Star.
London, England, 1818-06-12 00:00:00

THE ICING U. LUKE LYONS.

The defendant is a brewer, and was brought up,
under an indictment, containing seven different
counts, charging him with having made use of va-
rious deleterious drugs in his brewery, among which
were capsicum, liquorice-roat, coriander seed, cop-
peras, orange powder, and Spanish liquorice.
William Wells, an officer of the Excise, stated,
that o s the 30th of July, 1817, he went, in company
with Middleton, a publican, to the house of the de-
fendant. The residence of Mr. Lyons was in Dean-
a.reet, St. Paul's, Sha.iwell, and the brewhouse was
in Bell-wharf, St. Paul's, Shadwell. Witness had a
warrant with him to search for drugs. Between one
and two o'clock on the day mentioned he saw the
defendant, and told him he had information that
there were drugs in the house, and that he had a
warrant to search for them. The defendant said that
he had no such thing in his house, and immediately
left him. The defendant however presently returned,
and said that witness should not search unless he
fetched a constable. Witness refused to do this, and
observed, that he was a constable in the day time,
aid should not go after any one else. Mr. Lyons
then went away, and Mrs. Lyons came up. Wit-
ness requested her to accompany him up stairs, but
she also went away to fetch Mr. Lyons. The de-
f=dant returned, and after some conversation, he
pushed by and went away. Witness then finding it
of no use delaying, immediately went up stairs, and
was followed by Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, and Mr.
Lyons, jun. The defendant then said that witness
should not search, unless he pointed out the parti-
cular room. The officer, however, persisted in search-
ing every room, and the defendant began locking
several of them up. After going through many of
the rooms, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, and
Mr. Lyons, jun. witness went into a bed-room, which
he believed was that of the defendant, and in a cup-
board near the fire-place, he found one pound of
capsicum, two pounds of liquorice not ground, tlo
pounds of coriander seed, one pound of copperas,
eight pounds of orange powder, and a small quan-
tity of Spanish liquorice. The defendant imme-
diately said that he did not know how it was there ;
but afterwards observed, that the drugs had been
there ever since a fire which had happened some time
back. In another room witness found a sack, con-
taining between two and three bushels of dry bay
loaves, such as Spanish liquorice is usually packed
n? in, and out of this sack he picked two or three
vexes of Spanish liquorice. The defendant said,
"Itis a pity to take such small things as these. It
will be the ruin of myself and my family." He added,
ig 1 think it may be amicably settled without going
to the Board." In the brewhouse witness found two
kilderkins, containing about l 4 gallons of colouring ;
it was placed under a vat in the store celiac
Joseph Middleton, who accompanied the last wit-
ness, corroborated his statement, and produced the
drugs. Not more than half a pound of liquorice juice
was found.
- Charles Angus, a chymist, was next called to prove
the qualities and effect of the drugs. The liquorice-
powder, he said, was used as a substitute for malt ;
it had more saccharine matter in it, and was much
cheaper. The orange-powder was also wed as a
substitute for malt, and was intended particularly to
give a flavour and a colouring to the beer—it had
nothing pernicious in it. The capsicum produced a
heating effect, similar to cayenne ; the coriander-
seed was used for the purpose of keeping the beer
up, to prevent its turning grey or sour; the copperas
had the effect of shewing off bad beer to advantage,
and to preserve it from turning sour, but would not
supply the place of malt, having none of its spirit.
Mr. Coverdale Lyons was called by the defendant.
He was son to the defendant, and had assisted his fa-
ther in business for four or ive years. He recollected
that on the sth of June, 1815, a fire happened in the
neighbourhood, and was so near to two chymists and
druggists shops, that they were obliged to move
their goods, and some of them came into the brew-
house. The fire was next door to his father's house,
and much confusion was occasioned ; the house was
in consequence much linjured, and rendered uninha-
bitable for two years. After the fire there were a
t many goods on his father's premises, and among
.ai.em he partaularly remarked a bag containing some
powders, and those produced were similar to them.
The bag had remained two years and a half in the
fireplace of a room on tke premises, and about three