GERMANY AND POISONOUS PRODUCTS. 35 



colours derived from coraline red, and aniline, are not free from 

 suspicion. 



Having regard to the effects produced upon the health of those 

 employed in the poisonous arts and manufactures, and to the 

 grave consequences resulting to the community from their 

 unrestricted use, the question naturally arises, is it right, or 

 desirable to allow the manufacture and sale of articles attended 

 with so much risk? Arsenic, as such, cannot be procured 

 without certain legal precautions, such as a medical certificate, 

 and the name and address of the purchaser; but I have just said 

 that seven hundred tons of arsenic a moderate estimate of the 

 quantity in England alone are sold as pigments, some of them 

 containing more than 50 per cent of arsenic. 



Quantities of these may be bought for a few pence without 

 any question being raised. No one, surely, would object to the 

 prohibition of this traffic on the ground that such an act would 

 infringe the liberty of the subject ! Might it not, on the 

 contrary, with more reason, be alleged that our liberty suffers 

 by the legalised continuance of such a state of matters 1 " An 

 excess of liberty in any commonwealth," remarks the great 

 Eoman commentator,* " degenerates to the opposite extreme in 

 licentiousness and tyranny." It may be instructive to ascertain 

 how this subject has been dealt with by some of our enlight- 

 ened neighbours on the Continent. The German Government, 

 for example, deeply impressed with the conviction that the 

 manufacture and sale of such articles were incompatible with the 

 liberty and safety of the subject, on the 1st May 1882, laid 

 before their Parliament a decree of which I give, in effect, the 

 substance. The preamble states that the object of the Act is the 

 prohibition of poisonous pigments ; and the following substances 

 are described as coming within the meaning of the Act, namely, 

 antimony, arsenic, barium, lead, cromium, cadmium, copper, 

 mercury, zinc, tin, gamboge, and picric acid. Secondly, the 

 preserving and packing of food stuffs intended ?for sale, in 

 wrappers coloured with the above cited poisonous colours, are 

 prohibited. Thirdly, the employment of poisonous colours, 



* Tacitus. 



