Another curious old pamphlet of about the same period, entitled _Panala

Alacatholica_ (1623) follows the text “That ale is a wholesome drinke

contrary to many men’s conceits,” and after a description of the way in

which ale is spoilt in the brewing and rendered injurious we are told:

“But let a neat huswife, or canny Alewright have the handling of good

Ingredients (sweet Maulte and wholesome water) and you shall see and

will say, there is Art in brewing, (as in most actions) and that many

more, even of those that ayme at brewing the Best Ale, doe yet for all

their supposed dexteritie, misse the marke, than hit upon the mysterie.

For you shall then have a neat cup of Nappie Ale (right _Darbie_, not

Dagger Ale, though effectually animating) well boyled, desecated and

cleared, that it shall equall the best Brewed Beere in transparence,

please the most curious Pallate with milde quicknesse of relish, quench

the thirst, humect the inward parts, helpe concoction and distribution

of meate, and by its moderate penetration, much further the attractive

power of the parts (especially being rectified with that Additament

and _Vehiculum_ which the best Alistra boyles with it; to wit, such a

proportion of Hop as gives not any the least tact of bitternesse to

the Pallate after it growes Drinkable) and being free from all those

former foule {413} imputations, doth by its succulencie much nourish

and corroborate the Corporall, and comfort the Animall powers.”

A long description here follows of the manner in which Panala, a

medicated ale, is to be manufactured. Of its virtues our quaint author

gives the following account:—“This Ale neither offends the Eye with the

loathed object of a muddie substance, nor the smell with any ill vapour

or favour, nor the tast nor stomacke with disgust or ingrate relish,

but ’tis a pure, cleere, delicate, and singular Extract impregnated

with the sincere spirits and vertuosities of excellent Ingredients, of

a moderate temperature, indifferently accommodated to every Age, Sex,

and Constitution, and so familiar and pleasing to Nature.”

Medicated ales of this nature were held in high estimation by our

ancestors. Such was the celebrated Dr. Butler’s ale, which held its

sway for many generations; the following receipt for this ale is given

in the _Book of Notable Things_: “Take Senna and Polypedium each four

ounces, Sarseperilla two ounces, Agrimony and Maidenhair of each a

small handful, scurvy grass a quarter of a peck, bruise them grossly

in a stone mortar, put them into a thin canvass bag, and hang the bag

in nine or ten gallons of ale; when it is well worked and when it is

three or four days old, it is ripe enough to be drawn off and bottled,

or as you see fit.” This ale was sold at houses that had Butler’s head

for a sign, and we meet with further mention of it in a news-sheet

of 1664:—“At Tobias’ Coffee House, in Pye Corner, is sold the right

drink, called Dr. Butler’s Ale, it being the same that was sold by

Mr. Lansdale in Newgate Market. It is an excellent stomach drink,

it helps digestion, and dissolves congealed phlegm upon the lungs,

and is therefore good gainst colds, coughs, ptisical and consumptive

distempers; and being drunk in the evening, it moderately fortifies

nature, causeth good rest and hugely corroborates the brain and memory.”

A few years earlier than this Thomas Cogan was advocating in _The Haven

of Health_ (1584), beer for persons inclined to “rewmes and gout.” Such

persons must avoid “idleness, surfet, much wine and strong, especially

fasting, and not condemn Beere as hurtful in this respect which was so

profitably invented by that worthy Prince _Gambrinius_, anno 1786 years

before the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Lanquette writeth

in his chronicle.”

The same writer gives a curious receipt for “_Buttered Beere_,” which

is good for a cough or shortness of wind:—Take a quart or more of

Double Beere and put to it a good piece of fresh butter, sugar candie

an ounce, of liquerise in powder, of ginger grated, of each a dramme,

and {414} if you would have it strong, put in as much long pepper and

Greynes, let it boyle in the quart in the manner as you burne wine and

who so will drink it, let him drinke it as hot as hee may suffer. Some

put in the yolke of an egge or two towards the latter end, and so they

make it more strengthfull.“

The following year John Taylor published in _Drinke and Welcome_ many

modes of application of ale in the various ills to which the flesh is

heir. He thus concludes his somewhat remarkable statements:—”_Ale_ is

universale, and for Vertue it stands allowable with the best recipes of

the most antientest Physisians; and for its singular force in expulsion

of poison is equall, if not exceeding that rare antidote so seriously

invented by the Pontique King, which from him (till this time) carries

his name of _Mithridate_. And lastly, not onely approved by a Nationall

Assembly, but more exemplarily remonstrated by the frequent use of

the most knowing Physisians, who for the wonderfull force that it

hath against all diseases of the Lungs, justly allow the name of a

_Pulmonist_ to every _Alebrewer_.

“The further I seeke to goe the more unable I finde myselfe to expresse

the wonders (for so I may very well call them) operated by _Ale_

for that I shall abruptly conclude, in consideratione of mine owne

insufficiency, with the fagge-end of an old man’s old will, who gave a

good somme of mony to a Red-fac’d _Ale-drinker_, who plaid upon a Pipe

and Tabor, which was this:—

“To make your Pipe and Tabor keepe their sound,

And dye your Crimson tincture more profound,

There growes no better medicine on the ground

Than _Aleano_ (if it may be found)

To buy which drug I give a hundred pound.”

