Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/146

138   with official functions in relation to the excise. He went about inquiring of the distillers if they had registered their stills according to law. His imaginary official dignity was but short-lived; he was pursued by a party of insurgents, as usual in disguise, and taken out of his bed. They carried him about three miles, to a blacksmith’s shop, stripped him naked, and burnt his clothes. After applying a red-hot iron to various parts of his body, they tarred and feathered him, and dismissed him at daybreak, naked, wounded, and otherwise in a very suffering condition. The wretched lunatic bore the torture inflicted upon him, with the heroic fortitude of a man who believed himself to be a martyr to the discharge of some important duty. A similar fate befell a man namenamed [sic] Roseberry, and several others.

In August, 1792, the Inspector of Revenue procured the house of Captain W. Faulkner for an office in Washington county; but the all-powerful mob threatened the captain that, if he did not prevent the further use of his house as an office, they would scalp, tar, and feather him, and burn his house and property. It is needless to inquire whether he acquiesced in their demands. In 1793, the condition of affairs remained the same. Some distillers were disposed to comply with the orders of the government, but they were subjected to “the discipline,” and—in one case at least—compelled to advertise their sufferings in the “Pittsburg Gazette,” as a warning to others. One of the many sufferers in this riotous opposition to the law, was a private person, who had innocently remarked, that, when people did not obey government, they could not look for its protection! As late as the 6th of June, 1794, John Lynn, whose house was occupied as an excise office, underwent the usual formula, viz., he was tarred, feathered, tied to a tree, &c., added to which his house was partly destroyed. About this time the United States Marshal seems to have ventured within the riotous districts; but his mission was productive of no results, save danger and disgrace to himself. He was fired upon, and eventually seized. His life was frequently threatened; in fact, he was probably only saved by the intervention of some of the leading insurgents, who possessed either more humanity or prudence than their fellows. His safety and liberty were alone secured to him, by his entering into a solemn engagement to serve no more processes on the western side of the Alleghany Mountains.

One of the last acts of the insurgents was the stoppage of the mail from Pittsburg to Philadelphia by armed men, who cut open the bag, and, from the letters that it contained, found out which of the inhabitants were enemies to the popular cause. Delegates were despatched from the town of Washington to Pittsburg, to demand the expulsion of these secret foes. A prompt obedience was unavoidable. The government could temporise no longer. Affidavits and reports of the facts were presented to President Washington, who, by the unanimous advice of his cabinet, decided to call out the militia,—a measure which was not accomplished without difficulty. The rebellion instantly collapsed; and it is not clear that the force called out to suppress the insurrection did not do more mischief than the insurgents themselves. Marshall, in his life of Washington, says—“The greatness of the force prevented the effusion of blood; the disaffected did not venture to assemble in arms.”

These riotous proceedings of the mob, this defiance of the constituted authorities, must in no way be confounded with what is called Lynch-law. That is a much more solemn and important affair, which, though open to great abuse, has nevertheless done good service in newly occupied territories, where the arm of the law, properly so called, is powerless to punish or protect; or where, as in some cases, the populace take upon themselves to supplement that leniency towards crime, which is so characteristic of American legislation. Judge Lynch and his subordinates employ tar and feathers very freely as a punishment, but they are usually only mild adjuncts to far more terrible measures. 2em

preparation of food is of two kinds—public and private. The public consists in the ordinary modes of converting minerals and gases into vegetables, and vegetables into animals with milk, cream, cheese, flesh meat, and marrow-bones. The private modes are the chemical and mechanical conversion of materials by artificial as opposed to natural processes, and they are kept private as far as possible, because the public is strong in the belief that natural food is wholesome, and artificial food unwholesome. This may or may not be.

Scents and flavours are notoriously artificial, as well as wines; and the public, in these cases, blinks the matter, because the natural quantities are insufficient to supply the demand, and the great mass of the public must either accept the artificial or go without.

Natural food, either vegetable or animal, is subject to decomposition. To preserve it from decomposition four methods are used. It is charged with antiseptics, as salt or sugar; or it is dried; or it is hermetically sealed in metal cases, to exclude the air; or it is kept in antiseptic gases which exclude oxygen. When decomposition has commenced, it ceases to be food in law, and is denounced as poisonous to human beings, though given to animals to feed on, which animals, in some cases, are used for human food when slaughtered, making the poison second-hand.

Diseased animals are also denounced, but it does not follow that disease always destroys the utility of the food, for the artificial liver complaint of Strasbourg geese is even held to produce a luxury. How far chemists might or do deal with diseased or decomposed vegetables or flesh we do not know, and they would be the last persons to tell us, because it would prejudice the sale; but we do know that decomposing flesh may, by the use of charcoal, be freed from its putrid odour; and yet, in the case of game, the odour of decomposition is carefully sought, and is thought to heighten the flavour.

The process of decomposition, in the case of fish, is arrested by ice, which robs it of its flavour,