[Concluded.]
Coffee is the berry of an evergreen tree, which grows to a height of
about twenty feet, and which is largely cultivated in Arabia, Ceylon,
Jamaica, and the Brazils. The berry is plucked when sufficiently ripe,
and carefully stored away. It is principally composed of a sort of hard
paste or meal, similar to that of the almond or bean, which is destined
by nature to form the earliest nourishment of the young germ contained
in the seed. When this meal is exposed to strong heat, it is partly
turned into the fragrant flavor, which is familiar to all drinkers of
coffee. Hence coffee is always roasted before it is employed in the
preparation of beverage. The process is best accomplished by placing
the berries in a hollow cylinder of iron, kept turning rapidly round
over a clear fire until they put on a light chestnut color, when they
require to be cooled quickly by tossing them up into the air. Roasted
coffee contains, besides its fragrance, the white nerve food already
alluded to in speaking of tea, a remnant of the nutritious meal,
unaltered by the roasting, and a slightly astringent matter. Its nature
is, therefore, singularly like to that of tea, and its action on the
living frame is precisely the same. When drunk in moderation, coffee
supports and refreshes the body, and makes the food consumed with it
go further than it otherwise would. Coffee is, upon the whole, less
astringent than tea; it also contains only half the quantity that tea
has, weight for weight, of the active nerve food. Hence it can be taken
stronger than tea, and so has more of the other nourishing ingredients
in any given bulk. A cup of strong coffee generally holds about the
same quantity of the active nerve food as a weak cup of tea.
As with tea, so with coffee; it requires to be prepared differently,
accordingly as the object is, to get from it the finest flavor or the
greatest amount of nourishment. The most delicious coffee may be made
by using a tin vessel, called a percolator, having a false bottom at
mid-height, drilled full of fine holes, and a spout coming off from
beneath the false bottom. Finely-ground coffee is to be pressed and
beaten down firmly upon the false bottom, and then boiling water is to
be poured over it through a kind of coarse cullender, so arranged as
to break its descent into a boiling shower. The hot water thus gently
rained down on the coffee then drains gradually through it, carrying
all the finer parts and flavors with it into the vessel beneath, but
leaving behind the coarser matters. For the convenience of consumers,
coffee is now commonly removed from the roaster at once into a mill
driven by steam, and is there ground while still hot. It is then
pressed out from the mill directly into tin cases prepared to receive
it, these being immediately closed very carefully. By these means
the coffee is sent out, ready for use, with all its most excellent
qualities clinging about it. Three drachms of ground coffee of this
quality are abundantly sufficient to furnish two small cups of a most
delicious beverage.
When quantity of nourishment, rather than fineness of flavor, is the
thing desired, the ground coffee should be placed in a clean dry pot
standing over the fire, and be kept there until thoroughly hot, being
stirred constantly, so that it may not burn. About five grains of
carbonate of soda should then be added for each ounce of coffee, and
boiling water be poured on, the whole being closely covered up and
allowed to stand near the fire, without simmering, for some time. When
about to be used, it should either be gently poured off into cups,
without shaking it, or it should be strained through a linen cloth into
another pot. An ounce of coffee employed in this way is sufficient for
the preparation of two pints of strong nutritious drink.
A small evergreen tree grows in the West Indies, Mexico, and Peru,
which bears a large fruit something like a melon. In this fruit there
are a great number of seeds resembling beans. When the fruit is ripe,
it is plucked from the tree and split open, and the seeds are picked
out and dried in the sun. After these beans have been roasted in an
iron cylinder, in the same manner as coffee, they, too, become bitter
and fragrant, and are turned into what is known as cocoa. To form cocoa
nibs, the husk of the roasted bean is stripped off, and the rest is
broken up into coarse fragments. In the preparation of chocolate, the
cocoa nibs are ground up and turned into a sort of paste, by admixture
with sugar and spices. The unhusked bean is also crushed between heavy
rollers, and made into a coarser kind of paste, with starch and sugar,
and is then sold in cakes.
