Curiosities of Civilization Part 7

If White-- Alb.u.men of bullock's blood.

As we perceive the teetotalers are pet.i.tioning Parliament and agitating the towns for the closing of public-houses, we beg to present them, in either hand, with a cup of the above mixtures, with the humble hope that means will be found by them to supply the British public with some drink a little less deleterious to health, a little more pleasant to the palate, and somewhat less disgusting to the feelings. Some of the sugar impurities may be avoided by using the crystallized East-Indian kind--the size of the crystals not permitting of its being adulterated with inferior sorts.

We shall not dwell upon cocoa further than to state that it is a still rarer thing to obtain it pure than either tea or coffee. The almost universal adulterations are sugar, starch, and flours together with red colouring matter, generally some ferruginous earth; whilst, as far as we can see, what is termed h.o.m.oeopathic cocoa is only distinguished from other kinds by the small quant.i.ty of that substance contained in it.

There is scarcely an article on the breakfast-table, in fact, which is what it seems to be. The b.u.t.ter, if salt, is adulterated with between 20 and 30 per cent. of water. A merchant in this trade tells the _Lancet_ that "between 40,000 and 50,000 casks of adulterated b.u.t.ter are annually sold in London, and the trade knows it as well as they know a bad shilling." Lard when cheap also finds its way to the b.u.t.ter-tub. Perhaps those who flatter themselves that they use nothing but "Epping" will not derive much consolation from the following letter, also published in the same journal:--

"_To the Editor of the Lancet._

"SIR,--Having taken apartments in the house of a b.u.t.terman, I was suddenly awoke at three o'clock one morning with a noise in the lower part of the house, and alarmed on perceiving a light below the door of my bed-room; conceiving the house to be on fire, I hurried down stairs. I found the whole family busily occupied, and, on my expressing alarm at the house being on fire, they jocosely informed me they _were merely making Epping b.u.t.ter_. They unhesitatingly informed me of the whole process. For this purpose they made use of fresh-salted b.u.t.ter of a very inferior quality: this was repeatedly washed with water in order to free it from the salt. This being accomplished, the next process was to wash it frequently with milk, and the manufacture was completed by the addition of a small quant.i.ty of sugar. The amateurs of fresh Epping b.u.t.ter were supplied with this dainty, which yielded my ingenious landlord a profit of at least 100 per cent., besides establishing his shop as being supplied with Epping b.u.t.ter from one of the first-rate dairies.--I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"A STUDENT."

If we try marmalade as a succedaneum, we are no better off--at least if we put any faith in "real Dundee, an excellent subst.i.tute for b.u.t.ter," to be seen piled in heaps in the cheap grocers' windows. Dr. Ha.s.sall's a.n.a.lysis proves that this dainty is adulterated to a large extent with turnips, apples, and carrots: we need not grumble so much at these vegetable products, excepting on the score that it is a fraud to sell them at 7d. a pound; but there is the more startling fact that, in twelve out of fourteen samples a.n.a.lysed, copper was detected, and sometimes in large and deleterious quant.i.ties!

Acc.u.m, in his "Death in the Pot," quotes, from cookery-books of reputation in his day, recipes which make uninitiated persons stare. For instance, "Modern Cookery, or the English Housewife," gives the following serious directions "to make Greening:"--"Take a bit of _verdigris the bigness of an hazel-nut_, finely powdered, half a pint of distilled vinegar, and a bit of alum-powder, with a little baysalt; put all in a bottle and shake it, and let it stand till clear. _Put a small teaspoonful into codlings, or whatever you wish to green!_"

Again, the "English Housekeeper," a book which ran through eighteen editions, directs--"to make pickles green _boil them with halfpence_, or allow them to stand for twenty-four hours in copper or bra.s.s pans!" Has the notable housewife ever wondered to herself how it is that all the pickles of the shops are of so much more inviting colour than her own? We will satisfy her curiosity in a word--she has forgotten the "bit of verdigris the bigness of a hazel-nut," for it is now proved beyond doubt that to this complexion do they come by the use of copper, introduced for the sole purpose of making them of a lively green. The a.n.a.lyses of twenty samples of pickles bought of the most respectable tradesmen proved, firstly, that the vinegar in the bottles owed most of its strength to the introduction of sulphuric acid; secondly, that, out of sixteen different pickles a.n.a.lysed for the purpose, copper was detected in various amounts.

