, the deleterious mixture had been caused ignorantly, by the
adulteration of the anotta employed for colouring the cheese. This
substance, in the instance I shall relate, was found to contain a
portion of red lead; a species of adulteration which subsequent
experiments have shewn to be by no means uncommon. Before I proceed
further to trace this fraud to its source, I shall briefly relate the
circumstance which gave rise to its detection.

"A gentleman, who had occasion to reside for some time in a city in the
West of England, was one night seized with a distressing but
indescribable pain in the region of the abdomen and of the stomach,
accompanied with a feeling of tension, which occasioned much
restlessness, anxiety, and repugnance to food. He began to apprehend the
access of an inflammatory disorder; but in twenty-four hours the
symptoms entirely subsided. In four days afterwards he experienced an
attack precisely similar; and he then recollected, that having, on both
occasions, arrived from the country late in the evening, he had ordered
a plate of toasted Gloucester cheese, of which he had partaken heartily;
a dish which, when at home, regularly served him for supper. He
attributed his illness to the cheese. The circumstance was mentioned to
the mistress of the inn, who expressed great surprise, as the cheese in
question was not purchased from a country dealer, but from a highly
respectable shop in London. He, therefore, ascribed the before-mentioned
effects to some peculiarity in his constitution. A few days afterwards
he partook of the same cheese; and he had scarcely retired to rest, when
a most violent cholic seized him, which lasted the whole night and part
of the ensuing day. The cook was now directed henceforth not to serve up
any toasted cheese, and he never again experienced these distressing
symptoms. Whilst this matter was a subject of conversation in the house,
a servant-maid mentioned that a kitten had been violently sick after
having eaten the rind cut off from the cheese prepared for the
gentleman's supper. The landlady, in consequence of this statement,
ordered the cheese to be examined by a chemist in the vicinity, who
returned for answer, that the cheese was contaminated with lead! So
unexpected an answer arrested general attention, and more particularly
as the suspected cheese had been served up for several other customers.

"Application was therefore made by the London dealer to the farmer who