Prynne, the author of the famous _Histrio-Mastix_, seldom dined; every

three or four hours he munched a manchet, and refreshed his exhausted

spirits with _ale_ brought to him by his servant; and when “he was

put into this road of writing,” as Anthony Wood telleth, he fixed on

“a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes,” serving as a

shade, “and then hunger nor thirst did he experience, save that of

his voluminous pages.” Evidence of the high regard in which English

ale was held among foreign doctors in the seventeenth century may be

gathered from an account given in _Hone’s Table Book_ of how, about

1620 some doctors and surgeons during their attendance on an English

gentleman, who was diseased at Paris, discoursed on wines and other

{415} beverages; and one physician, who had been in England, said

the English had a drink which they call Ale, and which he thought the

wholesomest liquor that could be drunk; for whereas the body of man

is supported by natural heat and radical moisture, there is no drink

conduceth more to the preservation of the one, and the increase of the

other, than _Ale_, for, while the Englishmen drank _only ale_, they

were strong, brawny, able men, and could draw an arrow an ell long;

but, when they fell to wine and _Beer_, they are found to be much

impaired in their strength and age.

English doctors would always, it may be supposed, give their

approbation to the nut-brown ale. There must have been some who even in

the good old days leaned to the doctrines of the abstainers; but such

was the faith of our ancestors in the virtues of the national beverage,

that we may imagine the doctor’s advice was disregarded and, indeed,

was even set down to anything but an amiable motive. This we may see

from a verse of the old ballad, _Nottingham Ale_:—

Ye doctors, who more execution have done

With bolus and potion, and powder and pill,

Than hangman with halter, and soldier with gun,

Or miser with famine, or lawyer with quill,

To dispatch us the quicker, you forbid us malt liquor,

Till our bodies grow thin, and our faces look pale;

Observe them who pleases, what cures all diseases,

Is a comforting dose of good Nottingham Ale.

The following receipt is quite gravely given by Dr. Solas Dodd, in

whose _Natural History of the Herring_ (1753) it may be found: “Take

the oil pressed out of fresh Herrings, a pint, a boar’s gall, juices

of henbane, hemlock, arsel, lettuce, and wild catmint, each six

ounces, mix, boil well, and put into a glass vessel, stoppered. Take

three spoonfuls and put into a quart of warm ale, and let the person

to undergo any operation drink of this by an ounce at a time, till

he falls asleep, which sleep he will continue the space of three or

four hours, and all that time he will be unsensible to anything done

to him.” Whether or no we have here an account of a genuine early

anæsthetic we are not prepared to say.

Instances might be recorded without number of the restorative effects

of ale in sickness, and more particularly in fever cases where the

patient has been brought very low, and the loss of tissue has been

great. Of these space only allows us to include a very few. {416}

When Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, lay prostrate with pleuritic

fever, the greatest physicians in the land found their skill avail

nothing; and all the statesman’s alarmed friends got for expending

seven hundred guineas in fees was the cold comfort that everything that

could be done had been done, and the case was hopeless. Whilst those

gathered round the bedside of the supposed dying man listened for his

last sigh, he faintly murmured, “Small beer, small beer.” The doctors

did not think it worth while to say nay, and a half-gallon cup of small

beer was put to the lips of the sick man, who drained it to the dregs,

and then demanded another draught, which he served in the same way:

then turning on his side, he went off into a deep slumber, attended

with profuse perspiration, and awoke a new man.[74] The beneficial

effects of mild ale in fever is commemorated in an old poem, _Small

Beer_:—

Oft known the deadly fever’s flame,

By the scorch’d patient crav’d, to tame.

[74] _Chambers’s Journal_, Jan. 2nd, 1875.

In Sir J. Sinclair’s _Statistical Account_, an extraordinary case

is related of a collier, named Hunter, who suffered from chronic

rheumatism or gout. He had been confined to his bed for a year and a

half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On Handsel

Monday (the first Monday after New Year’s Day) some of his neighbours

came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always

took his share of the new ale, as it passed round the company; and, in

the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was that he had the

use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived

more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of

his complaint. This took place in 1758.

An account of a cure, in which, no doubt, faith helped the ale, occurs

in the _Merrie Conceited Jests of George Peele_, gentleman, sometime

student at Oxford (London, 1607). “Riding on his way to Oxford, he

stopped all night at Mekham—At supper, he began to talk with the

hostess, who was a simple professor of Chirurgerie, and conceited

therewith.—Peele observing her humour and conceit, upheld all the

strange cures she talked of and praised her, with much flattery, and

promised on his return to teach her something that would do her no

hurt—and added he was on his way to cure a gentleman in Warwickshire,

who was in a consumption. The hostess immediately {417} said there was

a gentleman close by so ill with that complaint, and proposed that

Peele should see him. Peele, knowing as much of doctoring as of music,

declined; but after much pressure, and resisting as long as he could,

was fain to comply. Putting on a bold face he went to the gentleman,

his hostess praising him as a wonderful doctor. After feeling the

pulse, &c., &c., he asked if they had a garden. Yes, they had. He

then went there and cut from every plant, flower, herb and blossom;

boiling the results in _Ale_, straining and boiling again. He told the

patient to take some of this warm, morning, noon, and night. Whether

anything effective was in this _Herbal Mixture_, or from the patient’s

fancy—in eight days after the patient was able to walk about apparently

recovered—and so delighted that he put many pounds in Peele’s pocket.”

A Brown ale called Stitch is mentioned in _The London and County

Brewer_ of 1744 as having being of the greatest benefit in incipient

consumption. It was of the first running of the malt, but of a greater

length than is drawn out of the stout butt beer. It had few hops in it.

