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. Arsenic, 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 quantities 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 æther and rancid cheese and butter. The manufacturer, perhaps unaware of the cumulative action of many of his chemicals, thinks that the small quantity 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 Accum, 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 analyzed, when it was found that lead was present in it in poisonous quantities. 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 Accum remarks, "the druggist sold his vermilion, in a regular