The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

Appendices.
C.
ADULTERATIONS OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
IN the Report of the Committee of Convocation on
Intemperance, the following paragraph occurs (p. 7):
"Attention is loudly called by the clergy and coroners
in their returns to the extent to which the adulteration
of intoxicating drink prevails, with the effect, in many
cases, of circulating a liquor-to use the words of one
coroner-' which maddens and destroys.' It is to be
observed that these adulterations generally arise out of
the competition among rival dealers, and frequently supply the only margin of profit by which the trafficker is
enabled to keep possession of his house as the tenant of
some brewer or distiller." Appendix J to the Report
presents a train of testimonies from the clergy and coroners to the prevalence of adulterations. Tobacco and
salt are very commonly used in adulterating malt liquors; but there is evidence that in the manipulation of
fermented and distilled liquors, among the substances
used either to impart pungency, clearness, intoxicating
fume, or some other property calculated to render the
liquor more popular, are the following-nux vomica and
its essential principle strychnine, henbane, cocculus indicus, grains of paradise, opium, arsenic, oil of vitriol, sulphuric ether, essential oil of almonds, oil of turpentine,
alum, sulphur, sulphate of iron, aloes, quassia, cherrylaurel water, foxglove, wormwood, and "headings" (a
mixture of powdered copperas and alum). Brewer's
Guides and similar works have been written to reduce
adulteration to a science, and one of these authors (S.
Child), in his "Every Man his own Brewer," explains as
the reason of this drugging that "malt, to produce [suf ficient alcohol for] intoxication, must be used in such
large quantities as would very much diminish, if not
i87