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183
"Conversation." Of these, there were two samples.
No. 307 was of excellent quality, unusually pure, and
contrasting greatly in appearance with 308. In the
lozenges thus numbered, I found varying quantities
of blue glass, in a fine state of division, and very
unequally diffused. In a lozenge which I first
examined qualitatively, I found more of this glass
than in two others, in which I estimated the quantity.
I imagined that this blue glass, or smalt, was contained
in the small quantity of starch which had been used
in the rolling of the lozenge paste ; but I have reason
to know now, from the admissions of a manufacturer,
that such glass was used to improve the appearance.
Now my experience of the manner in which sweetmeats
were made twenty-five years ago, compelled me
to look for adulterations almost, if not altogther,
unknown at this day! I have in my remembrance
a time when Twelfth Cake ornaments were nearly
altogther poisonous—a time when three children
died from eating the coloured "sugars" of a cake in
which copper arsenite, sulpharsenious acid, white and
red lead, were the ingredients, mixed with gypsum
and sugar. I had, subsequently, a habit of looking
for unusual adulterations. I thought, and think now,
that this was a case for a warning privately, without