A little book, published not long since, entitled "The Successful Merchant," which gives the minute trade history of a gentleman very much respected in Bristol, Samuel Budgett, Esq., affords us a passage bearing upon this P. D. which is worthy of notice.
"In Mr. Budgett's early days," says his biographer, "pepper was under a heavy tax, and in the trade universal tradition said that out of the trade everybody expected pepper to be mixed. In the shop stood a cask labelled P. D., containing something _very like_ pepper-dust, wherewith it was usual to mix the pepper before sending it forth to serve the public. The trade tradition had obtained for the apocryphal P. D. a place amongst the standard articles of the shop, and on the strength of that tradition it was vended for pepper by men who thought they were honest. But as Samuel went on in life, his ideas on trade morality grew clearer; this P. D. began to give him much discomfort. He thought upon it till he was satisfied that, after all that could be said, the thing was wrong: arrived at this conclusion, he felt that no blessing could light upon the place while it was there. He instantly decreed that P. D. should perish. It was night; but back he went to the shop, took the hypocritical cask, carried it out to the quarry, then staved it, and scattered P. D. among the clods and slag and stones."
Would we could say that the reduction of the tax upon pepper had stimulated the honesty of other grocers to act a similar part to that of Mr. Budgett; but P. D. flourishes as flagrantly as ever; and if every possessor of the article in London were to stave his casks in the roadway, as conscientiously as did the "Successful Merchant," there would be hard work for the scavengers. In the days of Accum it was usual to manufacture peppercorns out of oiled linseed-cake, clay, and cayenne-pepper, formed into a mass, and then granulated: these fraudulent corns were mixed with the real to the extent of seventeen per cent. This form of imposition, like that of wooden nutmegs among our American friends, has, we are happy to say, long been abandoned. The adulterations we have mentioned are simply dirty and fraudulent; but in the cayenne-cruet we find, in addition, a deadly poison. Out of twenty-eight samples submitted to examination, no less than twenty-four were adulterated with white mustard-seed, brickdust, salt, ground rice, and _deal sawdust_, by way of giving bulk; but as all of these tend to lighten the colour, it is necessary to heighten it to the required pitch. And what is employed to do this? Hear and tremble, old Indians and lovers of high-seasoned food--with RED LEAD. Out of twenty-eight samples, red lead, and _often in poisonous quantities_, was present in thirteen! Who knows how many "yellow admirals" at Bath have fallen victims to their cayenne-cruets? Nor can it be said that the small quantity taken at a time could do no permanent mischief; for lead belongs to the class of poisons which are cumulative in their effects.