Thus, "two of the samples contained a small quant.i.ty; eight rather much, one a considerable quant.i.ty, three a very considerable quant.i.ty; in one copper was present in a highly deleterious amount, and in two _in poisonous amounts_. The largest quant.i.ty of this metal was found in the bottles consisting entirely of green vegetables, such as gherkins and beans."

We trust after this the good housewife will feel jealous no longer, but rest satisfied that the home-made article, if less inviting and vivid in colour, is at least more wholesome. A simple test to discover the presence of copper in such articles is to place a bright knitting-needle in the vinegar, and let it remain there for a few hours, when the deleterious metal will speedily form a coating over it, dense or thin, according to the amount which exists. Wherever large quant.i.ties are found, it is wilfully inserted for the purpose of producing the bright green colour, but a small quant.i.ty may find its way into the pickles in the process of boiling in copper pans. Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell, the great pickle and preserve manufacturers in Soho, immediately they became aware, from the a.n.a.lyses of the _Lancet_, that such was the case, in a very praiseworthy manner subst.i.tuted silver and gla.s.s, at a great expense, for all their former vessels. The danger arising from the introduction of this virulent poison into our food would not be so great if it were confined to pickles, of which the quant.i.ty taken is small at each meal, but it is used to paint all kinds of preserves, and fruits for winter pies and tarts are bloomed with death. The papa who presents his children the box of sweetmeats bedded in coloured paper, and enclosed in an elegant casket, may be corroding unawares the very springs of their existence. As a general rule, it is found that the red fruits, such as currants, raspberries, and cherries, are uncontaminated with this deleterious metal, but owe their deep hue to some red colouring matter, such as a decoction of logwood or an infusion of beetroot, in the same way that common white cabbage is converted into red by the nefarious pickle-merchant. The green fruits are not all deleterious in the same degree; there seems to be an ascending scale of virulence, much after the following manner:--Limes, gooseberries, rhubarb, greengages, olives--the last-mentioned fruit, especially those of French preparation, generally containing verdigris, or the acetate of copper, _in highly dangerous quant.i.ties_. The _Lancet_ publishes a letter from Mr. Bernays, F.C.S., dated from the Chemical Library, Derby, in which he shows the necessity of watchfulness in the purchase of these articles of food:--

"Of this," he says, "I will give you a late instance. I had bought a bottle of preserved gooseberries from one of the most respectable grocers in the town, and had its contents transferred to a pie. It struck me that the gooseberries looked fearfully green when cooked; and in eating one with a steel fork its intense bitterness sent me in search of the sugar. After having sweetened and mashed the gooseberries, with the same steel fork, I was about to convey some to my mouth, when I observed the p.r.o.ngs to be completely coated with a thin film of bright metallic copper. My testimony can be borne out by the evidence of others, two of whom dined at my table."

It was fortunate that these three gentlemen used steel forks, which instantly disclosed the mischief; if they had chanced to use silver, all three might have fallen victims to these poisonous conserves.

But we are not yet at the worst. When Catherine de' Medici wished to get rid of obnoxious persons in an "artistic" manner, she was in the habit of presenting them with delicately made sweetmeats, or trinkets, in which death lurked in the most engaging manner; she carried--

"Pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket."

Her poisoned feasts are matters of history, at which people shudder as they read; but we question if the diabolical revenge and coldblooded wickedness of an Italian woman ever invented much more deadly trifles than our low, cheap confectioners do on the largest scale. We select from some of these articles of bonb.o.n.e.rie the following feast, which we set before doting mothers, in order that they may see what deadly dainties are prepared for the especial delectation of their children:--

"A FISH.

"_Purchased in Shepherd's Market, May Fair._

"The tip of the nose and the gills of the fish are coloured with the usual pink, while the back and sides are highly painted with that virulent poison _a.r.s.enite of copper_."

"A PIGEON.

"_Purchased in Drury Lane._

"The pigments employed for colouring this pigeon are light yellow for the beak, red for the eyes, and orange yellow for the base or stand.

The yellow colour consists of the light kind of chromate of lead, for the eyes bisulphate of mercury, and for the stand the deeper varieties of chromate of lead, or orange chrome."

"APPLES.

"_Purchased in James Street, Covent Garden._

"The apples in this sample are coloured yellow, and on one side deep red; the yellow colour extending to a considerable depth in the substance of the sugar. The red consists of the usual non-metallic pigment, and the yellow is due to the presence of CHROMATE OF LEAD in really _poisonous amount_!"

"A c.o.c.k.

