heightened flavour of
brandy and rum, when coloured with the above-mentioned matter.

In other cases the ale-brewer has been supplied with ready-ground
coriander seeds, previously mixed with a portion of _nux vomica_ and
quassia, to give a bitter taste and narcotic property to the beverage.

The retail venders of mustard do not appear to be aware that mustard
seed alone cannot produce, when ground, a powder of so intense and
brilliant a colour as that of the common mustard of commerce. Nor would
the powder of real mustard, when mixed with salt and water, without the
addition of a portion of pulverised capsicum, keep for so long a time as
the mustard usually offered for sale.

Many other instances of unconscious deceptions might be mentioned, which
were practised by persons of upright and honourable minds.

It is a painful reflection, that the division of labour which has been
so instrumental in bringing the manufactures of this country to their
present flourishing state, should have also tended to conceal and
facilitate the fraudulent practices in question; and that from a
correspondent ramification of commerce into a multitude of distinct
branches, particularly in the metropolis and the large towns of the
empire, the traffic in adulterated commodities should find its way
through so many circuitous channels, as to defy the most scrutinising
endeavour to trace it to its source.

It is not less lamentable that the extensive application of chemistry to
the useful purposes of life, should have been perverted into an
auxiliary to this nefarious traffic. But, happily for the science, it
may, without difficulty, be converted into a means of detecting the
abuse; to effect which, very little chemical skill is required; and the
course to be pursued forms the object of the following pages.

The baker asserts that he does not put alum into bread; but he is well
aware that, in purchasing a certain quantity of flour, he must take a
sack of _sharp whites_ (a term given to flour contaminated with a
quantity of alum), without which it would be impossible for him to
produce light, white, and porous bread, from a half-spoiled material.

The wholesale mealman frequently purchases this spurious commodity,
(which forms a separate branch of business in the hands of certain
individuals,) in order to enable himself to sell his decayed and
half-spoiled flour.

Other individuals furnish the baker with alum mixed up with salt, under
the