Cocoa contains about the same quantity of the nerve-food ingredient as
tea, and besides this it also contains a nutritious meal. More than
half its weight is, however, made up of a rich oily substance, nearly
resembling butter in nature. When cocoa is prepared by stirring the
paste up in boiling water, all these several ingredients are present
in the drink. It is then as nourishing as the very strongest kind of
vegetable food, and scarcely inferior to milk itself. It indeed is
richer than milk in one particular; it contains twice as much fuel
substance, or butter, and if the nerve-food ingredient be taken into
the reckoning, it is scarcely inferior in supporting power. On account
of its richness it often disagrees with persons of weak digestion,
unless it be prepared in a lighter way, that is, by simply boiling the
cocoa nibs in water, and mixing the beverage produced with enough milk
to reduce its great excess of oily principle. Cocoa serves at once as
an agreeable and refreshing beverage, and as a highly nutritious food
for healthy and hard-working people. It has in itself the excellence of
milk and tea combined.
The beverages which are also prepared by soaking the seeds of
vegetables in hot water, but which are not then drunk until a further
change of the nature of partial decay has been produced in them, are
of a very unlike character to those which have been hitherto under
consideration. Although there are several different kinds of this
class, they all stand together under the family name of beer. Now this
much must at once be said for these beverages. There is in all of them
both flesh-making substance and fuel-substance. The first gives to the
liquor its body, and the second confers its sweetness. The barley-corn
contains the same kinds of ingredients as the wheat-grain, and by the
operation of malting the starch is chiefly turned into sugar. If a
gallon of strong ale be boiled over a fire, until all the more watery
parts are steamed away, there will be found at the bottom of the
vessel rather more than a quarter of a pound of dry remainder. This is
flesh-making substance, and sugar, which were originally taken out of
the malt. If a gallon of milk were treated in the same way, there would
be found nearly a pound of similar dry substance. Strong beer therefore
contains about one-third part as much nourishment as an equal quantity
of milk. When beer is drunk, its watery parts are at once sucked from
the digesting-bag into the supply-pipes, to be poured through the
body with the blood; this is how beer quenches the thirst. The thicker
portions are pushed on through the sluice-gate of the stomach in a
digesting state, and are, in fact, treated in every respect as ordinary
food.
Mixed with the thinner parts of beer, which are thus sucked into
the supply-pipes, there is, however, an ingredient which is not
as unquestionably nourishing as the thicker principles, and which
certainly is not as good a thirst-quencher and dissolver as water.
Flesh-making substance and fuel-substance, either in the state of
starch or sugar, may be kept unchanged any long period of time if
thoroughly dry, and shut up from the air. When they are moist and
exposed to the air, they directly begin to spoil and decay. In beer,
these substances are mixed with a large quantity of water, and are
exposed to the air, at least during the brewing. Hence, in beer,
both are found in a spoiled and decaying state. In this case, the
process of decay is called fermentation, or “puffing up,” because
the vapors produced by the decay, froth the sticky liquid in which
they are set free. The yeast which rises to the surface of fermenting
beer, is decaying and spoiling flesh-making substance. The spoiled
fuel-substance (sugar) froths and bubbles away into the air as vapor.
But the fuel-substance (sugar) does not, as it decays, bubble away into
vapor all at one leap. It makes a halt for a little while in a half
decayed state, and in this half decayed state it has a very spiteful
and fiery nature. In that fiery and half-decayed condition it forms
what is known as ardent, or burning spirit. Beer always has some, as
yet, undecayed and unchanged sugar remaining in it, when it is drunk,
but it also always has some half decayed sugar or spirit, and bubbling
vapors formed by the progress of decay. It is these ingredients of
the beer which give it the fresh and warm qualities for which, as a
beverage, it is chiefly esteemed.
The spirituous ingredient of fermented liquors is directly sucked with
the water out of the stomach into the supply-pipes of the body, and
poured everywhere through them. There is no doubt concerning that fact.
Animals have been killed and examined a few minutes after fermented
liquor had been placed in their digesting bags, and the ardent spirit
has been found in great quantity in their supply-pipes, their hearts,
and their nerve-marrows and brains.
But some doubt does yet remain as to what the exact nature of the
influence is which the ardent spirit exerts, when it has been
introduced into these inner recesses of the living body in small
quantity, and as much diluted by admixture with water as it is in
most beers. Some persons, whose opinions can not be held to be
without weight, believe that diluted spirit is capable of aiding the
nourishment of the body—of acting as a sort of food. Others of equal
authority are convinced that it can do nothing of the kind.
