 drms.; two of them
contained oil of cinnamon, or, more probably, of cassia; seven contained
cayenne pepper, some of them in very large quantities; and most of the
samples contained combined sulphates; whilst there is good authority for
stating that sulphate of zinc, or white vitriol, is often used. The very
"beaded bubbles winking at the brim," which are considered to be a proof
of the strength of the article, are produced artificially. Mr. Mitchell,
in his "Handbook of Commerce," states that this is done by adding a
mixture compounded of alum, carbonate of potash, almond-oil, sulphuric
acid, and spirits of wine. "The earth hath bubbles as the water hath, and
these are of them." One would think that it would be to the interest of
the trade to keep their illicit practices "dark:" but the publican has his
"Handbook" to teach him how to adulterate spirit as well as beer. For
instance, in a little work on Brewing and Distilling, written by a Mr.
Shannon, the following recipe is given:--
"_To reduce unsweetened Gin._
A tun of fine gin 252 gallons.
Water 36 "
---
Which added together makes 288 "
_The doctor is now put on_, and
it is further reduced with water 19 "
---
Which gives 307 gallons.
"This done, let one pound of alum be just covered with water, and
dissolved by boiling; _rummage_ the whole together, and pour in the
alum, and the whole will be fine in a few days."
We wonder that Mr. Gough, the great temperance advocate, never armed
himself with one of these recipes, in order to convince people of the
noxious liquids they are invited to drink under the most inviting names.
In every quarter of the town we see gin-palaces seizing upon the corner
houses of the streets, just as scrofula seizes upon the joints of the
human frame, and through their ever-open doors streams of squalid wretches
are continually pouring in and out. Could they be informed that they enter
to gulp oil of vitriol, oil of turpentine, and sulphuric acid, among other
acrid and deleterious compounds--that the tap of the publican spouts
corroding fire, like that which leaped up from the wooden table at the
command of Mephistopheles, in Auerbach's cellar, they would feel inclined
to exclaim with Siebald to the fiend:--
"What, sir, how dare you practise thus
Your hocus-pocus upon us?"
Gin, it appears, is almost exclusively doctored in this highly deleterious
manner, although all spirits are open to sophistication, but especially
brandy, which, on account of its price, pays well for the trouble. Mr.
Shannon, deeply versed in the "art and mystery" of the trade of the
publican, informs us that brandy should be "made up" for "retail" by the
addition of 10 per cent. of flavoured raisin wine, a little of the
tincture of grains of paradise, cherry-laurel water, and spirit of
almond-cake: "add also 10 handfuls of oak sawdust, and give it
_complexion_ with burnt sugar."
If we can give the dram-drinker little comfort, we can at least reassure
the smoker. "Everybody says" that common cigars are made out of cabbages,
and tobacco has always been suspected of containing many adulterations.
These charges have been made, however, at random, and the result of
chemical analysis and examinations by the microscope has proved that this
article of daily consumption is remarkably pure. The carefully-searching
microscope of Dr. Hassall has not succeeded in finding any other than the
genuine leaf among forty samples of manufactured tobacco; neither were
there any sophistications discovered, with the exceptions of salt, sugar,
and water. An inquiry into the specimens of the rolled and twisted article
was equally consoling to the maker and chewer. Now and then, it is true,
the excise officers make seizures in the warehouses of the tobacco
manufacturers, of dock, rhubarb, coltsfoot, and other leaves, but to a
very insignificant extent, considering the value of the article and the
heavy duty upon it.
