Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1859-11-17
Who drinks Poison 2

We have before gwen our testimony
against the use of liquor for the good reason
that it was poison, and was killing those who
drink it. We have from source entitled
to credit, other interesting testimony.
The evidences of very general adultera-
ton of liquors, as we'll as of tie concoction
of spurious articles on large scale, accumu-
late daily, and place the truth of the matter
beyond question. The latest testimony we
have seen, going to prove these criminal
practices, comes from wel-known dealer in
the article of gin, tTdolpho Wolfe, of 4" Schel-
dam Schnapps" celebrity. We presume his
competency to speak on this subject, being
himself engaged in the liquor traffic, will be
generally acknowledged. In a pamphlet re-
Gently issued, he furnishes the results of his
experience and observation. According to
Mr.. Wolfe, the practice of aduterating pure
liquors, and compromising spurious articles,
has reached most startling point. lie tells
us that while in the New York Custom House,
the returns show an actual importation of
10000 halfcasks of brandy, $4,000 quarters,
$4,000 oighths, twenty Or thirty times that
number are sold by mixers and jobbers to re-
tailers and country dealers, as genuine French
brandy, newly-imported, and Of The choicest
brands; with one gallon of pure brandy will
be mixed twenty gallons of spurious arti-
Gle. Three. tourths of all foreign brandies
and gins," it is said, are imported for the
cypress use, IN authorizations, of the mirers
and jobbers Of the day." But comparative
ly few of the selfstyled importers Of brandy
and other liquors are such in reality, says
Mr.. Wolfe. They may import enough to
furnish cloak for tier practices, but that
is all One man who had sold thousands of
gallons of certain kind of foreign" Ii
quor, has not imported more than five pipes
in five years This is shown by the Custom
House books.
In the work of adulteration, subtle poisons,
taken from tie vegetable and mineral king
doms, are recklessly employed. From the
vegetable, says Mr.. Wolfe, opium, tobacco,
henbane, strychnine, coculus Indcus; from
the earths, various elements too numerous to
detail; from the acids, oil of vitriol, muriatic
acid, and many other medicinal poisons.-
These baneful ingredients, mixed with other
articles, are dispensed to the public under
the names of Scotch, Irish Bourbon and
Monongahela whiskcy, rum, gin, wine
brandy, lager beer, &C. The bulk of the
Bourbon whiskey," SO called, was neve,
within the limits of Kentucky 1t is made
of inferior common whiskey, refined by q
peculiar process, sottened down by various
baneful ingredients, and is produced at a cost
not exceeding twenty-five or twenty three
cents per gallon. Cincinnati has sevara
manufactures Of " Bourbon whiskey, which
is sold at the rate of five to seven dollars
per dozen!
Mr.. Wolfe also reiterates what has beer
stated before, that the greater portion Of thu
importations in foreign brandies, SO called
once left our shores in the shape of whiskey
and after having been doctored in Franc,
and stamped with French brand, are re
turned to this country and sold as genuine
French liquors. Oporto cannot distil NOR,
port wine than will supply her own people
and her privileged English customers anc
yet there is not more common beverage il
the stocks OF retailers than port wino O
course it is homemade article. Anon!
its ingredients will be found spoiled clarel
logwood, alum, elderberries, red So vdust
beetroot, whiskey, gypsum, and bitter al
monds. Various preparations of lead ar
employed to give to inferior MADEIRA an,
sherry wines the appearance and flavor O
the best. Nearly all the grain, potatoes an,
molasses used in the manufacture of the com
mon preparations of alcohol have advances
into the acetous or putrefactive stage befor
they are subjected to the process of distia
ton.
Such are the facts-uot all of them new
to be sure,-which Mr.. Wolfe brings forwar
to prove the deleterious and balefal charac
ter of the great bulk of the liquors drank a
the present day. To the fiery, poisonous ma
ture OF these compounds is justly chargeabl
very large per centage of the crimes whic
are committed from day to day.