That this denunciation of fraud and villany is not mere assertion, the terrific disclosures that I am about to make (some of which are to be found in Mr. Accum’s book, and in greater detail than the space I have prescribed myself allows) will fully prove to the contrary, and show that it is the duty of the government to protect the public by some legislative provisions, and to prohibit and render penal the nefarious practices in daily use for the diabolical and deleterious adulteration of the necessaries of life, practices which are destructively inimical to the public health and welfare. As Mr. Accum has pointedly said in the preface to his work, “as the eager and insatiable thirst for gain is proof against prohibitions and penalties, and the possible sacrifice of a fellow creature’s life is a secondary consideration among unprincipled dealers,” nothing short of subjecting the offence to the operation of the criminal law seems likely to suppress the wicked and diabolical practices, and secure the public from the silent and unobserved effects of being slowly poisoned: transportation ought to be the mildest punishment of the iniquitous offender. Is it not, as the same gentleman justly observes, a reflection on English law, that “a man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the highway should be sentenced to death, while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community should escape unpunished,” at most with only the infliction of a trifling fine, which proves to him the inefficiency of the law to restrain him from a continuance in his iniquitous practices? The inefficacy of fines, however large, in deterring offenders from a commission or repetition of the crime is evident, from the inadequacy of the large penalties to which the adultering brewer, grocer, coffee-manufacturer, &c. are subject when detected. For, besides the difficulty of detecting this species of fraud and iniquity, the large profits, which are often several hundreds per cent. enable the culprits to meet the trivial loss which attends a detection, and speedily reimburses them the penalty of a conviction.