But however the matter may appear regarding the power of ardent spirit
to nourish, no doubt can be entertained of the fact, that it certainly
is not a necessary food. There is actually nothing of a material kind
in the bodies of human creatures, which is not also present in the
frames of the irrational animals. The same kind of structures have to
be nourished, and the same kind of bodily powers to be supported in
oxen and sheep as in men. But oxen and sheep fatten, and grow strong,
and are maintained in health without ever touching so much as a single
drop of ardent spirit. There are hundreds of men, too, who preserve
their vigor and health up to great ages, without even tasting fermented
liquors.
It must also be admitted that there are great numbers of people who
use fermented liquors in moderation every day, of whom the same can
be said. But it is to be feared that those who are safely moderate in
their employment of these treacherous agents, are a really small band
compared with those who allow themselves to be continually within the
reach of unquestionable danger. In the United Kingdoms of Great Britain
and Ireland, with a population amounting to rather less than thirty
millions of individuals, when the numbers were lately reckoned, there
were yearly sixty-one millions of gallons of ardent spirit consumed as
beer; thirty millions of gallons as spirits; and nearly two millions of
gallons as wine.
There is, yet again, another very important point of view from which
the habitual moderate use of fermented liquors must be contemplated.
A pint of strong beer is in itself no very great thing. Many people
swallow it almost at a single draught, and in less than a minute. The
trifling act, however, entails one serious consequence when it is
performed day by day. A pint of strong beer cannot be bought at a less
cost than threepence. Threepence a day, at the end of a year, amounts
to £4 11s. 3d. If it be only laid by and made no use of, at the end
of sixty years, it amounts, under the same circumstances, to £273. If
employed, instead of being laid by, it might be improved at the end of
sixty years into a large fortune. Hundreds of men have made thousands
of pounds with smaller means.
Money, of course, is of no great value in itself; it is only of value
when applied to good service. But herein lies the gist of the matter.
Money always can be made good use of. If a young man at the age of
eighteen begin to lay by threepence every day, instead of buying a pint
of beer with it, and continue to do the same thing for two years, he
may purchase with the saving an allowance of £10 a year, to commence
at the age of sixty-five years, and to be continued as long as he may
thereafter happen to live. If he laid by threepence a day for five
years, he could purchase with his savings, at the end of that time, an
allowance of ten shillings a week, to commence at the age of sixty-five
years. If a young man at eighteen begin to lay by threepence a day,
and continue to do the same thing from year to year, he may at once
purchase the certainty of being able to leave behind him a little
fortune of £300 for his wife or children, or any other relatives who
may be dear to and dependent upon him, whenever death puts an end to
his earthly labors! Surely no rational and prudent man would ever think
even 22,000 pints of profitless beer an equivalent for such a result of
his industrious labor. It is by no means too strong an expression to
speak of the beer as profitless, for this reason: A gallon of strong
beer contains a quarter of a pound of nourishment, bought at the cost
of a couple of shillings. Two shillings would purchase more than three
pounds of meat and bread! The direct money value of ardent spirits,
swallowed every year by the inhabitants of the British isles, exceeds
ninety millions of pounds sterling.
Although there may be question and doubt as to the character of the
influence this fiery substance exerts, when poured out to the living
human frame through the supply pipes, in moderate quantity, and
weakened by mixture with a large proportion of water, all question
and doubt disappear when its action in greater strength and in larger
quantity comes to be considered. An inquiring physician, Dr. Percy,
once poured strong ardent spirit into the stomachs of some dogs, to
see what would happen to them. The poor animals fell down insensible
upon the ground directly, and within a few minutes their breathing had
ceased, their hearts had stopped beating, and they were dead. Some of
the dogs were opened immediately, and it was then found that their
stomachs were quite empty. All the ardent spirit had been sucked out
of them in a few short minutes. But where was it gone to? It was gone
into the blood, and heart, and brain, and there it was discovered
in abundance. It had destroyed life by its deadly power over those
delicate inner parts.
Human beings are instantly killed when they swallow large quantities
of strong ardent spirit, exactly in the same way as Dr. Percy’s dogs.