Instances of the advantage of good malt liquors in certain cases of

consumption are very numerous. Mons. Frémy, of the Beaujon Hospital, in

Paris, made a series of experiments with malt powder given in the form

of a decoction, and externally by means of baths. The substance was

tried on sixty-four subjects of well-marked phthisis; but the results

were trifling, beyond a certain degree of temporary amelioration.

It was, however, of greater service in cases of chronic bronchitis,

early phthisis, and chronic pulmonary catarrh; its utility being

very marked in this last affection. In some parts of England it is a

common practice for persons in consumption to procure wort (that is an

infusion of malt before the hops are boiled with it for making beer)

from the brewers, and to drink half-a-pint of it daily; and many have

received great benefit from it. The experiments of Dr. Frémy verify the

utility of the English practice.

Of late years various preparations of malt have come to hold a very

high place in popular estimation. A first-rate remedy for a cough is

made thus: Over half a bushel of pale ground malt pour as much hot, but

not boiling, water as will just cover it. In forty-eight hours drain

off the liquor entirely, but without squeezing the grains: put the

former into a large sweetmeat pan, or saucepan, that there may be room

to boil as quick as possible, without boiling over; when it begins to

thicken, stir constantly. It must be as thick as treacle. The dose is

a dessert-spoonful thrice a day. This preparation has a very agreeable

{418} flavour. One of the most easily digested and most nourishing

of foods for those minute but assertive, atoms of humanity called

babies,[75] is malt finely powdered; and chemists keep many kinds of

foods, syrups, lozenges, &c., too numerous to mention, all claiming

their origin from Sir John Barleycorn.

[75] The author knows a malt-fed baby who never cries.—_Verb. Sap._

Among the many virtues of good ale, that of promoting generosity should

take a high place. This peculiar effect is capitally illustrated in an

anecdote of the Rev. Michael Hutchinson, D.D., of Derby. “The people,”

writes Hutton, “to whom he applied for subscriptions (the church was

in need of repair) were not able to keep their money; it passed from

their pockets to his own as if by magic. Whenever he could recollect a

person likely to contribute to this desirable work he made no scruple

to visit him at his own expense. If a stranger passed through Derby,

the Doctor’s bow and his rhetoric were employed in the service of the

church. His anxiety was urgent, and his power so prevailing, that he

seldom failed of success. _When the waites fiddled at his door for a

Christmas box, instead of sending them away with a solitary shilling,

he invited them in, treated them with a tankard of ale, and persuaded

them out of a guinea._”

Malt liquor has long been regarded by eminent medical men as almost

a specific against the scurvy, that dread disease which in former

times wrought such havoc amongst our brave tars. Sir Gilbert Blane,

M.D., records the following instance of the virtues of porter in this

connection:—

“I was furnished,” he writes, in his _Observations on the Diseases of

Seamen_, “by Dr. Clephane, physician to the fleet at New York, with

the following fact as a strong proof of the excellence of this liquor:

In the beginning of the war two store ships, called the Tortoise and

Grampus, sailed for America under the convoy of the Dædalus frigate.

The Grampus happened to be supplied with a sufficient quantity of

porter to serve the whole passage, which proved very long. The other

two ships were furnished with the common allowance of spirits. The

weather being unfavourable, the passage drew out to fourteen weeks

and, upon their arrival at New York, the Dædalus sent to the hospital

a hundred and twelve men; the Tortoise sixty-two; the greater part

of whom were in the last stage of the scurvy. The Grampus sent only

thirteen, none of whom had the scurvy.” {419}

In the Geographical Society’s Journal (vol. ii. p. 286) it is recorded

that during a severe winter on the west coast of Africa the crew of the

Etna suffered so much from scurvy that the least scratch had a tendency

to become a dangerous wound. Capt. Belcher states that “the only thing

which appeared materially to check the disease was beer made of the

essence of malt and hops; and I feel satisfied that a general issue of

this on the coast of Africa would be very salutary, and have the effect

especially of keeping up the constitutions of men subjected to heavy

labour in boats.”

Thomas Trotter, M.D., in his _Medicina Nautica_, “an Essay on the

Diseases of Seamen, comprehending the history of the health in His

Majesty’s Fleet under the command of Richard Earl Howe, Admiral, 1797,”

states that in typhus cases he found porter, where preferred by the

patient, more beneficial than wine. During a low fever, he (the doctor)

was entirely supported by bottled beer, of which he speaks very highly.

In his practice at Haslar Hospital he found bottled porter to be one of

the best ingredients in the diet of a convalescent, and never fail to

strengthen them quickly for duty.

Dr. Hodgkin, writing on Health, says, “I can assert, from well-proved

experience that the invalid who has been reduced almost to extremity

by severe or lingering illness, finds in well-apportioned draughts

of sound beer, one of the most important helps for the recovery of

his health, his strength, and his spirits.” Dr. Paris, who is not a

recent authority, but whose remarks on this subject are most cogent

and bear the stamp of common sense, asserts that “the extractive

matter furnished by the malt is highly nutritive; and we accordingly

find that those persons addicted to such potations are, in general,

fat. This fact is so generally admitted by all those who are skilled

in the art of training, that a quantity of ale is taken at every

meal by the pugilist, who is endeavouring to screw himself up to his

fullest strength. Jackson, the celebrated trainer, affirms, if any

person accustomed to drink wine would but try malt liquor for a month,

he would find himself so much the better for it, that he would soon

take to the one, and abandon the other . . . The addition of the hop

increases the value of the liquor, by the grateful stimulus which it

imparts, and in some measure redeems it from the vices with which it

might otherwise be charged where a corresponding degree of exercise

is not taken. . . I regard its dismissal (table or light beer) from

the tables of the great as a matter of regret, for its slight but

invigorating {420} bitter is much better adapted to promote digestion

than its more costly substitutes.”

