The celebrations linked to Halloween today are the product of a hodgepodge of pagan and Christian traditions, myths and legends, well seasoned with consumerism. There are many cultures that maintain various ancestral funeral rites, although it is inevitable that today we link Halloween with mountains of sweets. Unfortunately for the residents of a small British town, the sale of some innocent candies led to tragedy.
It happened in the middle of the 19th century, in the middle of Victorian age, in a context of the heyday of the British Empire, with the accelerated development of cities driven by the Industrial Revolution. An industrialization that, however, brought with it a precarious urban life full of dangers, especially in matters of public health. It didn’t help that poisonings, accidental or provoked, were the order of the day.
A consequence of this new urban life was the standardization of a new social order with the great development of the working class and also the middle class, who could now access goods and resources until then reserved for the wealthiest. A clear example was the sweetonce reserved for nobles and kings, now adopting new forms to satisfy the sweet tooth of the entire population.
It was the century of the expansion of the cookie, chocolate and cake industry, but also of the world of Hard candyeasier and cheaper to produce, store, transport and market.
There was only one problem; the sugar was tremendously expensive. And business had to be done.
adulterated sugar
It was in the 14th century when the use of sugar as a sweetening ingredient became widespread in Great Britain, but it was impossible to grow cane on local lands, as is the case throughout Europe. Had have import it, and that was very, very expensive. It was a luxury reserved for the wealthiest.
As the power of the Empire extended throughout the West Indies (Antilles and Bahamas), the sugar exports, enriching British commercial ports with these operations. As a result, the Crown imposed high taxes to the so-called white gold, leaving sugar as a luxury product inaccessible to the most humble economies.
Manufacturers and merchants of sweets and candy, increasingly common in cities, opted for cheapen costs and thus make them more accessible to the lower classes. The most common technique consisted of mixing sugar with the so-called dafta kind of gypsum and limestone dust which, in principle, did not present health risks, and was legal.
Nothing that has not been seen hundreds of times throughout the history of gastronomy: cheap substitutes in times of scarcity. As long as you know what you’re using as a substitute.
poisoned candies
William Hardakerknown as Humbug Billy, has a candy stall in the Green Market in the city of Bradford. Is October 30, 1858, the end of the month and All Saints’ Day is approaching, a favorable date to make cash. Their store is especially popular for offering special prices and discounts on candies that are more discolored or have a less fine finish.
Very popular are the so-called humbugs, striped hard sugar candies of two colors, usually black and white or brown, with a mint aroma, still on sale today in British lands, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa. Hardaker sold about two kilos of humbugs that day before closing up and going home. The next morning, two neighborhood children had dead.
Although the police attributed the deaths to one of the many childhood illnesses that were rife at the time, as that Halloween day progressed, things began to happen. numerous sudden deaths without apparent cause, among people of different ages, and many others fell ill.
Police inquiries pointed to Hardaker’s candy when the father of two other deceased young children raised his suspicions. Another young man from the home, after trying them, soon became very ill.
But when searching for the suspect of mass poisoning, something all too common at the time, the police found Humbug Billy himself very ill in his home, in agony. Meanwhile, deaths and sick people were adding up by the dozens in the city.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The culprit of the 1858 Bradford poisonings was none other than the unfortunate chanceas Jenny Elliott points out in Atlas Obscurathe result of the desire for profit and health negligence.
Hardaker bought the candies from the wholesale manufacturer Joseph Neal. Its recipe consisted of a mixture of gum, water, peppermint oil, sugar and daft. I bought that gypsum powder in large quantities at a drugstore from a nearby town, whose task he entrusted to an assistant.
Two weeks before the tragedy, the young employee went out with the task of purchasing about 5.5 kilos daft to continue the production of candy. However, the pharmacist was sick, bedridden, and did not trust his inexperienced assistant to dispatch orders. At the insistence of Neal’s envoy, following the instructions dictated, the young apprentice took hold of the container where he believed the white powder demanded was.
Unfortunately for the pharmacist, the assistant, Joseph Neal, and all of Bradford, the bottles were Unlabeled and the boy was confused. He sold more than 5 kilos of arsenic oxide, which Neal gave to James Appleton, another employee in charge of making the candy, to get to work. The unfortunate Appleton would end up vomiting from exposure to the poison, but he didn’t think much of it.
Almost 20 kilos of poisoned candies They left the factory to be sold mostly at Humbug Billy’s stand. Each one of those humbugs It was powerful enough to kill a grown man if left untreated.
Total, 21 people died that fateful Halloween, mostly children, with more than 200 seriously ill people. There could have been many more if the entire population had not been alerted that night by knocking on the doors of the houses and shouting messages through the streets. The pharmacist, his apprentice and Joseph Neal were arrested as responsible, but they were released acquitted since they cannot be accused of committing any crime.
It was all the result of an accident, a consequence of unfortunate circumstances. The tragic episode caused a lot of stir in the press that would influence the creation of new regulations that would protect the health of citizens a little better.
The Food and Beverage Adulteration Law of 1860 modified the rule in which ingredients could be mixed and combined, but more important was the Pharmacy Law 1868. For the first time it was mandatory that poisons be sold in special colored and textured glass bottles, properly labeled, merchants were required to carry records with the names of the buyers.
It would be a little more difficult from then on to poison people. Whether on purpose or by a macabre dance of fate.
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Photos | MarkFGD – Ministry of Stories – Phil Parker – psyberartist – Pete – v.ivash
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