A few years ago two French soldiers made a bet as to who could drink
the largest quantity of brandy. Each of them swallowed seven pints in a
few minutes. Both dropped down insensible on the ground; one was dead
before he could be picked up, the other died while they were carrying
him to the hospital. A man in London soon after this undertook to drink
a quart of gin, also for a wager. He won his bet, but never had an
opportunity to receive his winnings. He fell down insensible, and was
carried to the hospital, and was a dead body when he was taken in.
There can be no doubt, therefore, what strong ardent spirit, in large
quantities, does for the living body. It kills in a moment, as by a
stroke. It is a virulent poison, as deadly as prussic acid, and more
deadly than arsenic. Even when it is not taken in sufficient abundance
to destroy in the most sudden way, it often leads to a slower death.
Striking illustrations of this truth are presented continually in every
corner of even this civilized land. It has been fully ascertained that
not less than one thousand persons die from the direct influence of
ardent spirit, in the British isles, every year.
When people do not die directly upon swallowing large quantities of
ardent spirit, it is because they take it so gradually that nature
has the opportunity of washing the greater portion of it away through
the waste-pipes, before any sufficient amount of it has gathered in
delicate internal parts for the actual destruction of life. Nature has
such a thorough dislike to ardent spirit in the interior of living
bodies, that the instant it is introduced into their supply-pipes and
chambers, she goes hard to work to drive out the unwelcome intruder.
When men have been drinking much fermented liquor, the fumes of ardent
spirit are kept pouring out through the waste-pipes that issue by the
mouth, the skin, and the kidneys; the fumes can commonly be smelt under
such circumstances in the breath.
When fermented liquors are drunk in a gradual way, but yet in such
quantity that the ardent spirit collects more rapidly in the blood than
it can be got rid of through the waste-pipes, the fiery liquid produces
step by step a series of remarkable effects, growing continually more
and more grave.
In order that all the actions of the living human body may be
properly carried on, three nerve overseers have been appointed to
dwell constantly in the frame and look after different departments
of its business. One of these has its residence in the brain; that
nerve-overseer has charge of the reason, and all that belongs to it.
Another resides under the brain, just at the back of the face; that
nerve-overseer looks after all that relates to feeling or sense. The
third lives in the nerve-marrow of the backbone; that has to see
that the breathing and the pumping of the heart go on steadily and
constantly. Of these three superintendents the brain-overseer and the
sense-overseer are allowed certain hours of repose at night; they are
both permitted to take their naps at proper times, because the reason
and the sense can alike be dispensed with for short intervals when
the creature is put safely to bed, or otherwise out of harm’s way.
Not so, however, with the breathing and blood-pumping overseer. The
breathing and the blood-movement require to be kept going constantly;
they must never cease, even for a short interval, or the creature
would die. Hence the nerve-marrow overseer is a watchman as well as an
overseer. No sleep is allowed him. He must not even nap at his post.
If he do, his neglect and delinquency are immediately discovered by a
dreadful consequence. The breathing and blood-flowing, which are his
charge, stop, and the living being, served by the breathing and the
blood-streams, chokes and faints.
These three nerve-overseers have been fitted to perform their
momentous tasks in the entire absence of ardent spirit, and they are
so constituted that they cannot perform those tasks when ardent spirit
is present in any great amount. Ardent spirit puts them all to sleep.
The reason-overseer is overcome the most easily; he is the most given
to napping by nature, so he goes to sleep first. If more spirit be then
introduced into the blood, the sense-overseer begins to doze also. And
if yet more be introduced, the nerve-marrow watchman ceases to be a
watchman, and at length sleeps heavily with his companions.
Now, suppose that you, my attentive reader, were in an unlucky moment
of weakness to turn aside from your usual course of temperance and
sobriety, and to drink fermented liquor until its fiery spirit gathered
in your brain, and put your reason-overseer to sleep, what think you
would be the consequence? This would be the consequence—you would for
the time cease to be a reasonable being. You would probably still
walk about the streets, and go hither and thither, and do all sorts
of things. But all this you would accomplish, not with a proper and
rational knowledge of your actions. Your reason and understanding
being fast asleep while you were walking about, you would properly
be living in a sort of brutal existence, instead of a human and
reasonable one. You would have laid aside the guide who was intended
to be your director in your responsible human life, and you would be
rashly trusting yourself in a crowd of the most fearful dangers, all
your responsibility still upon your shoulders, without the inestimable
advantage of the advice and assistance of this experienced director.
