1827 Wine and spirit adulterators unmasked

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I have but imperfectly described, the result is, that the buyer is satisfied, concludes the purchase of the Wine for which he has been treating 1 , and as nothing else will do, pays down the cash for it ; whilst the placarder, (who has palmed on him, a spurious article for the genuine, the quality and flavor of which, is, to the taste of a person ac- quainted with the true quality of Wine, as unlike those of the genuine article, as it is spurious in its composition,) is all the time laughing in his sleeve, at the credulity of a customer, who, while he thinks he makes a bargain, is giving an impudent knave, a cash profit of forty per cent, only because the prices of his goods are twenty per cent, below those of a respectable Wine Merchant. If any doubt still remains, and further to prove the sum total of that which I have stated, as to the excellence and value of these vats, as a new contrivance for gulling the Public, and defrauding the Revenue, I need only refer to the placards and advertise- ments of those who are known to have adopted the vat system, and request my Readers to observe the difference between the prices quoted by them, and those, by others of their fraternity, who, although they have the same advantages in respect to pur- chasing, yet, having no vats, happen not to be pos- sessed of the same valuable means, to enable them to vend, on quite so low a scale as their more for- tunate rivals. An additional method, however, which I ought