"The poor man's beer" is likely to become something more'than a passing byword, for by its means some thousand more people have been poisoned during the past few weeks and fully seventy have died. The papers began by calling the complaint which was affecting hundreds of people in Manchester, Liverpool and other towns (mostly in the north) " mysterious epidemic. Its symptoms were curious and in all cases similar, inflammation of the nerve extremities followed by paralysis. The number of deaths caused investigation to be made and ultimately it was discovered that in all cases the illness had followed the drinking of a certain brewer's cheap beer. Analysis proved that this beer contained arsenic, but the brewers emphatic cally denied the uso of this dangerous drug. In the manufacture of cheap beer, however, glucose, a substitute for sugar, is used to increase the proportion of alcohol. Sulphuric acid is employed in the manufacture of glucose. Of this article there are two kinds, the ordinary commerical acid and the pure acid, Sulphurie acid is made chiefly from Spanish copper pyrites and the inferior quality contains a small quantity of arsenic, What has happened it is easy to diagnose, though the exact facts may never be made public. Cheap beer needs inexpensive materials.—Cheap glucose means low grade sulphuric acid among other things, Probably the immediate manufacturers did not even know of the existence of arsenic in it. Any way, it was evidently used. To Dr. Tattersall, medical officer, Sulford, belongs the credit of having been the first to discover the true source of the poison, and he has by careful investigation placed the matter beand a doubt. The various brewers who wave used this particular make of glucose have most wisely called in all the beer they had on sale, but even to-day fresh: deaths are recorded, and many whose lives are saved will doubtless be months or even years before they entirely recover the use of their limbs, ' neuritis" being a complaint most difficult to cure, even under ordinary circumstances.
DRATH OF A VETERAN CoMPosen, Mr, Henry Russell, the song writer, passed away yesterday at the great age of 87. Unlike Sir Arthur Sullivan, whose sad death at the age of 58 T had to: chroniclea fortnight ago, Mr, Russell had lived to see all the friends of his youth depart before him, He belonged to 2 former but many of his songs—which included "The Old Arm Chair," "A Life on the Ocean Wave," and "Cheer, Boys, Cheer,"—will be remembered by nien still living, in fact " Cheer, Boys, Cheer" must be known to everyone sull.
Another sad arent which occurred yesterday was the death of Dr. Momerie, late fellow of St. John's College, Cambride. For some time past he has been preaching in the Portman Rooms, as, owing to some slight doctrinal difference between the late and himself, he has not So recently as last his usual place and delivered a most able eldress, being one of a course on "The Old Doctrines in the New Lights." His special subject was the Reason of Suffering and he pointed out how that without it there no advancement, either moral or physical). Every new departure in medical research has for its origin the alleviation of some trouble or disease and from amoral standpoint only those who have themselves known trouble can help sorrowing brother or sister. He ended his address by saying that when we got to that other world where we should see the true reason of all that happened here, he should be very surprised if we did not discover that of all God's gifts to us the power to suffer was one of the greatest.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.