"_Purchased in Drury Lane._

"The beak of the bird is coloured bright yellow, the comb brilliant red, the wings and tail are variegated, black, two different reds, and yellow; while the stand, as in most of these sugar ornaments, is painted green. The yellow of the beak consists of CHROMATE OF LEAD; the comb and part of the red colour on the back and wings is VERMILION; while the second red colour on the wings and tail is the usual pink non-metallic colouring matter, and the stripes of yellow consist of gamboge; lastly, the green of the stand is MIDDLE BRUNSWICK GREEN, and, therefore, contains CHROMATE OF LEAD. In the colouring of this article, then, no less than three active poisons are employed, as well as that drastic purgative gamboge!"

"ORANGES.

"_Purchased in Pilgrim Street, Doctors' Commons._

"This is a very unnatural imitation of an orange, it being coloured with a coa.r.s.e and very uneven coating of RED LEAD."

"MIXED SUGAR ORNAMENTS.

"_Purchased in Middle Row, Holborn._

"The confectionery in this parcel is made up into a variety of forms and devices, as hats, jugs, baskets, and dishes of fruit and vegetables. One of the hats is coloured yellow with CHROMATE OF LEAD, and has a green hatband round it, coloured with a.r.s.eNITE OF COPPER; a second hat is white, with a blue hatband, the pigment being PRUSSIAN-BLUE. The baskets are coloured yellow with CHROMATE OF LEAD.

Into the colouring of the pears and peaches the usual non-metallic pigment, together with CHROMATE OF LEAD and MIDDLE BRUNSWICK GREEN, enter largely; while the carrots represented in a dish are coloured throughout with a RED OXIDE OF LEAD, and the tops with BRUNSWICK GREEN. This is one of the worst of all the samples of coloured sugar confectionery submitted to a.n.a.lysis, as it contains no less than four _deadly poisons_!"

The painted feast contains, then, among its highly injurious ingredients, ferrocyanide of iron or Prussian-blue, Antwerp-blue, gamboge, and ultramarine, and among its deadly poisons the three chrome yellows, red lead, white lead, vermilion, the three Brunswick greens, and Scheele's green or a.r.s.enite of copper. The wonder is that, considering we set such poison-traps for children, ten times more enticing and quite as deadly as those used to bane rats, that the greater number of youngsters who partake of them are not at once despatched; and so undoubtedly they would be if nurses were not cautious about these coloured parts, which have always enjoyed a bad name under the general denomination of "trash and messes."

As it is, we are informed by Dr. Letheby that "no less than seventy cases of poisoning have been traced to this source" within three years!

In France, Belgium, and Switzerland the colouring of confectionery with poisonous pigments is prohibited, and the vendors are held responsible for all accidents which may occur to persons from eating their sugar confectionery. It is absolutely essential that some such prohibition should be made in England. a.r.s.enic, according to law, must be sold coloured with soot, in order that its hue may prevent its being used by mistake for other substances; how absurd it is that we should allow other poisons, quite as virulent, to be mixed with the food of children and adults, merely for the sake of the colour! All kinds of sugar-plums, comfits, and "kisses," in addition to being often adulterated with large quant.i.ties of plaster of Paris, are always open to the suspicion of being poisoned. Necessity cannot be urged for the continuance of this wicked practice, as there are plenty of vegetable pigments which, if not quite as vivid as the acrid mineral ones, are sufficiently so to please the eye. Of late years a peculiar lozenge has been introduced, in which the flavour of certain fruits is singularly imitated. Thus we have essence of jargonel drops, essence of pine-apple drops, and many others of a most delicate taste. They really are so delicious that we scarcely like to create a prejudice against them; but the truth is great, and must prevail: all these delicate essences are made from a preparation of aether and rancid cheese and b.u.t.ter.

The manufacturer, perhaps unaware of the c.u.mulative action of many of his chemicals, thinks that the small quant.i.ty can do no harm. We have seen, in the matter of preserved fruits and sugar confectionery, how fallacious is that idea. But the practice of adulteration often leads to lamentable results of the same nature, which are quite unintentional on the part of their perpetrators, and which occur in the most roundabout manner. An instance of this is related by Acc.u.m, which goes directly to the point. A gentleman, perceiving that an attack of colic always supervened upon taking toasted Gloucestershire cheese at an inn at which he was in the habit of stopping, and having also noticed that a kitten which had partaken of its rind was rendered violently sick, had the food a.n.a.lyzed, when it was found that lead was present in it in poisonous quant.i.ties.

