In almost every branch of manufacture, there are fraudulent dealers, who are instigated by the thirst of gain, to debase the articles which they vend to the public, and to exact a high price for what is comparatively cheap and worthless. After pointing out various deceptions of this nature, Mr. Accum, the ingenious author of the work before us, proceeds in his account of those frauds, in the following terms. ‘Soap used in house-keeping is frequently adulterated with a considerable portion of fine white clay, brought from St. Stephen’s in Cornwall. In the manufacture of printing paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is added to the paper stuff, to increase the weight of the manufactured article. The selvage of cloth is often dyed with a permanent colour, and artfully stitched to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugitive dye. The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and in the manufacture of cutlery, and jewellery, exceed belief.’ pp. 27-29. What is infinitely worse, however, than any of those frauds, sophistications, we are informed, are carried on to an equal extent in all the essential articles of subsistence or comfort. So long as our dishonest dealers do not intermeddle with these things, their deceptions are comparatively harmless; the evil in all such cases amounting only to so much pecuniary damage. But when they begin to tamper with food, or with articles connected with the table, their frauds are most pernicious: in all cases the nutritive quality of the food is injured, by the artificial ingredients intermixed with it; and when these ingredients, as frequently happens, are of a poisonous quality, they endanger the health and even the life of all to whom they are vended. We cannot conceive any thing more diabolical than those contrivances; and we consider their authors in a far worse light than ordinary felons, who, being known, can be duly guarded against. But those fraudulent dealers conceal themselves under the fair show of a reputable traffic—they contrive in this manner to escape the infamy which justly belongs to them—and, under the disguise of wealth, credit, and character, to lurk in the bosom of society, wounding the hand that cherishes them, and scattering around them poison and death. It is chiefly for the purpose of laying open the dishonest artifices of this class of dealers, that Mr. Accum has published the present very interesting and popular work; and he gives a most fearful view of the various and extensive frauds which are daily practised on the unsuspecting public.