Like the brutes, you would then find yourself to be easily roused
to the fiercest anger, and set upon the worst courses of mischief;
you would find yourself readily filled with the most uncontrollable
feelings of passion and violence, and liable to be run away with by
them at any moment, and caused to do things that a rational creature
could not contemplate without the deepest anguish and shame.
There is no lack of proof that human beings do the most brutish things
when their reasons and understandings are put to sleep by strong
drink, while their sense-overseers and their animal powers still
remain active. Every place and every day afford such in wretched
abundance. One impressive instance, however, may perhaps be related
with advantage. On the night of the 28th of June, 1856, two drunken
men, whose names were James and Andrew Bracken, rushed brawling out
from a beer shop in one of the suburbs of Manchester. They ran against
two inoffensive passengers, and in their blind and brutish rage began
beating them; one was knocked down and kicked about the head when on
the ground. He was picked up thence a few minutes afterward and carried
to the hospital, where it was found his skull had been broken. The poor
fellow died in the course of the night.
In the next assize court, at Liverpool, James and Andrew Bracken stood
in the dock to be tried for their brutal act. The counsel who defended
them said that it was only a drunken row, and there was no murder in
the case, because neither of them knew what he was doing. The judge and
the jury, on the other hand, decided that this was no excuse, because
they _ought_ to have known what they were doing. They had laid aside
their reason and become brutal by their own voluntary act, and were
therefore responsible for any deed they might perform while in the
brutal state. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against
Andrew Bracken, and the judge passed sentence of death upon him,
coupling the sentence with these words: “You did an act, the ordinary
consequences of which must have been to kill. It was a cruel and a
brutal act, and you did it, wholly reckless of consequences. You have
therefore very properly been convicted of wilful murder.” The wretched
man was removed from the dock shrieking for mercy, with upraised hands,
and exclaiming in heartrending tones, “Oh! mother, mother, that I
should be hanged!” No doubt he was very much surprised to find himself
a condemned convict and a murderer, and had never intended to be so. He
had no spite against his victim, and had probably never even exchanged
a word with him. No drunkard, therefore, when about to put his reason
to sleep by intoxicating liquor, should ever overlook the fact that
he will for the time cease to have control over his actions, and that
when that reason awakes, he may find himself like Andrew Bracken, a
prisoner and a murderer. Whether he do so or not will depend on no will
or determination of his own, but upon the mere series of accidents that
will surround him while in his self-inflicted, helpless, and brutal
state.
The case of Andrew Bracken, sad and striking as it is, by no means
stands alone in the annals of crime. At the assize, held at Lancaster
in March, 1854, it was shown that in that single court 380 cases of
grave crime had been detected and punished within a very short period,
and that of the 380 cases 250, including nine murders, were to be
directly traced to the influence of drunkenness.
But if having ceased to be sober, my strong-bodied reader, you did not
happen to commit murder, or do any other act of gross violence while in
the brutal stage of drunkenness, yet nevertheless went on swallowing
more and more of the intoxicating liquid until your sense-overseer
was put to sleep as well as your reason-overseer, what do you think
would chance to you then? Why, you would have ceased to be dangerous
to your neighbors, and have become in a like degree dangerous to
yourself. You would no longer have power to commit murder, or to do
any other act of cruelty, because you would sink down on the ground a
senseless and motionless lump of flesh. You would be what the world
calls dead-drunk. But you would not in reality be dead, because the
nerve-marrow watchman still continued at his post, and awake. The lump
of prostrate flesh would still breathe heavily, and blood would be made
to stream sluggishly from its beating heart. In this insensible stage
of drunkenness, however, you would have ceased to be able to exercise
any care over yourself. In it the drunkard is sunk as much lower than
brutal life as the brutes are beneath reasoning life, inasmuch as
he ceases to be able to exert the power which all brutes possess of
perceiving the threatening danger, and turning aside from its approach.
