and poisonous Sophislications, 107 



The quantity of copper which we have, more than once, de- 

 tected in this sauce, used for seasoning, and which, on account 

 of its cheapness, is much resorted to by people in the lower walks 

 of Ufe, has exceeded the proportion of lead to be met with in 

 other articles employed in domestic ojconomy. 



The following account of Mr. Lewis* on this subject will be 

 sufficient to cause the public to be on their guard : 



" Being in the habit of frequently purchasing large quantities 

 of pickles and oiher culinary sauces, for the use of my establish- 

 ment, and also for foreign trade, it fell lately to my lot to pur- 

 chase from a manufacturer of those commodities a quantity of 

 walnut catsup, apparently of an excellent quality ; but, to my 

 great surprise, I had reason to believe that the article might be 

 contaminated with some deleterious substance, from circum- 

 stances which happened in my business as a tttvern keeper, but 

 which are unnecessary to be detailed here ; and it was this that 

 induced me to make inquiry concerning the compounding of the 

 suspected articles. 



" The catsup being prepared by boiling in a copper, as is 

 usually practised, the outer green shell of walnuts, after having 

 been suffered to turn black on exposure to air, in combination 

 with common salt, with a portion of pimento and pepper-dust, 

 in common vinegar, .strengthened with some vinegar extract 

 left behind as residue in the still of vinegar manufacturers; I 

 therefore suspected that the catsup might be impregnated with 

 some copper. To convince myself of this opinion, I boiled down 

 to dryness a quart of it in a stone pipkin, which yielded to me a 

 dark brown mass. I put this mass into a crucible, and kept it 

 in a coal fire, red-hot, till it became reduced to a porous black 

 charcoal: on urging the heat with a pair of bellows, and stirring 

 the mass in the crucible with the stem of a tobacco-pipe, it be- 

 came, after two hours' exposure to an intense heat, converted 

 into a greyish-white ash ; but no metal could be discriminated 

 amongst it. I now poured upon it some aqua fortis, which dis- 

 solved nearly the whole of it, with an effervescence; and pro- 

 duced, after having been suffered to stand, to let the insoluble 

 portion subside, a bright grass-green solution, of a strong me- 

 tallic taste: after inmiersing in this solution the blade of a 

 knife, it became instantly covered with a bright coat of copper. 



*' The walnut catsup was therefore evidently strongly impreg- 

 nated with coi)pcr. On informing the manufacturer of this fact, 

 he assured me, that the same method of preparing the liquor was 

 generally pursued, and that he had manufactured the article in 

 a like manner for upwards of twenty years. 



* Literary Chronicle, No. 2i, p. 379- 



<' Such 