Dr. Thomas Inman, in a paper read before the British Medical

Association in 1862, advances the proposition that nature has provided

in the salivary glands, the liver, and the lungs of every mammal,

an apparatus “for converting all food, especially farinaceous, into

alcohol, and he gives chemical reasons for believing that some such

process actually does take place. Alcohol, he says, after being taken

is incorporated with the blood, and passing in some form not yet

explained into the circulation, ultimately disappears; a small portion

alone passing from the body, and that in the breath. He further says

that when alcohol is mingled with other food, a less amount of the

latter suffices for the wants of the system than if water had been

used as the drink. Dr. Inman cites his own experience of an attempt to

do without his ordinary allowance of ale at dinner; a large increase

of food was necessited, but the demand for this diminished at once on

resuming the ale. Similar facts were noted in the experience of various

members of his family. No loss of health or strength was experienced,

except when the ordinary amount of solids was taken without the beer.

A celebrated French medical man (Dr. Coulier) published an excellent

article on beer (“Article Bière” in Vol. IX. of the _Dictionnaire

Encyclopédique de Sciences Médicales_) considered from a medical point

of view. He says, in effect, that beer being less rich in alcohol

than even the poorest wines, holds an intermediate place between the

latter and purely watery drinks. It presents, according to its mode

of preparation and composition, a continuous scale of more or less

alcoholic drinks, from porter and ale down to small beer containing

little more than one per cent. of alcohol. Its bitter principles

render it tonic and aperient; while the somnolence and heaviness that

follow an over-allowance of this fluid are due to the action of the

essential oil of the hop. He holds that of all fermented drinks, beer

is the one whose taste _se marie le plus agréablement_ with the use

of the pipe. Beer must be considered in the light of an alimentary

drink. In every hundred parts of beer are five of extract containing

a little nitrogenous assimilable matter and salts favourable to

nutrition, but consisting mainly of respiratory food. “If,” he says,

“fermented drinks have become one of the necessities of civilisation, a

prudent regard for health should make us as far as possible reduce the

excitement which the alcohol occasions. In this respect beer presents a

great advantage over wine. Thus a half-bottle of wine {421} containing

12 per cent. of alcohol, which is the common allowance for an adult,

contains 375 grammes of wine, and consequently 45 grammes of anhydrous

alcohol. A bottle of beer containing 4 per cent, of alcohol is equally

satisfying, and contains only 30 grammes of alcohol. Hence, supposing

two meals are taken daily, the beer-drinker daily imbibes 30 grammes

less of alcohol than the wine-drinker; and this difference amounts

in the course of the year to nearly 11 kilogrammes, or 14 litres

(equivalent to 24 lbs. or 3 gallons), of anhydrous alcohol.”

Examples without number might be collected of men who habitually used

alcoholic drinks sometimes in moderation, sometimes, in what we, in

these latter days, should certainly consider excess, and who yet lived

in health and usefulness to the extreme boundary of human life. Old

Parr, if we are to believe Taylor, who sings his praises, was a drinker

of the moderate kind.

Sometimes metheglin and by fortune happy,

He sometimes sipped a cup of ale most nappy,

Cyder, or perry, when he did repair

To Whitsun ale, wake, wedding, or fair,

Else he had little leisure time to waste,

Or at the ale-house huff-cup ale to taste.

Henry Jenkins, who died in 1670 at the wonderful age of 165 years, took

his ale whenever he could get it. He lived very much in the open air

and spent his time in thatching and salmon-fishing. At one time he was

butler to Lord Conyers, of Hornby Castle, and he has left it on record

that when, as often happened, his master sent him over with messages to

Marmaduke Brodelay, Lord Abbot of Fountains, the abbot “always sent for

him to his lodgings, and, after prayers, ordered him, besides wassel, a

quarter of a yard of roast beef (for that the monasteries did deliver

their meat by measure), and a great black Jack of strong ale.” Have

we not, too, the evidence of epitaphs graven in stone, which are well

known never to lie, all bearing out the truth of the longevity of ale

drinkers? Here are two, the first being in Great Walford churchyard:—

Here John Randal lies

Who counting of his tale

Lived threescore years and ten,

Such vertue was in ale.

Ale was his meat,

Ale was his drink. {422}

Ale did his heart revive,

And if he could have drunk his ale

He still had been alive.

He died January 5,

1699.

The second is in Edwalton, Notts:

Ob. 1741.

Rebecca Freeland,

She drank good ale, good punch and wine,

And lived to the age of 99.

Macklin, the comedian, who died in 1797, for upwards of thirty years

was a daily visitor at the Antelope, in White Hart Yard, Covent Garden.

His usual beverage was a pint of hot stout; he said it balmed his

stomach and kept him from having any inward pains. Whether from the

effects of this inward “balming” or not, Macklin undoubtedly lived to

the age of 97 years.

In Daniell’s _British Sports_ there is an account of Joe Mann,

gamekeeper to Lord Torrington. “He was in constant morning exercise,

he went to bed always betimes, _but never till his skin was filled

with ale_. This he said, ‘would do no harm to an early riser, and to a

man who pursued field sports.’ At seventy-eight years of age he began

to decline, and then lingered for three years. His gun was ever upon

his arm, and he still crept about, not destitute of the hope of fresh

diversion.”

