Weath in the Pot.

(LETTER FROM AN ELDERLY GENTLEWOMAN TO MR. CHRISTOPHER NORTH.*) MY DEAR MR. NORTH,

I MUCH fear that this is the last letter you will ever receive from your old friend. “I'm wearin' awa, Kit! to the land o' the leal!" and that, too, under the influence of a complication of disorders, which have been undermining my constitution (originally a sound and stout one) for upwards of half a century. Look to yourself, my much respected lad-and think no more of your rheumatism. That, believe me, is a mere trifle -but think of what you have been doing, since the peace of 1763, (in that year were you born,) in the eating and drinking way, and tremble. I know, my dear Kit, that you never were a gormandizer, nor a sot; neither surely was I-but it matters not, the most abstemious of us all have gone through fearful trials, and I have not skill in figures to cast up the poisonous contents of my hapless stomach for nearly threescore years. You would not know me now; I had not the slightest suspicion of myself in the looking-glass this morning. Such a face! so wan and wo-begone! No such person drew Priam's curtains at dead of night, or could have told him half his Troy was burned. *In 1820, Mr. Frederick Accum, of old Compton Street, Soho, London, (selfdescribed as 66 Operative Chemist, Lecturer on Practical Chemistry, Mineralogy, &c. &c.") published a startling Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons, exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, spirituous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionary, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, and other articles employed in domestic economy, and methods of detecting them. The book told many household, if not home truths and had a large sale. (Mr. Accum, it may be added, was subsequently detected in the act of cutting out leaves from valuable books in the British Museum, to save the trouble of transcribing their contents, and only escaped trial in a criminal Court, by returning to his native Germany, where he died.) Accum's book was quizzically reviewed in Blackwood for February, 1820, with copious extracts, showing the adulterations upon articles of food in ordinary consumption. The review, (which was called "There is Death in the Pot: 2 Kings-chap. vi, verse 11,") was followed up, in the next number of Maga, by this affecting epistle from Mrs. Susanna Trollope. -M.

Well hear me come to the point. I remember now, perfectly well, that I have been out of sorts all my lifetime; and the causes of my continual illness have this day been revealed to me. May my melancholy fate be a warning to you, and all your dear contributors, a set of men whom the world could ill spare at this crisis. Mr. Editor-I HAVE BEEN poisoned.

You must know that I became personally acquainted, a few weeks ago, quite accidentally, with that distinguished chemist, well known in our metropolis by the name of "Death in the Pot." He volunteered a visit to me at breakfast, last Thursday, and I accepted him. Just as I had poured out the first cup of tea, and was extending it graciously towards him, he looked at me, and with a low, hoarse, husky voice, like Mr. Kean's, asked me if I were not excessively ill: I had not had the least suspicion of being so-but there was a terrible something in "Death in the Pot's" face which told me I was a dead woman. I immediately got up-I mean strove to get up, to ring the bell for a clergyman-but I fainted away. On awaking from my swoon, I beheld "Death in the Pot" still staring with his fateful eyes and croaking out, half in soliloquy, half in tête-a-tête, "There is not a life in London worth ten years' purchase." I implored him to speak plainly, and for God's sake not to look at me so malagrugorously—and plainly enough he did then speak to be sure— -" MRS. TROLLOPE, you are poISONED."

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"Who," cried I out convulsively, "who has perpetrated the foul deed? On whose guilty head will lie my innocent blood? Has it been from motives of private revenge? Speak, Mr. Accum-speak! Have you any proofs of a conspiracy?" Yes, Madam, I have proofs, damning proofs. Your wine-merchant, your brewer, your baker, your confectioner, your grocer, ay, your very butcher are in league against you; and, Mrs. Trollope, YOU ARE POISONED!" "When-Oh! when was the fatal dose administered? Would an emetic be of no avail? Could you not yet administer a- But here my voice was choked, and nothing was audible, Mr. North, but the sighs and sobs of your poor Trollope.

