Death 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

a

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 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 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."

66

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

to

the morning. Alas! 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 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.”—66 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 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."

memory.

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