The next instance, to be found in HONE’S YEAR BOOK, illustrates, not so

much the tendency of beer and ale, when taken in large quantities, to

make men healthy, wealthy, and wise, as to make them fat. On November

30, 1793, died at Beaumaris, William Lewis, Esq., of Llandismaw, in the

act of drinking a _cup_ of Welsh ale, containing about a wine _quart_,

called a “tumbler maur.” He made it a rule, every morning of his life,

to read so many chapters in the Bible, and in the evening to drink

eight gallons of ale. It is calculated that in his lifetime he must

have drunk a sufficient quantity to float a seventy-four gun ship. His

size was astonishing, and he weighed forty stone. Although he died in

his parlour, it was found necessary to construct a machine in form of

a crane, to lift his body in a carriage, and afterwards to have the

machine to let him down into the grave. He went by the name of the King

of Spain, and his family by the different titles of prince, infantas,

&c. {423}

One of the great teetotal arguments against the use of malt liquors,

one which the advocates of total abstinence generally fall back upon

when beaten on every other point, is that beer is adulterated. This

assertion, if it could be substantiated, would undoubtedly cut away

the very foundation of our argument as to the wholesomeness of ale and

beer. We must, then, shortly consider the point. Time out of mind the

brewers have been accused of adulterating their ale and beer, with

what truth, at any rate at the present day, we shall see anon. Opium,

henbane, cocculus indicus, and we know not what noxious drugs besides,

it has commonly, and we think somewhat recklessly, been asserted, find

their way into the brewing vessels. Some time ago M. Payen, a French

chemist of distinction, created quite a panic amongst the drinkers of

pale ale by asserting, in a lecture at the Conservatoire des Arts et

Métiers, that strychnine was prepared in large quantities in Paris

for exportation to England, where it was employed to give, or to aid

in giving, the esteemed bitter flavour to pale ale. This statement

appearing in _Le Constitutional_, and other French papers, soon found

its way into the English journals, to the consternation of the drinkers

and purveyors of this beverage.

The leading firms of Burton ale brewers at once threw open their

breweries and stores in the most unreserved manner, and “The _Lancet’s_

Analytical Sanitary Commission” undertook an inquiry on the subject.

Forty samples of beer, all brewed before the promulgation of the

statement, were analyzed by the commission, as well as samples taken

by other analysts at the request of Messrs. Allsopp and Sons. Needless

to say, not a particle of strychnine was discovered. Half a grain of

strychnine will destroy life, and a grain would be required to impart

to one gallon of beer its ordinary degree of bitterness. The flavour of

hops and strychnine differs. To bitter the amount then brewed at Burton

16,448 ounces of strychnine would be required. Not so much as 1,000

ounces of strychnine were manufactured in the whole world yearly.

In a quaint pamphlet entitled _Old London Rogueries_, the following

statement is made seriously:—“There ought also to be compiled a

delectable and pleasant treatise by such as sell bottle-ale, who, to

make it fly up to the top of the house at the first opening, do put

gunpowder into the bottles while the ale is new, then by stopping it

close make people believe it is the strength of the ale, when, being

truly sifted, it is nothing indeed but the strength of the gunpowder

that worketh the effect, to the great heart-burning of the parties who

drink the same. This is a truly strange and marvellous artifice, and

must be reckoned {424} among the lost inventions.” We wonder if these

cunning retailers of the olden time ever used shot as well as powder

with their bottled ale, which doubtless would have greatly increased

the effect.

In October, 1883, a statement was loudly trumpeted forth from teetotal

platforms that 245,000 cwt. of chemicals were used every year in

England in brewing. After a good deal of discussion on the subject,

it leaked out that the figures had been arrived at by a firm of hop

dealers, anxious to run up the price of hops. By a blunder in their

calculations they had come to the conclusion that there was a deficit

of 245,000 cwt. of hops in this country. From this it was argued that

245,000 cwt. of chemicals were used. This house of cards fell when it

was conclusively proved that there were at the time actually more hops

in England than were required by the brewers.

With regard to the question of adulteration at the present day, it

could be wished that those who are induced by a fanatical hatred of

alcohol in any shape or form to make this alleged adulteration a reason

for further restrictive legislation on the brewing trade, would take

the trouble to look at the reports annually published by the Inland

Revenue Commissioners in which this point is dealt with. Here are a few

extracts from their report for the year 1881, soon after the repeal

of the Malt-tax. “Brewers have no doubt been experimenting with other

descriptions of grain, as might have been expected, but we believe that

barley, from its peculiar fitness for malting, will in the end maintain

its superiority; and we are informed that a new method of preparing

inferior barley for brewing purposes promises to be highly successful.”

“So far as we are aware, no attempts have been made to use materials

in brewing at all detrimental to the public health; and the presence

of the Revenue officers in breweries affords fresh security to the

public—if indeed any such were needed—against all such practices.”

In the same report Professor Bell, the Principal of the Inland Revenue

Laboratory, goes into detail and gives very valuable statistics,

showing the way in which the opinion given by the Commissioners was

arrived at. In 1881, 8,626 samples of beer were tested, of which 4,666

were analyzed to see if any foreign body had been added, as well as

to check the original gravity. Of this large number the whole were

nearly correct, but actually 17 per cent, were found not alone to

be up to the standard test, but above it; and out of nearly 20,000

brewers, which, in round numbers, was then the extent of the trade in

the United Kingdom, only some 300 were even suspected of having used

illegal materials. Of the ninety samples of beer submitted for analysis

as being suspected {425} to have been tampered with, sixty-three were

found to have been “sugared,” but in every instance this occurred at

the public-house or beerhouse, a matter which was beyond the control of

the brewer, and was as much a fraud on him as on the Revenue and the

public. Mr. Bell goes on to state that whatever adulteration prevails

is wholly confined to the publican and the beer retailer, and even

where it does prevail, at the most the practice means nothing worse

than diluting the beer with water and afterwards adding sugar; still,

as Mr. Bell remarks, “Reprehensible as the practice is, as being a

fraud on the public as well as the Revenue, yet it is satisfactory to

know that no adulterant of a poisonous or hurtful character has been

detected.”