He who, like Byron, prefers the naked beauties of the leaf in the shape of
a cigar, will be equally gratified to hear that such a thing as
adulteration scarcely exists in this form of tobacco--at least, not when
purchased in the shops. Even if we descend to a penny "Pickwick," we find
nothing in it but the pure leaf. Out of fifty-seven samples examined, only
one was sophisticated, and that, apparently from its contents, by
accident. The only adulterated samples discovered at all, were exactly
where we might have expected to have found them, in the possession of a
hawker at Whitechapel. These, on examination, turned out to be made up of
two twisted wrappers or layers of thin paper, tinted of a bistre colour,
while the interior consisted entirely of hay, not a particle of tobacco
entering into their composition. The second example of a spurious cigar
was purchased at a review in Hyde Park. It consisted externally of
tobacco-leaf, but was made internally of hay. Our readers are familiar
enough with the fellows who vend these fraudulent articles, made to sell
and not to smoke; they are generally to be found at fairs and races, or
any crowded place in the open air, where they can escape speedily from
their victimized customers. There is a class of men who make a very good
livelihood in the metropolis by perambulating the streets and looking out
for ingenuous youths. Towards such they furtively approach, and, like the
tempter of old, whisper in their ear of forbidden fruit. The unwary are
constantly taken in by one of these serpents, in the shape of a sailor
straight from the docks, who intimates, in a hurried manner, that, if we
wanted any "smuggled cigars," he has just a box to sell cheap round the
corner. In general these worthies need not fear the exciseman, as the
article they have to sell does not come under the name of tobacco at all.
If, however, cigars are not open to the charge of being adulterated, they
are the subject of innumerable frauds, inasmuch as those of English
manufacture are passed off as foreign ones. Thus, the so-called Bengal
cheroots are _all_ home-made imitations of Chinsurah cheroots. In order to
pass them off as the genuine article they are sold in boxes, branded and
labelled in exact imitation of those sent from India. It may be asked why
such cigars, if made out of the tobacco-leaf, are not as good as those of
Eastern or Spanish manufacture. The real reason is, that the tobacco loses
much of its fine flavour and aroma by packing and keeping; otherwise the
English cigar would be equal to any other. The old impression that the
Manilla cheroot is impregnated with opium would not appear to be correct,
from the investigations of Dr. Hassall, who has failed to discover that
narcotic in any of the specimens which he tested for it.
We have to mention one preparation of tobacco of which we cannot speak
quite so favourably as of the others. Snuff is, we are sorry to say,
vilely adulterated, and some kinds poisonously. The law allows the use of
salt and water and lime-water in its manufacture--a privilege which the
snuff-makers take advantage of to increase its weight, all moist snuffs
averaging full twenty-five per cent. of water. If these were the only
adulterations to the titillating powder, no harm would be done; but we
have positive evidence afforded us in the report of the "Lancet"
Commission, that, in addition to ferruginous earths, such as red and
yellow ochre, no less than three poisonous preparations are also
introduced into it--chromate of lead, red-lead, and bichromate of potash!
When a man taps his snuff-box and takes out a pinch, he little dreams that
he is introducing an enemy into his system, which in the long-run might
master his nerves and produce paralysis; nevertheless it is an undoubted
fact. Many persons have been deprived of the use of their limbs through a
persistence in taking snuff adulterated with lead in less proportions than
that found in the samples examined by Dr. Hassall. Bi-chromate of potash
is a still more deadly poison. M. Duchâtel of Paris found that dogs were
destroyed by doses of from one twenty-fifth of a grain to one
five-hundredth of a grain. We have heard of inveterate snuffers keeping
this comfort open in their waistcoat pockets, and helping themselves by
fingers'-full at a time; if their snuff contained anything like the
proportion of deleterious ingredients now to be found in the same article,
"dropped hands" and colic would soon have cured them of this dirty and
disagreeable habit.
It is not our purpose to follow further the trail which Accum and others,
and more lately and particularly Dr. Hassall, have discovered for us.
Before closing the pages of the latter gentleman's report, however, from
which we have drawn so largely, we cannot avoid stating that the
community is under the greatest obligation to both himself and the editor
of the _Lancet_--to the one for the energy with which he pursued his
subject, and to the other for his singular boldness in rendering himself
liable for the many actions which the publication of the names of
evil-doers was likely to bring upon his journal, a liability which Dr.
