Innumerable are the tricks practised to deceive the unwary, by giving to weak, thin, and spoiled wines, all the characteristic marks of age, and also of flavour and strength. In carrying on these illicit occupations, the division of labour has been completely established; each has his own task assigned him in the confederate work of iniquity; and thus they acquire dexterity for the execution of their mischievous purposes. To one class is allotted the task of _crusting_, which consists in lining the interior surface of empty wine bottles with a red crust. This is accomplished by suffering a saturated hot solution of super-tartrate of potash, coloured red with a decoction of Brazil wood to chrystallize within them. A similar operation is frequently performed on the wooden cask which is to hold the wine, and which, in the same manner as the bottle, is artificially stained with a red crust; and on some occasions, the lower extremities of the corks in wine bottles are also stained red, in order to give them the appearance of having been long in contact with the wine. It is the business of a particular class of wine-coopers, by means of an astringent extract mixed with home-made and foreign wines, to produce ‘genuine old port,’ or to give an artificial flavour and colour to weak wine; while the mellowing and restoring of spoiled white wines is the occupation of another class called refiners of wine. Other deceptions are practised by fraudulent dealers, which are still more culpable. The most dangerous of these is where wine is adulterated by an admixture of lead. Mr. Accum justly observes, that the ‘merchant or dealer who practises this dangerous sophistication, adds the crime of murder to that of fraud, and deliberately scatters the seeds of disease and death among those customers who contribute to his emolument.’