Following up his inquiries, he ascertained that the maker of the cheese, not finding his annatto sufficiently deep in colour, had resorted to the expedient of colouring the commodity with vermilion. This mixture, although pernicious and discreditable, was not absolutely poisonous, and certainly could not account for the disastrous effects of the food on the human system. Trying back still further, however, it was at last found that the druggist who sold the vermilion had mixed with it a portion of _red lead_, imagining that the pigment was only required for house paint.

"Thus," as Acc.u.m remarks, "the druggist sold his vermilion, in a regular way of trade, adulterated with red lead, to increase his profit, without any suspicion of the use to which it would be applied; and the purchaser who adulterated the annatto, presuming that the vermilion was genuine, had no hesitation in heightening the colour of his annatto with so harmless an adjunct. Thus, through the diversified and circulatory operations of commerce, a portion of deadly poison may find admission into the necessaries of life in a way that can attach no criminality to the parties through whose hands it has successively pa.s.sed." The curious aspect of this circuitous kind of poisoning is, that it occurs through the belief of each adulterating rogue in the honesty of his neighbour.

If we could possibly eliminate, from the ma.s.s of human disease, that occasioned by the constant use of deleterious food, we should find that it amounted to a very considerable percentage on the whole, and that one of the best friends of the doctor would prove to be the adulterator. But even our refuge fails us in our hour of need; the tools of the medical man, like those of the sappers and miners before Sebastopol, often turn out to be worthless. Drugs and medical comforts are perhaps adulterated as extensively as any other article. To mention only a few familiar and household medicines for instance: Epsom salts are adulterated with sulphate of soda; carbonate of soda with sulphate of soda--a very injurious subst.i.tute. Mercury is sometimes falsified with lead, tin, and bis.m.u.th; gentian with the poisonous drugs aconite and belladonna; rhubarb with turmeric and gamboge; cantharides with black pepper; and cod-liver and castor-oils with common and inferior oils; whilst opium, one of the sheet-anchors of the physician, is adulterated to the greatest extent in a dozen different ways. Medical comforts are equally uncertain. Thus potato-flour forms full half of the so-called arrowroots of commerce; sago-meal is another very common ingredient in this nourishing substance.

Out of fifty samples of so-styled arrowroot, Dr. Ha.s.sall found twenty-two adulterated, many of them consisting _entirely_ of potato-flour and sago-meal. One half of the common oatmeals to be met with are adulterated with barley-meal, a much less nutritious substance--an important fact, which boards of guardians should be acquainted with. Honey is sophisticated with flour-starch and sugar-starch. And lastly, we wish to say something important to mothers. Put no faith in the hundred and one preparations of farinaceous food for infants which are paraded under so many attractive t.i.tles. They are all composed of wheat-flour, potato-flour, sago, &c.,--very familiar ingredients, which would not take with anxious parents unless christened with extraordinary names, for which their compounders demand an extraordinary charge. To invalids we would also say, place no reliance on the Revalentas and Ervalentas advertised through the country as cures for all imaginary diseases. They consist almost entirely of lentil-powder, barley-flour, &c., which are charged cent. per cent. above their real value.

Of all the articles we have touched upon, not one is so important as water. It mixes more or less with all our solid food, and forms nine-tenths of all our drinks. Man himself, as a sanitary writer has observed, is in great part made up of this element, and if you were to put him under a press you would squeeze out of him 8-1/2 pailfuls. That it should be furnished pure to the consumer is of the first importance in a sanitary and economic point of view. We are afraid, however, that but feeble attempts have been made to secure this advantage to the metropolis.

At present London, with its two and a half millions of population, is mainly supplied by nine water companies, six of which derive their supply from the Thames, one from the New River, one from the Ravensbourne, and a third from ponds and wells. Besides this supply, which ramifies like a network over the whole metropolis, we find dotted about both public and private wells of various qualities. We do not intend to follow Dr. Ha.s.sall into his microscopic representations of the organic matter, vegetable and animal, by which the customers of one company can compare the water served to them with that dealt out to others, and thus at a glance a.s.sure themselves that they have not more than their share of many-legged, countless-jointed, hideous animalculae, which look formidable enough to frighten one from ever touching a drop of London water, but shall content ourselves with giving the general characteristics of the whole of them.

