The Kansas herald of freedom., 1857-05-23


Newburyport Herald. 1t contains
some reflections and facts which we
should mix with the. :" blessed liquor"
We drink:
We have frequently taken occasion
to quote from chemists concerning the
compounds that are sold for spiritu.
Gus liquors. The fact had become
well established before the grape dis
ease and the failure of the sugar crop,
that q considerable part of the liquors
sold were adulterated. 1t was this
cause which produced the different eff
fects upon the consumers. Formerly
even hard drinkers-especially when
they confined themselves to. simple
rum or n Nhisky-msn who would drink
their quart or more day, were rosy
raced, strong and long-lived. There
was more in what they drank of what
might be termed food, than was taken
Into the system to support it. No
such disease as delirium tremens was
known. In time, to increase their
profits, dealers would, to limited ex-
tent, adulterate; and often there were
cases of sudden death among the in
temperate-congestion of the brain,
apoplexy, paralysis. How these dis
eases have increased of late years
among the classes named, and often
times been transmitted SO as to effect
their children! 1t was impossible
that it should be otherwise, when they
were hourly taking into the stomach
what would eat through copper kettle
if allowed to act upon the metal.
After the grape disease, rum and
whisky were exported to Europe, col
ored and drugged, and sent back to us
under the name of various imported
drinks, at high prices for the poison
ing, and duty of a hundre per cent.
to get it into the country again. This
was well known fact to the whole
world still people drank on wit b their
eyes wide open and still morsdeaths
ragged through their ranks. Nine
tenths of all the brandies were imita-
tons, and still greater portion of the
wines. The color and the flavor was
given by poisonous connections, which
they soon learned to prepare in this
country as we'll as abroad. The ladies
even, would boast of their Sherry. old
Port, or Madeira wines. which were
made in the very stores where they
were purchased-a little bad rum, q
good deal of pure water, some sweeten-
ing, horse-radish, pepper, with the
poison of sulphuric acid mixed with
dead cockroaches, was all they had to
boast of. Anybody can see that they
were base counterfeits from this fact,
that of some kinds there were five or
twenty times as much wine sold and
drank as was produced in the countries
where they manufacture it. There is
ten times as mnch Port wine sold in
this country, and ten times as much
in England. as is made IN Oporto, and
hence it must be sham.
Soon we reached another stage of
this proceeding; molasses was scarce
and grain was high, and they sold
poisonous liquors under the names of
rum and whisky Whisky, that western
men used to drink like water is now
drugged with strychnine and tobacco
deadly poisons; so that there is no
class of liquors that can be drank with
any more safety than the poisoned
bread of Hong-Kong could be eaten.
The diseases they create are strewing
the whole earth with dead mems bones.
The brain and nervous system cannot
endure them and madness and death
follow in their track. Even the State
of Ohio has been obliged to pass a
law for the prevention of this poison
ing.
It is bad enough to drink beer and
ale, where, as in the Albany trial, ii
is proved that the dirtiest water is
used, and is the best-water in which
dead dogs and cats and horses are
thrown for its improvement-that has
the washings of slaughter houses, and
is kept stagnant till green slime
covers it's surface and it thickens to
the bottom-beer which only deadens
the intellect and bloats the flesh with
corruption; but to think Of the shorter
way to death, by arsenic. suiphuric
acid, strychnine, tobacco with decoc'
tions of cockroaches and bedbugs. il
more awful still. When we have
read of poisoned wells upon the inya
sion of countries by hostile armies, OF
of poisoned bread, 1t was hardly credi
ole, even when enemies were to be de
stroyed /; but to think of retailin,
worse poisons, and one friends pur
chasing to give it to another as
friendly act, is quite as difficult o
belief.