But yet again, rational reader, let us suppose that when you became
for the time a lump of insensible flesh, you had already swallowed so
much stupefying spirit, that there was enough to put the nerve-marrow
watchman to sleep, as well as the reason- and sense-overseers, before
any fair quantity could be cleared away out of the waste-pipes of
the body. Under such circumstances breathing would cease, and all
heart-beating would stop. You would then be dead-drunk in the full
sense of the fearful term. Senseless drunkenness is dangerous to the
drunkard himself, not only because he could not get out of the way if
danger were to come where he is lying, but also because he of necessity
is placed in an insensible state upon the brink of a precipice, from
the depth beneath which there could be no return if he once rolled
over. Whether he will ever again awaken from his insensibility, or
whether his earthly frame shall have already commenced its endless
sleep, is a question which will be determined by the accident of a
drop or two more, or a drop or two less, of the stupefying spirit
having been mixed in with the coursing life-streams. The man who kills
a fellow-creature in a fit of drunken violence, commits an act of
murder; the man who dies in a fit of drunken insensibility, is guilty
of self-slaughter. In its first degree, drunkenness is brutality; in
its second degree, it is senseless stupidity, of a lower kind than
brutes ever know; in its third degree, it is suicidal death. It will
be felt that it is important this matter should be looked fairly in the
face, when the statement is made that there are not less than seventy
thousand confirmed drunkards known to be living at the present time in
England and Wales.
It is now a well-proved and unquestionable fact, that a young man of
fair strength and health, who takes to hard drinking at the age of
twenty, can only look forward to fifteen years more of life; while a
temperate young man, of the same age, may reasonably expect forty-five
years more! The habitual drunkard must therefore understand that,
amongst other things, he has to pay the heavy penalty of thirty of the
best years of existence, for the very questionable indulgence that he
buys. The doctor also has a sad account to give of aches, and pains,
and fevers, and weakness that have to be borne by the intemperate
during the few years’ life they can claim. Whatever may be the true
state of the case with the moderate use of fermented liquors, their
intemperate use is a fertile source whence men draw disease and
suffering. Intemperance is another of the influences whereby men cause
sickness and decay to take the place of health and strength. The doctor
has likewise, it must be remarked, a tale of his own to tell concerning
the beneficial power of fermented liquors, when employed as medicines
in certain weakened and already diseased states of the body.
There is one earnest word which has yet to be addressed to those
who have satisfied their consciences that they may with propriety
indulge their inclination to use fermented liquors in moderation
habitually. Have they also satisfied themselves that they can keep to
the moderation their consciences allow? Have they taken fairly and
sufficiently into consideration their own powers to resist urgent
allurements? Have they well weighed the possible influence, in their
own case, of the enticements which agreeable flavors and pleasurable
exhilaration necessarily bring into operation? Have they sufficiently
pondered upon the admitted truth that there scarcely ever yet was a
confirmed drunkard who did not begin his vicious career by a very
moderate employment of the seductive liquors? If they have done this,
then let them still nevertheless go one step further and carefully
determine also for their own case, what moderation is, and while doing
this, let them never forget that when the thirsty man drinks a pint of
table beer, he pours a teaspoonful of ardent spirit into his blood;
when he drinks a pint of strong ale he pours two tablespoonfuls of
ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks four glasses of strong
wine, he pours one glass of ardent spirit into his blood; when he
drinks two glasses of rum, brandy, or gin, he pours from three-quarters
of a glass to a glass of ardent spirit into the channels of his
supply-pipes.
The habitual drinker of port wine has a more or less strong fancy that
his favorite and so-called “generous” beverage fills him with “spirit”
and “fire.” This fancy is indeed not without some ground. Government
has recently caused a very careful examination to be made of the
strength of the port wines that are furnished to the English markets,
and the investigation has disclosed the startling and unexpected
fact that the weakest of these wines contains 26 per cent.; ordinary
specimens of them from 30 to 36 per cent.; choice specimens 40 per
cent.; and what are called the finest wines as much as 56 per cent. of
proof ardent spirit. The port wine drinker therefore actually receives
even more “spirit” and “fire” with his ruby drink than he is himself
aware he has bargained for. There are rich flavor and delicious odor,
no doubt, in his wine, and so much the greater is his danger. These
serve only to conceal a wily enemy who is lurking beneath. A bottle of
ruby port wine in the stomach commonly means half a bottle of poisonous
fiery spirit in the blood, and heart, and brain.