The able and patriotic Editor of the Literary Gazette, No. 156, in the course of his review of Mr. Accum’s meritorious work on Culinary Poisons, makes the following just and striking remarks:

One has laughed at the whimsical description of the cheats in Humphrey Clinker, but it is too serious for a joke to see that, in almost every thing which we eat or drink, we are condemned to swallow swindling, if not poison—that all the items of metropolitan, and many of country, consumption are deteriorated, deprived of nutritious properties, or rendered obnoxious to humanity, by the vile arts and merciless sophistications of their sellers. So general seems the corruption, and so fatal the tendency, of most of the corrupting materials, that we can no longer wonder at the prevalence of painful disorders and the briefness of existence (on an average) in spite of the great increase of medical knowledge, and the amazing improvement in the healing science, which distinguish our era. No skill can prevent the effects of daily poisoning; and no man can prolong his life beyond a short standard, where every meal ought to have its counteracting medicine.

Devoted to disease by baker, brewer, grocer, wine-merchant, spirit-dealer, cheesemonger, pastry-cook, confectioner, &c. the physician is called to our assistance; but here again the pernicious system of fraud, as it has given the blow, steps in to defeat the remedy: even the physician’s prescription is adulterated!

Mr. Accum’s account of water (i. e. the Companies’ water—the filthy and unwholesome water supplied from the Thames, of which the delicate citizens of Westminster fill their tanks and stomachs, at the very spot where one hundred thousand cloacinÆ, containing every species of filth, and all unutterable things, and strongly impregnated with gas, the refuse and drainings of hospitals, slaughter houses, colour, lead, and soap works, drug-mills, manufactories, and dung-hills, daily disgorge their abominable contents) is so fearful, that we see there is no wisdom in the well: and if we then fly to wine, we find, from his analysis, that there is no truth in that liquid; bread turns out to be a crutch to help us onward to the grave, instead of being the staff of life; in porter there is no support, in cordials no consolation; in almost every thing poison, and in scarcely any medicine, cure!

That this denunciation of fraud and villany is not mere assertion, the terrific disclosures that I am about to make (some of which are to be found in Mr. Accum’s book, and in greater detail than the space I have prescribed myself allows) will fully prove to the contrary, and show that it is the duty of the government to protect the public by some legislative provisions, and to prohibit and render penal the nefarious practices in daily use for the diabolical and deleterious adulteration of the necessaries of life, practices which are destructively inimical to the public health and welfare. As Mr. Accum has pointedly said in the preface to his work, “as the eager and insatiable thirst for gain is proof against prohibitions and penalties, and the possible sacrifice of a fellow creature’s life is a secondary consideration among unprincipled dealers,” nothing short of subjecting the offence to the operation of the criminal law seems likely to suppress the wicked and diabolical practices, and secure the public from the silent and unobserved effects of being slowly poisoned: transportation ought to be the mildest punishment of the iniquitous offender. Is it not, as the same gentleman justly observes, a reflection on English law, that “a man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the highway should be sentenced to death, while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community should escape unpunished,” at most with only the infliction of a trifling fine, which proves to him the inefficiency of the law to restrain him from a continuance in his iniquitous practices? The inefficacy of fines, however large, in deterring offenders from a commission or repetition of the crime is evident, from the inadequacy of the large penalties to which the adultering brewer, grocer, coffee-manufacturer, &c. are subject when detected. For, besides the difficulty of detecting this species of fraud and iniquity, the large profits, which are often several hundreds per cent. enable the culprits to meet the trivial loss which attends a detection, and speedily reimburses them the penalty of a conviction.

“Plures crapula quam gladius,” says the old adage, which, in a free translation, may be paraphrased “Cookery depopulates like a pestilence.” To those versed in the business of disease it is well known that this is no exaggeration. But, dismal as is the destruction of human life from this source, it is by no means equal to that occasioned by the effects of the nefarious traffic in the adulteration of the necessaries of life; the pernicious and destructive mixtures and combinations to which they are subject have produced greater ravages on health, and given a greater empire to death than the united scourges of famine and the sword in combination with the refinements of cookery and the increase of gastrophilism:—they occasion the loss of tens of thousands of human lives every year in the metropolis alone. It has with truth been said that to so alarming an extent have the illicit practices of poisonous adulteration arrived, “that 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.”

