Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1870 — Real Nature of the Stuff They Set “High” On. [ARTICLE]

Real Nature of the Stuff They Set “High” On.

Several cases of parties at Stonington, Conn., prosecuted for selling adulterated liquors and wines, came before the Superior Court at Norwich, a few days since. The prosecution offered the testimony of Prof. Silliman, State Chemist, which we copy: I am Professor of Chemistry in Tale College and State Chemist. I have been making chemistry a special study for the last thirty years. The samples of liquor were brought to me on the 17th day of March last. 8. K. Tillinghast made his appearance at my house, bringing three samples of liquors. He brought two ordors from the Justice to examine the liquors under order from Gordon S. Crandall. The orders were to Tillinghast to bring the samples to me to examine, aud I receipted for them. Two of the samples were marked as liquors in the case of the State vs. H. C. Stanton. The sample No. 1 came out of cask No. 3 of Stanton’s, and I give the analysis of what came in the bottle. It is an imitation of port wine, very tnrbid, and heavily laden with sugar or molasses, and with coloring uiatter. It also contains oxyd of lead, sulphuric acid, over twenty-one per cent, of alcohol, and over ten per cent, of sugar or molasses. The specific gravity is 1.015, water being 1,000. It is heavier than water from the sugar it contains. I proceeded to make examination analytically, to determine tlioquantities of the ingredients. It contains sulphuric acid 100 grains to the gallon—partly free as oil vitriol, and part combined in alum; oxyd of lead or litharge, in poisonous quantity, and in turbidity or in clear liquor by filtering, about forty-five grains to the gallon. The alcohol obtained from this liquor by distillation had an acid taste. It had also an offensive odor from the coloring matter. The liquor contained deleterious and poisonous substances. I have a small vial of oxyd of lead. *_ * * The quantity found by me is ample to affect any liquor. This liquor is stronger in its contents of lead than most waters that are poisoned by it. It is in sufficient quantities to be deleterious to the human system. The learned professor continued at length to state the poisonous effects of the ingredients contained in these liquors.— New Haven Courier. —Ought a raw recruit, who has never learned to use a pen, be ordered to “ right face ” by bis superior officer before the sergeant tm taught him to *‘ form a line T”