ts often have verdigris in
them, too.

An awful list! Imagine a meal of such bewitched food, where the actual
articles are named. "Take some of the alum bread." "Have a cup of
pea-soup and chicory-coffee?" "I'll trouble you for the oil-of-vitriol,
if you please." "Have some sawdust on your meat, or do you prefer this
flour and turmeric mustard?" "A piece of this verdigris-preserve
gooseberry pie, Madam?" "Won't you put a few more sugar-bugs in your
ash-leaf tea?" "Do you prefer black tea, or Prussian-blue tea?" "Do you
like your tea with swill-milk, or without?"

I have not left myself space to speak of the tricks played by the
druggists and the liquor-dealers; but I propose to devote another
chapter exclusively to the adulteration of liquors in this country. It
is a subject so fearful and so important that nothing less than a
chapter can do it justice. I must now end with a story or two and a
suggestion or two.

Old Colonel P. sold much whisky; and his manner was to sell by sample
out of a pure barrel over night, at a marvelous cheap rate, and then to
"rectify" before morning, under pretence of coopering and marking.
Certain persons having a grudge against the Colonel, once made an
arrangement with a carman, who executed their plan, thus:--He went to
the Colonel, and asked to see whisky. The jolly old fellow took him down
stairs and showed him a great cellar full. Carman samples a barrel.
"Fust rate, Colonel, how d'ye sell it?" Colonel names his price on the
rectified basis. "Well, Colonel, how much yer got?" "So many
barrels--two or three hundred." "Colonel, here's your money. I'll take
the lot." "All right," says Colonel P.; "there's some coopering to be
done on it; some of the hoops and heads are a very little loose. You
shall have it all in the morning." "No, colonel, we'll roll it right out
this minnit! My trucks are up there, all ready." And, sure enough, he
had a string of a dozen or more brigaded in the street. The Colonel was
sadly dumbfounded; he turned several colors--red mostly--stammered, made
excuses. It was no go, the whisky was the customer's, and the game was
up. The humbugged old humbug finally "came down," and bought his man off
by paying him several hundred dollars.

There is a much older and better known story about a grocer who was a
deacon, and who was heard to call down stairs before breakfast, to his
clerk: "John, have you watered the rum?" "Yes, Sir." "And sanded the
sugar?" "Yes, Sir." "