These spurious mixtures and counterfeit articles are combined and manufactured with so much skill and ingenuity, as to elude and baffle the discrimination of the most experienced judges. And, for the purpose of ensuring the secrecy of the nefarious traffic, “the processes are distributed and subdivided among distinct operators, and the manufactures are carried on in separate establishments.” The tasks of proportioning the ingredients and that of their composition and preparation are assigned to distinct persons. In fact, “the traffic in adulterated commodities finds its way through so many circuitous channels as to defy the most scrutinizing endeavour of individual exertion to trace it to its source.” And the frequency of the act has rendered the conscience of the offenders callous and indifferent to the consequences. The man who would shudder at the idea of giving a dose of arsenic to a single individual sleeps soundly in his bed, though he knows that he administers as fatal, though a slower, poison to thousands every day. And such a man is the baker, the miller, the wine-merchant, the brewer, the publican, the druggist, the tea-dealer, and every dealer who adulterates an article of food. And yet, those thoughtlessly wicked men suffer their consciences to be seared and bribed to silence through their self-interest and craving appetite for unreasonable and unrighteous gain!

With respect to those “filthy nuisances” the gin-shops and workshops of the wine and spirit dealers, which have not inaptly been termed “the elaboratories of disease and of premature death,” the following remarks, which appeared in the New Monthly Magazine for February, 1828, are dictated in the justest spirit of criticism and of public duty. It is to be wished that all journalists were disposed, in like manner, to denounce fraud and imposture.

“While there is so much prating and preaching about the morals of the people; while the increase of crime is grossly exaggerated, and the necessity of instruction is loudly talked about! when even the lotteries, which of late years did no harm at all, have been given up to the prevailing fashion of affected sanctity, it is quite preposterous that such filthy nuisances as the numerous gin-shops of London should not merely be tolerated, but sanctioned and encouraged by the legislature. We do not speak of regular public-houses, but of those places which are devoted only to the sale of spirits by retail. They cannot be necessary for the purpose of refreshments, and can only, as they do in fact, serve to produce evils of the most lamentable nature.” Who, that has a spark of feeling and integrity in his nature, does not coincide in opinion with the ingenious and accomplished editor of the distinguished periodical, from which this spirited and sensible passage is extracted?

But the truth is, as has been well observed by the author of “The Manual for Invalids,” that it would be difficult to discover any thing in social life that is more virtually neglected than Public Health, which ought to be an object of the greatest concern to all wise and paternal governments, as well as to every influential and well-disposed individual in the nation. “The Public Health and the Public Morals,” as the same excellent writer sagaciously observes, “should be the object of the greatest solicitude on the part of every government, instead of extracting a profit from deception and villany, ignorance and vice. Were the various descriptions of liquors in which alcohol bears so predominant a part taxed to prohibition, there would be less of felony, less of moral degradation, less employment for police magistrates and judges, and less occasion for the executioner. There would be a counterpoise in the reduction of the parochial burthens, and a greater value given to the moral character of the people; but, unfortunately, the produce to the revenue is such as—while it does not prevent the injurious use of spirituous liquors, it enriches the coffers of the nation; and the sacra auri fames has, as well in government matters as in those of the quack, the adulterator, and the impostor, the power of making that appear relatively right which is absolutely wrong.”

Nor is the general and immoderate use of ardent spirits only destructive to the body, but it acts eminently as powerful incentives to vice of every kind. Does the robber pause in his vocation? Does the murderer hesitate to deprive his fellow-creatures of life? They are presently wound up to a reckless sense of their crimes at the gin-shop.—Has the seducer tried all his arts in vain to despoil his unsuspecting victim of peace and innocence? The seductive liquor offers him an easy prey, and leaves his immolated victim polluted, disgraced, and lost to society. The brothel is more indebted to this source than to all the lures of seduction. In fact, the seductive productions of the distillery and the winepress impair the physical strength of the country, and induce incorrigible habits of vice and intemperance.

A reflecting writer has expressed an opinion that the life of man would generally be extended to a hundred years were it not for his excesses and the adulteration of his food; and when we consider how many attain even a greater age, under every disadvantage, we must allow that there is probability in this opinion. When we observe the early disfigurement of the human form, the swollen or shrunk body, the bloated and self-caricatured face, with the signs of imbecility and decrepitude which we continually see, at an age when life should be in its fullest vigour;—when, at every turn we meet the doctor’s carriage; in every street, behold a rivalry of medical attraction; it is impossible not to feel a conviction that something must be essentially wrong in our way of living. This is principally assignable to our improper and unwholesome diet, but more especially to the vile adulterations to which every article of diet is now impudently and wickedly subjected. As the author of the “Oracle of Health and Long Life” observes, in a note to page 31, “it is no doubt to the unprincipled adulterations of food, spirits, malt liquors, &c. that a great number of the sudden deaths, which are constantly happening in and about the metropolis, is assignable. The adulteration, it is true, is not sufficient to cause instant death, but it operates slowly, and silently, and imperceptibly; so as not to excite sufficient suspicion and inquiry respecting the cause. This is not an idle or a random remark, but one founded on much observation and on very probable grounds. It is hoped that it will awaken public attention and inquiry respecting these nefarious transactions.” Following this valuable advice, I will exert myself to the utmost to promote and call into action this necessary duty, and with this intent the following pages were composed, for the collection of the materials of which I have had singular opportunities afforded me.