Water 25 per cent. Annatto. Flour. Treacle. Oxide of iron. And other unknown ingredients.
If Brown-- Wheat flour. Hundreds of the sugar-insect. If White-- Albumen of bullock's blood.
As we perceive the teetotalers are petitioning Parliament and agitating the towns for the closing of public-houses, we beg to present them, in either hand, with a cup of the above mixtures, with the humble hope that means will be found by them to supply the British public with some drink a little less deleterious to health, a little more pleasant to the palate, and somewhat less disgusting to the feelings. Some of the sugar impurities may be avoided by using the crystallized East-Indian kind--the size of the crystals not permitting of its being adulterated with inferior sorts.
We shall not dwell upon cocoa further than to state that it is a still rarer thing to obtain it pure than either tea or coffee. The almost universal adulterations are sugar, starch, and flours together with red colouring matter, generally some ferruginous earth; whilst, as far as we can see, what is termed homoeopathic cocoa is only distinguished from other kinds by the small quantity of that substance contained in it.
There is scarcely an article on the breakfast-table, in fact, which is what it seems to be. The butter, if salt, is adulterated with between 20 and 30 per cent. of water. A merchant in this trade tells the _Lancet_ that "between 40,000 and 50,000 casks of adulterated butter are annually sold in London, and the trade knows it as well as they know a bad shilling." Lard when cheap also finds its way to the butter-tub. Perhaps those who flatter themselves that they use nothing but "Epping" will not derive much consolation from the following letter, also published in the same journal:--
"SIR,--Having taken apartments in the house of a butterman, I was suddenly awoke at three o'clock one morning with a noise in the lower part of the house, and alarmed on perceiving a light below the door of my bed-room; conceiving the house to be on fire, I hurried down stairs. I found the whole family busily occupied, and, on my expressing alarm at the house being on fire, they jocosely informed me they _were merely making Epping butter_. They unhesitatingly informed me of the whole process. For this purpose they made use of fresh-salted butter of a very inferior quality: this was repeatedly washed with water in order to free it from the salt. This being accomplished, the next process was to wash it frequently with milk, and the manufacture was completed by the addition of a small quantity of sugar. The amateurs of fresh Epping butter were supplied with this dainty, which yielded my ingenious landlord a profit of at least 100 per cent., besides establishing his shop as being supplied with Epping butter from one of the first-rate dairies.--I am, sir, your obedient servant,