With one exception they were all of a hardness ranging from 11 to 18 degrees. This hardness depends upon the earthy salts present, such as sulphates and bicarbonates of lime and magnesia. They were also to some extent saline, as all the salt used in the metropolis ultimately finds its way into the Thames, or great sewer-stream. Not long ago two, at least, of these six Thames water companies procured their supply within a short distance of the mouths of great drains, and all of them resorted to the river at different points below Battersea, or that portion of it which receives the drainage of the metropolis, and is consequently crowded with animal and vegetable matter, both living and dead, and thick with the mud stirred up by the pa.s.sage to and fro of the steamers. The violent outcry made, however, by the Board of Health, caused an Act to be pa.s.sed by parliament against the supply of the sewage rates, and now all the companies taking their supplies from the Thames, are compelled to go at least as high as Kingston, and to submit them to a process of filtration; but even at this point the river is in some degree sewage-tainted, and the chemically-combined portion of baser matter cannot be removed by any filter.

The impurities of the Thames are not all we have to deal with--its hardness must cost the Londoners hundreds of thousands a year in the article of soap alone. The action upon lead is also marked; hence we find poisonous carbonates of that metal held in solution. Plumbers are well aware of this fact, and frequently meet with leaden cisterns deeply corroded. This corrosion may arise from either chemical or voltaic action.

The junction of lead and solder, or iron, immersed in water impregnated with salts or acid of any kind, will cause erosion of the metal. A familiar instance of this is seen in the rapid manner in which iron railings rust away just where they are socketed in the stonework with lead. The presence of a piece of mortar on the lead of a cistern may even set up this action, and result in giving a whole family the colic.

The pumps of the metropolis are liable to even more contamination than river-water, inasmuch as the soil surrounding them is saturated with the sewage of innumerable cesspools, and with that arising from the leakage of imperfect drains. Medical men entertained the opinion that the terrible outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Golden Square, in 1854, arose from the fact that the people in the neighbourhood were in the habit of visiting a public pump which was proved to be foul with drain-water, and the handle of which was taken off, to prevent further mischief. Some of these public pumps appear to yield excellent water--cold, clear, and palatable; but the presence of these qualities by no means proves that they are pure. The bright sparkling icy water issuing from the famous Aldgate pump, according to Mr. Simon, the city officer of health, owes its most prized qualities to the nitrates which have filtered into the well from the decaying animal matter in an adjoining churchyard.

The porter and stout of the metropolis have long been famous. The virtues of the latter drink are celebrated all over the world; and a royal duke, ascribed the great mortality among the guards in the East to the want of their favourite beverage. No doubt the pure liquor, as it comes from the great brewers, is wholesome and strengthening; but it no sooner gets into the possession of the publicans than, in a great majority of cases, the article is made up. A stranger would naturally suppose that the foaming tankard of Meux's entire which he quaffs at the "Marquis of Granby" has an identical flavour with that at the "Blue Boar," where the same brewer's name shines resplendent on the house-front. Not a bit of it: one shall be smooth, pleasantly bitter, slightly acid, and beaded with a fine and persistent froth; the other, bitter with the bitterness of soot, salt, clammy, sweet, and frothing with a coa.r.s.e and evanescent froth. The body of the liquor is undoubtedly the same, but the variations are all supplied by the publicans and sinners. We do not make _emeutes_, as they are continually doing in Bavaria, on account of our beer; but we have strong feelings on a matter of such national importance; and the wicked ways of brewers and publicans have been made, over and over again, the subject of parliamentary inquiry. The reports of various committees prove that, in times past, porter and stout were doctored in the most ingenious manner, and so universally and unreservedly, that a trade sprang up termed brewers' druggists, whose whole business it was to supply to the manufacturers and retailers of the national beverage, ingredients for its adulteration; nay, to such an extent did the taste for falsifying beer and porter extend, that one genius, hight Jackson, wrote a hand-book to show the brewers how to make Beer _without any Malt or Hops at all_! Acc.u.m has preserved, in his now antique pages, some of the recipes in vogue in his day. The boldness with which our fathers went to work is amusing. For instance, Mr. Child, in his "Practical Treatise on Brewing," after having made his non-professional reader aghast by mentioning a score of pernicious articles to be used in beer, remarks, in the mildest possible manner,--

"That, however much they may surprise--however pernicious or disagreeable they may appear, he has always found them requisite in the brewing of porter, and he thinks they must invariably be used by those who wish to continue the taste, flavour, and effervescence of the beer. And, though several acts of Parliament have been pa.s.sed to prevent porter brewers from using many of them, yet the author can affirm, from experience, he could never produce the present flavoured porter without them. _The intoxicating qualities of porter are to be ascribed to the various drugs intermixed with it._ It is evident some porter is more heady than other, and it arises from the greater or less quant.i.ty of stupefying ingredients. Malt, to produce intoxication, must be used in such large quant.i.ties as would very much diminish, if not totally exclude, the brewer's profit."