Hassall has since taken upon himself by the reprint of the report under
his own name. This report is, in fact, as far as it goes, a handbook to
the honest and fraudulent food-dealers in the metropolis; and every man
who values wholesome aliment, and thinks it a duty to society to support
the honest tradesman in preference to the rogue, should procure it as a
valuable work of reference. We have not followed the author into
personalities, as no further purpose could be served by so doing; but we
have shown enough to convince the public that the grossest fraud reigns
throughout the British public commissariat. Like a set of monkeys, every
man's hand is seen in his neighbour's dish. The baker takes in the grocer,
the grocer defrauds the publican, the publican "does" the pickle
manufacturer, and the pickle-maker fleeces and poisons all the rest.[7]
As guardian of the revenue, the government is deeply interested in this
question, independently of the view it must take of its moral aspect, for
the excise is without doubt cheated to the extent of hundreds of thousands
a year by the same unlawful practices which demoralize a large portion of
the community, and defraud and deceive the remainder.
THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
To furnish every possible link in the grand procession of organized life,
is the aim of the science of zoology. Its professors have explored the
wilds of Africa, and have penetrated far into the interior of South
America; have endured the last extremities of hunger and thirst to catch
some curious humming-bird; have been consumed by fevers to the very socket
of life, in order to pin an unknown beetle, or to procure some rare and
gorgeous-coloured fly. The passion for this science seems to have long
dwelt in the English race: our love of field-sports, and keen relish of
rural life, coupled with a habit of minute observation, have all had a
tendency to foster an acquaintance with the beasts of the field and the
fowls of the air, and scarcely a village but boasts of some follower of
White or Waterton. This taste we carry with us to our vast colonial
possessions, and to that chain of military posts whose morning guns echo
round the world. With such splendid opportunities for observing and
collecting animals, we have succeeded in gathering together a menagerie
which is by far the first in existence, and which includes typical forms
of most living things--from the chimpanzee, in whose face and structure we
trace the last step but one of the highest form of mammal, to the
zoophyte, which shakes hands with the vegetable world.
Ancient Rome, it is true, in her degenerate days, witnessed vaster
collections of animals, and saw hippopotami, ostriches, and giraffes,
together with the fiercer carnivora, turned by hundreds into the arena;
but how different the spirit with which they were collected! With the
debased and profligate Roman emperors the only object of these bloody
shows was to gratify the brutal appetite of their people for slaughter;
with us the intention is to display the varying wonders of creation.
Most of our readers in the full flush of summer have leaned over the
balustrade of the carnivora terrace. From this elevated situation the
whole plan of the south side of the grounds is exposed. To his right,
fringing a still pool whose translucent waters mirror them as they stand,
the spectator sees the collection of storks and cranes: more immediately
in front of him softly tread the llamas and alpacas--the beasts of burthen
of the New World: farther, again, we see the deer in their paddocks; and
beyond, the sedgy pools of the water-fowl, set in the midst of graceful
shrubberies which close the Gardens in from the landscape of the Regent's
Park. Passing over to the northern side of the terrace he sees the eagle
aviary, tenanted by its royal and solitary-looking occupants; the otters
swimming their merry round, and perchance the seal flapping beside his
pool; while the monkeys, with incredible rapidity and constant chatter,
swing and leap about their wire enclosure Immediately beneath him the
Polar bears pace to and fro, or, swaying their heads, walk backwards with
a firmness which a lord chamberlain might study with advantage; and close
at hand the long neck of the "ship of the desert" is seen sailing out from
the gateway of the pretty clock-house. That the dread monarch of the
forest and the other "great cats" are beneath his feet, he is made aware
by angry growls and the quivering sound of shaken iron bars, as the keeper
goes round with his daily beef-barrow. No one can help feeling a certain
sense of strangeness at seeing these creatures of all climes scattered
amid a flourishing garden--to witness beasts, ensanguined in tooth and
claw, impatiently pacing to and fro between banks of scarlet geraniums or
beds brilliant with the countless blooms of early dahlias--or, still more
oddly, to witness birds of prey which love to career in the storm
surrounded by monthly roses. Had it been possible to have given each class
of bird and animal its appropriate vegetation, it would doubtless have
been preferable; but such an arrangement was manifestly impossible.