A tun of fine gin 252 gallons. Water 36 " --- Which added together makes 288 " _The doctor is now put on_, and it is further reduced with water 19 " --- Which gives 307 gallons.
"This done, let one pound of alum be just covered with water, and dissolved by boiling; _rummage_ the whole together, and pour in the alum, and the whole will be fine in a few days."
We wonder that Mr. Gough, the great temperance advocate, never armed himself with one of these recipes, in order to convince people of the noxious liquids they are invited to drink under the most inviting names. In every quarter of the town we see gin-palaces seizing upon the corner houses of the streets, just as scrofula seizes upon the joints of the human frame, and through their ever-open doors streams of squalid wretches are continually pouring in and out. Could they be informed that they enter to gulp oil of vitriol, oil of turpentine, and sulphuric acid, among other acrid and deleterious compounds--that the tap of the publican spouts corroding fire, like that which leaped up from the wooden table at the command of Mephistopheles, in Auerbach's cellar, they would feel inclined to exclaim with Siebald to the fiend:--
"What, sir, how dare you practise thus Your hocus-pocus upon us?"
Gin, it appears, is almost exclusively doctored in this highly deleterious manner, although all spirits are open to sophistication, but especially brandy, which, on account of its price, pays well for the trouble. Mr. Shannon, deeply versed in the "art and mystery" of the trade of the publican, informs us that brandy should be "made up" for "retail" by the addition of 10 per cent. of flavoured raisin wine, a little of the tincture of grains of paradise, cherry-laurel water, and spirit of almond-cake: "add also 10 handfuls of oak sawdust, and give it _complexion_ with burnt sugar."
If we can give the dram-drinker little comfort, we can at least reassure the smoker. "Everybody says" that common cigars are made out of cabbages, and tobacco has always been suspected of containing many adulterations. These charges have been made, however, at random, and the result of chemical analysis and examinations by the microscope has proved that this article of daily consumption is remarkably pure. The carefully-searching microscope of Dr. Hassall has not succeeded in finding any other than the genuine leaf among forty samples of manufactured tobacco; neither were there any sophistications discovered, with the exceptions of salt, sugar, and water. An inquiry into the specimens of the rolled and twisted article was equally consoling to the maker and chewer. Now and then, it is true, the excise officers make seizures in the warehouses of the tobacco manufacturers, of dock, rhubarb, coltsfoot, and other leaves, but to a very insignificant extent, considering the value of the article and the heavy duty upon it.