Dr. Thudichum, in a work _Alcoholic Drinks_, published by the Executive

Council of the late Health Exhibition, speaking of the supposition

that hops are sometimes supplanted, entirely or in part, in the

manufacture of beer by absynth, menyanthes, quassia, gentian, and other

matters, regards such adulteration as rare and such as “if practised

persistently would no doubt be discovered, and the liquids produced by

their aid would be declined by the public.”

An Irish brewer told us of a rather comic incident connected with hop

substitutes. A traveller in these commodities was in the habit of

pestering our friend, who informed the man that he believed his wares

were poisonous, and that he ought to eat some to prove the contrary.

With a wry face the traveller swallowed a portion of his sample and

shortly afterwards left. Coming again in a week’s time the same

performance was gone through. The traveller made yet another visit,

when the brewer said the experiment had not satisfied him, as so small

a quantity of the hop had been eaten. This time the traveller outdid

himself, and when and before leaving the brewery promised to write and

inform the brewer if the bitter meal had any evil effects. Whether the

traveller died, or whether he discovered that he had been befooled, we

do not know, but nothing more was heard of him.

We believe that the importance of a supply of good, pure beer to

the labouring classes of this country can hardly be over-estimated,

particularly having regard to the fact—as we shall show with greater

particularity, when we come to discuss the question of total abstinence

as opposed to temperance, that malt liquors undoubtedly assist in the

support of the body, and are in practical effect equivalent to so much

easily digested food.

“Thou clears the head o’ doited lear,

Thou cheers the heart o’ drooping care; {426}

And strings the nerves o’ labour fair,

At’s weary toil.

Thou even brightens dark despair,

Wi’ gloomy smile.”

Dr. Paris, from whose works we have already quoted, explains that it is

the stimulus of the beer that proves so serviceable to the poor man,

enabling his stomach to extract more aliment from his innutritive diet.

“Happy is that country,” he writes, “whose labouring classes prefer

such a beverage to the mischievous potations of ardent spirit.”

Barley wine is without doubt the wine of this country, and where shall

we find, all the world over, a more stalwart, muscular, able-bodied

race of labouring men than we find at home? The mighty thews of the

English navigator are renowned, and not at home only, for it is well

known that while the French railways were making, the contractors

actually imported English “navvies” to do the heavy work, paying them

higher wages than their French competitors.

We would commend to the attention of those who, as the phrase goes,

would rob a poor man of his beer, the certainty that, though the evils

of intoxication can hardly be exaggerated, yet in counselling the

labouring classes everywhere, and under all circumstances, to abstain

from all kinds of liquor, they are taking upon themselves a very grave

responsibility.

The following old Somersetshire song has, we believe, at any rate in

this form, never before appeared in print. It was taken down verbatim

from the lips of the singer at a harvest-home. The verses no doubt

lack the elegance of the productions of our greater English poets,

but the composer, whoever he may have been, treated his subject with

commendable vigour of expression, and “Robin Rough, the Plowboy,”

illustrates in a remarkable manner the love of the agricultural

labourer for his beer, and his belief in its health-giving qualities; a

belief, by-the-bye, founded on many centuries of experience:—

I’ze Robin Rough, the plowboy,

A plowman’s son am I,

And like my thirsty feyther,

My trottle is always a-dry,

The world goes round, to me it’s reet,

Why need I interfere?

For I whistles and sings from morn till neet,

And I smokes and I drinks my beer. {427}

For I likes a drop of good beer, I does;

I’ze fond of a drop of good beer, I is.

Let gentlemen fine

Sit down to their wine,

But I will stick to my beer.

There’s Sally—that’s my wife, zurs—

Likes beer as well as me,

She’s the happiest woman in life, zurs,

As happy as woman can be.

She minds her work,

Takes care of bairns,

No gossiping neighbours near;

When every Saturday neet returns,

Like me she drinks her beer.

For Sally likes her beer, she does,

She’s fond of a drop of good beer, she is,

Let gentlemen fine

Sit down to their wine,

But my Sally will stick to her beer.

Now there’s my dad, God bless him,

He’s now turned eighty-five,

Hard work does ne’er distress him,

He’s the happiest man alive.

Though old in age

He’s young in health,

His head and his heart both clear,

Possessing these and blest with peace,

He smokes and he drinks his beer—

For he’s fond of a drop of good beer, he is,

He very much likes his beer, he does,

Let gentlemen fine

Sit down to their wine,

But my feyther will stick to his beer.

Now, lads, need no persuasion,

But send your glasses round,

There’s no fear of an invasion

While barley grows in ground; {428}

May trade increase

And discord cease

In every coming year.

Possessed of these and blest with peace,

Why, we’ll smoke and we’ll drink our beer.

For I likes a drop of good beer, I does,

I’ze fond of a drop of good beer, I is.

Let gentlemen fine

Sit down to their wine

But we’ll all of us stick to our beer.