At last I became more composed-and Mr. Accum asked me what was, in general, the first thing I did on rising from bed in

the morning. Alas! I felt that it was no time for delicacy, and I told him at once, that it was to take off a bumper of brandy for a complaint in my stomach. He asked to look at the bottle. I brought it forth from the press in my own number, that tall square tower-like bottle, Mr. North, so green to the eye and smooth to the grasp. You know the bottle well-it belonged to my mother before me. He put it to his nose-he poured out a driblet into a tea-spoon as cautiously as if it had been the blackdrop, he tasted it-and again repeated these terrible. words, "MRS. TROLLOPE, YOU ARE POISONED. -It has," he continued, "a peculiar disagreeable smell, like the breath of habitual drunkards."- "Oh! thought I, has it come to this! The smell ever seemed to my unsuspecting soul most fragrant and delicious." Death in the Pot then told me, that the liquid I had been innocently drinking every morn for thirty years was not brandy at all, but a vile distillation of British molasses over wine lees, rectified over quick-lime, and mixed with saw-dust. And this a sad solitary unsuspecting spinster had been imbibing as brandy for so many years! A gleam of comfort now shot across my brain-I told Mr. Accum that I had, during my whole life, been in the habit of taking a smallish glass of Hollands before going to bed, which I fain hoped might have the effect of counteracting the bad effects of the forgery that had been committed against me. I produced the bottle-the white globular one you know. Death in the Pot tried and tasted-and alas! instead of Hollands, he pronounced it vile British malt spirit, fined by a solution of sub-acetate of lead, and then a solution of alum— and strengthened with grains of paradise, Guinea, pepper, capsicum, and other acrid and aromatic substances. These are learned words-but they made a terrible impression upon my memory. Mr. Accum is a most amiable man, I well believebut he is a stranger to pity. "Mrs. Trollope, yoU HAVE BEEN POISONED," was all he would utter. Had the brandy and Hollands been genuine there would have been no harm— but they were imitation, and "YOU ARE poisoned."

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Feeling myself very faint, I asked, naturally enough for a woman in my situation, for a glass of wine. It was broughtbut Mr. Accum was at hand to snatch the deadly draught from

my lips. He tasted what used to be called my genuine old port,

are

And in the scowl of heaven his face

Grew black as he was sipping.

"It is spoiled elder wine-rendered astringent by oak-wood saw-dust, and the husks of filberts-lead and arsenic, Madam, but my ears tingled and I heard no more. I confessed to the amount of six glasses a-day of this hellish liquorpardon my warmth—and that such had been my allowance for many years. My thirst was now intolerable, and I beseeched a glass of beer. It came, and Death in the Pot detected at once the murderous designs of the brewer. Coculus indicus, Spanish juice, hartshorn shavings, orange powder, copperas, opium, tobacco, nux vomica-such were the shocking words he kept repeating to himself-and then again, "MRS. TROLLOPE IS POISONED." "May I not have a single cup of tea, Mr. Accum," I asked imploringly, and the chemist shook his head. He then opened the tea-caddy, and emptying its contents, rubbed my best green tea between his hard horny palms. "Sloeleaves, and white-thorn leaves, Madam, coloured with Dutch - pink, and with the fine green bloom of verdigris! Much, in the course of your regular life, you must have swallowed!" "Might I try the coffee?" Oh! Mr. North, Mr. North, you know my age, and never once, during my whole existence, have I tasted coffee. I have been deluded by pease and beans, sand, gravel, and vegetable powder! Mr. Accum called it sham coffee, most infamous stuff, and unfit for human food! Alas! the day that I was born!

In despair I asked for a glass of water, and just as the sparkling beverage was about to touch my pale quivering lips, my friend, for I must call him so in spite of every thing, interfered, and tasting it, squirted it out of his mouth, with a most alarming countenance. "It comes out of a lead cistern-it is a deadly poison." Here I threw myself on my knees before this inexorable man, and cried, "Mr. Death in the Pot, is there in heaven, on earth, or the waters under the earth, any one particle of matter that is not impregnated with death? What means this desperate mockery? For mercy's sake give me the