“Come, Christopher, and leave all meaner things, To low ambition and the pride of kings; Let us, since life can little else supply; Than just to swallow poison and to die; Expatiate free o’er all this dreadful field, Try what the brewer, what the baker yield; Explore the druggists’ shop, the butchers’ stall; Expose their roguery, and—damn them all!” POPE. Melancholy as the details are, there is something almost ludicrous, we think, in the very extent to which the deceptions are carried. So inextricably are we all immersed in this mighty labyrinth of fraud, that even the venders of poison themselves are forced, by a sort of retributive justice, to swallow it in their turn.—Thus the apothecary, who sells the poisonous ingredients to the brewer, chuckles over his roguery, and swallows his own drugs in his daily copious exhibitions of Brown stout. The brewer in his turn, is poisoned by the baker, the wine-merchant, and the grocer. And, whenever the baker’s stomach fails him, he meets his _coup de grace_ in the adulterated drugs of his friend the apothecary, whose health he has been gradually contributing to undermine, by feeding him every morning on chalk and alum, in the shape of hot rolls. Our readers will now, we think, be able to form a general idea of the perils to which they are exposed by every meal. Mr. Accum’s details on the adulteration of wine are extremely ample, and so interesting, that we regret our limits prevent our making more copious extracts, and oblige us to refer our readers for farther information to the work itself. Having thus laid open to our view the arcana of the cellar, Mr. Accum next treats us with an expose of the secrets of the brew-house. Verily, the wine-merchant and brewer are _par nobile fratrum_; and after the following disclosures, it will henceforth be a matter of the greatest indifference to us, whether we drink Perry or Champaigne, Hermitage or Brown stout. _Latet anguis in poculo_, there is disease and death in them all, and one is only preferable to the other, because it will poison us at about one-tenth of the expense. “Malt liquors, and particularly porter, the favourite beverage of the inhabitants of London and of other large towns, is amongst those articles, in the manufacture of which the greatest frauds are frequently committed. “The practice of adulterating beer appears to be of early date. To shew that they have augmented in our own days, we shall exhibit an abstract from documents laid lately before Parliament.