The poet Bloomfield, in the _Farmer’s Boy_, may possibly better please

our more critical readers. In describing the harvest-homing, he says:—

Now noon gone by, and four declining hours,

The weary limbs relax their boasted pow’rs;

Thirst rages strong, the fainting spirits fail,

And ask the sov’reign cordial, home-brew’d ale:

* * * * *

A wider circle spreads, and smiles abound,

As quick the frothing horn performs its round,

Care’s mortal foe, that sprightly joys imparts

To cheer the frame and elevate their hearts.

Shakespere has been called by the teetotallers as a witness in favour

of abstinence from intoxicating liquors. Does he not make Adam, in _As

You Like It_, say—

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;

For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,

Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo

The means of weakness and debility;

Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,

Frosty, but kindly?

Hot and rebellious liquors! yes; but would Shakespere have classed ale

amongst them? It seems far more probable that the reference is to the

strong wines of which the topers of his time drank deeply, the “malmsey

and malvoisie,” the “neat wine of Orleance, the Gascony, the Bordeaux,

the sherry sack, the liquorish Ipocras, brown beloved Bastard, or fat

{429} Aligant,” or to the “aqua vitæ,” the manufacture of which in the

reign of Mary was the subject of restrictive legislation.

Our consideration of the arguments put forward by the teetotal

theorists has so far been slightly delayed by the few pages we have

thought it well to devote to the accusations made against brewers of

adulteration, and of the evident advantages of malt liquor to the

labouring classes—proved beyond doubt without any necessity for learned

disquisitions on chemistry or physiology. In turning now to a more

particular consideration of the much-vexed question of temperance

_v._ total abstinence, we do not propose to attempt the advancement

of any novel or startling theories, but merely to give publicity to

the arguments in favour of the temperate use of alcoholic drinks, as

opposed to the total abstinence therefrom, supporting our arguments, as

it will be found we shall be able to do, by the opinions of some of the

best-known medical and scientific writers of the present day.

One of the first things that strikes an observer who considers, as

impartially as he can, the case put forward by the extreme advocates

of abstinence, is that the controversy itself is a very modern one,

and that, with the tendency to run into opposite extremes which is a

characteristic of human opinion, we pass suddenly from the centuries

in which it was held no shame for a man to be drunk, into these

present years, when there exists a considerable, and in some sense,

an influential body of persons, who not only will not touch alcoholic

drink themselves upon any terms, but who think it their duty to press

for such legislation as would deprive all men, be they temperate or

otherwise, of the power of buying, selling, or drinking any liquor

of which alcohol is a constituent. “Poison!” “Touch not the accursed

thing!” “Away with it!” and so on—very voluble, occasionally eloquent,

sometimes plausible. But will the fierce denunciations of these

apostles of a new religion—a religion not of temperance, but, as it has

been well called, of “intemperate abstinence,” bear the searching light

of calm and quiet argument? We had once a friend who, while fond of his

pipe, was always interested in reading about the terrible evils which

the weed would, according to the infallible dicta of the anti-tobacco

lecturers, be sure in time to bring upon his unfortunate constitution.

Before sitting down to read one of these lectures, he used always to

light a large and favourite briar; he said it enabled him to follow

the lecturer’s points so much better. Now we do not ask our readers

to follow the example of our friend _mutatis mutandis_. We do not say

that such a proceeding would of necessity assist him in following our

arguments. All we claim {430} is a patient hearing, for there never

has been a time in which an unprejudiced discussion of the subject

would be of greater advantage than at present.

Human habit of centuries, of thousands of years, of such time that the

memory and record of the human race, to use a legal phrase, runneth

not to the contrary, is evidence in our favour. Whenever he has had

the requisite skill, man has produced, enjoyed, and, we maintain, has

been improved by drinks in which alcohol formed a constituent part.

The practice of civilised nations for thousands of years is, then,

so far as it goes, an argument in favour of temperance as opposed to

abstinence. We do not wish to put this part of our case too high, and

our meaning cannot be better expressed than by the words of Sir James

Paget, who, in an essay on this subject in the _Contemporary Review_,

writes: “The beliefs of reasonable people are, doubtless, by a large

majority favourable to moderation rather than abstinence, and this

should not be regarded as of no weight in the discussion. For, although

the subject be one in which few, even among reasonable people, have

made any careful observations, and fewer still have thought with any

care, yet this very indifference to the subject, this readiness to fall

in with custom, a custom maintained in the midst of a constant love of

change, and outliving all that mere fashion has sustained—all this is

enough to prove that the evidence of the custom being a bad one is not

clear.”

It is an indisputable fact that nations who have used alcohol have

attained to a greater perfection in power and will to do good work,

and a longer duration of life in which such work can be performed,

than those who have used no alcohol; and, confining our attention to

Europe, may we not say that these powers of work, these activities of

body and mind in enterprise, in invention, and in production, are more

remarkably developed in the inhabitants of the northern than of the

southern parts of the Continent, that is to say, among those who have

habitually drank more than those who have drank less? And may we not

ask how it is that, if the use of alcohol in moderation be pernicious,

the inherited effects of it have not during these vast periods of time

during which it has been used, made themselves apparent in a marked

degeneracy of the race, since we know that these results will make

themselves very conspicuous indeed in two generations of persons who

are habitually intemperate?

We are told that it is unnatural to make use of alcoholic drinks, and

we are lectured about what man in his natural state would do, or {431}

not do. This is a misuse of terms; the state in which mankind is at

any particular period, the point in his path of development which

he has then reached, and his then environment, these constitute his

natural state, and not some more or less hypothetical state of being

which has been now left far behind.

