Good heavens! we think we hear it exclaimed, is there no end to these infamous doings? does nothing pure or unpoisoned come to our tables, except butcher’s meat, which has been rendered far less nutritive than formerly, by new methods of feeding? Why, we must answer, hardly any thing: for our author proceeds to shew that _cheese_ (Gloucester he mentions) has been contaminated with red lead, a deadly poison mixed with the colouring anotto, when that article was scarce: that _pepper_ is adulterated with factitious pepper-corns “made up of oil-cakes (the residue of lint-seed, from which the oil has been pressed), common clay, and a portion of Cayenne pepper, formed in a mass, and granulated by being first pressed through a sieve, and then rolled in a cask;” and further, that “ground pepper is very often sophisticated by adding to a portion of genuine pepper, a quantity of pepper dust, or the sweepings from the pepper warehouses, mixed with a little Cayenne pepper. The sweepings are known, and purchased in the market, under the name of P.D. signifying pepper dust. An inferior sort of this vile refuse, or the sweepings of P.D. is distinguished among vendors by the abbreviation D.P.D, denoting, dust (dirt) of pepper dust.” As we read on, we learn the method of manufacturing adulterated vinegar, adulterated cream, adulterated lozenges, adulterated mustard, adulterated lemon acid, poisonous Cayenne, poisonous pickles, poisonous confectionary, poisonous catsup, poisonous custards, poisonous anchovy sauce, poisonous olive oil, poisonous soda water; and, if not done to our hands, of rendering poisonous all sorts of food by the use of copper and leaden vessels. Suffice it to record, that our pickles are made green by copper; our vinegar rendered sharp by sulphuric acid; our cream composed of rice powder or arrow root in bad milk; our comfits mixed of sugar, starch, and clay, and coloured with preparations of copper and lead; our catsup often formed of the dregs of distilled vinegar with a decoction of the outer green husk of the walnut, and seasoned with all-spice, cayenne, pimento, onions, and common salt—or if founded on mushrooms, done with those in a putrefactive state remaining unsold at market; our mustard a compound of mustard, wheaten flour, cayenne, bay salt, raddish seed, turmeric, and pease flour; and our citric acid, our lemonade, and our punch, to refresh or to exhilarate, usually cheap tartareous acid modified for the occasion. Against all these, and many other impositions, Mr. Accum furnishes us with easy and certain tests: his work, besides, contains many curious documents and useful recipes; and it is replete with intelligence, and often guides to the right while it exposes the wrong. -------