who are said to manufacture a fearful kind of medicine to be
sold as milk, the cream being made of a quantity of calf's brain beaten
to a slime. Stories are told around New York, too, of a mysterious
powder sold by druggists, which with water makes milk; but it is milk
that must be used quickly, or it turns into a curious mess. But the
worst adulteration of milk is to adulterate the old cow herself; as is
done in the swill-milk establishments which received such an exposure a
few years ago in a city paper. This milk is still furnished; and many a
poor little baby is daily suffering convulsions from its effects. So
difficult is it to find real milk for babies in the city, that
physicians often prescribe the use of what is called "condensed" milk
instead; which, though very different from milk not evaporated, is at
least made of the genuine article. A series of careful experiments to
develop the milk-humbug was made by a competent physician in Boston
within a few years, but he found the milk there (aside from swill-milk)
adulterated with nothing worse than water, salt, and burnt sugar.

Tea is bejuggled first by John Chinaman, who is a very cunning rascal;
and second, by the seller here. Green and black tea are made from the
same plant, but by different processes--the green being most expensive.
To meet the increased demand for green tea, Master John takes immense
quantities of black tea and "paints" it, by stirring into it over a fire
a fine powder of plaster Paris and Prussian-blue, at the rate of half a
pound to each hundred pounds of tea. John also sometimes takes a very
cheap kind, and puts on a nice gloss by stirring it in gum-water, with
some stove-polish in it. We may imagine ourselves, after drinking this
kind of tea, with a beautiful black gloss on our insides. John moreover,
manufactures vast quantities of what he plainly calls "Lie-tea." This
is dust and refuse of tea-leaves and other leaves, made up with dust and
starch or gum into little lumps, and used to adulterate better tea.
Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds of this nice stuff were imported
into England in one period of eighteen months. It seems to be used in
New-York only for green tea.

Coffee is adulterated with chicory-root (which costs only about
one-third as much)--dandelion-root, peas, beans, mangold-wurzel, wheat,
rye, acorns, carrots, parsnips, horse-chestnuts, and sometimes with
livers of horses and cattle! All these things are roasted o