In order to enable them to thrust their theories upon a certainly

unwilling audience, it would be very convenient for the abstainers

to show, if they could, that alcohol, in any form and no matter how

diluted, is in itself a bad thing. First, then, let us consider whether

alcohol, as such, is food. On this point Dr. Lander Brunton says: “The

argument in favour of alcohol being food is that it is retained in

the body and supplies the place of other foods, so that the quantity

of food which would without it be insufficient, with its aid becomes

sufficient.” He also quotes Dr. Hammond, who observed in his own case

that when his diet was insufficient, the addition of a little alcohol

to it not only prevented him from losing weight, as he had previously

done, but converted this loss into a positive gain.

The late G. H. Lewes, in his _Principles of Physiology_, also speaks

conclusively on this subject, pointing out that alcohol is one of the

alimentary principles. “In compliance with the custom of physiologists

we are forced to call alcohol food, and very efficient food too. If it

be not food, then neither is sugar food.” Mr. Lewes also states that

alcohol taken in large quantities is harmful, depriving the mucous

membrane of the stomach of all its water, but that taken in small

quantities and diluted it has just the opposite effect, increasing the

secretion by the stimulus it gives to the circulation.

The general opinion of the medical world appears to be that alcohol

as such, is a food in a special sense, viz., that it checks the waste

of tissue and enables a person to attain to a high standard of health

and strength mentally and bodily while taking less food than would be

necessary without the alcohol. Moleschott says that “although forming

none of the constituents of blood, alcohol limits the combustion of

those constituents, and in this way is equivalent to so much blood.

Alcohol is the savings bank of the tissues. He who eats little and

drinks alcohol in moderation, retains as much in his blood and tissues

as he who eats more and drinks no alcohol.”

The argument to the effect that alcohol must be useless, because

chemists have as yet been unable to trace the exact form and manner in

which it acts upon the human economy, would seem to be fallacious in

the face of the experience, which shows that it does act, and act {432}

beneficially, when taken in a suitable form and in suitable quantity.

Experience shows, and instances by the hundred could be given, from the

works of medical men, that life can be sustained for long periods of

time solely upon alcoholic drinks. Dr. Brudenell Carter mentions a case

in his own experience of an old gentleman who lived for many months in

moderate strength and comfort and without any remarkable emaciation

upon alcoholic drinks alone. Dr. Thomas Inman, in a paper read before

the British Medical Association, gives an instance of a lady who twice

in succession nursed a child, subsisting upon each occasion during the

greater part of twelve months upon brandy and bitter ale alone; the

children, he adds, grew up strong and healthy.

Dr. Francis E. Anstie, in an article published in the _Cornhill

Magazine_ in 1862, draws attention to the fact that many substances

have an action on the body in small doses, _totally different in

kind_ to that which they exercise in large doses _e.g._, common salt,

arsenic, and many others which are either food or poisons, according

to the dose. “We are compelled, therefore,” he writes, “to believe

that in _doses proportioned to the needs of the system at the time_,

alcohol acts as a food;” and he instances several cases of longevity

in which alcohol was the only aliment, excepting in some cases a

little water, and in others a spare allowance of bread. Decisively

vanquished on this ground, our opponents return to the attack: “You

must abstain,” say they, “because your practice, which is now moderate,

will insensibly become excessive.” Here we again turn to Mr. Lewes’s

work on Physiology, and quote the pithy argument by which he refutes

this fallacy. A portion is italicised for the benefit of tea drinkers:

“To suppose there is any necessary connection between moderation and

excess, is to ignore Physiology, and fly in the face of evidence . . .

Men take their pint of beer or pint of wine daily, for a series of

years. This dose daily produces its effect; and if at any time thirst

or social seduction makes them drink a quart in lieu of a pint, they

are at once made aware of the excess. Men drink one or two cups of tea

or coffee at breakfast with unvarying regularity for a whole lifetime;

but whoever felt the necessity of gradually increasing the amount to

three, four, or five cups? Yet we know what a stimulant tea is; we know

_that treble the amount of our daily consumption would soon produce

paralysis_—why are we not irresistibly led to this fatal excess?”

Let us now return to our authorities, and from the wealth of material

which exists in the published opinions of medical men of distinction,

choose a few more extracts in favour of temperance as opposed to total

{433} abstinence. Professor Liebig, for instance, says that wine,

spirits, and beer are _necessary_ principles for the important process

of respiration, and it would seem that the stomachs of all mankind,

_teetotallers included_, will secrete alcohol from the food which is

eaten. If any man, therefore, is resolved to carry out total abstinence

strictly, he must refuse every sort of vegetable food, even bread

itself; for all such diet contains more or less of alcohol.

Sir James Paget, in the article already referred to, asserts that the

habitual moderate use of alcoholic drinks is generally beneficial, and

that, in the question raised between temperance and abstinence, the

verdict should be in favour of temperance.

Dr. A. J. Bernays, in an essay on _The Moderate Use of Alcohols_,

alluding to water as a proposed substitute, remarks on the wretched

character of the water which is supplied in towns, and the difficulty

of getting it pure. “Water which has gone through some form of

preparation, especially through some form of cooking, as in beer, is

generally better suited for meals than water itself.”

Dr. Carpenter has also drawn attention to the wholesomeness of bitter

beer at meals. “There is a class of cases,” he writes, “in which we

believe that malt liquors constitute a better medicine than could be

administered under any other form; those, namely, in which the stomach

labours under a permanent deficiency of digestive powers.” Bitter beer,

he asserts, assists digestion in cases in which no medicine would be of

use.

This question of the water reminds us of the following tale: A cobbler

was listening to the persuasive eloquence of a teetotaller, and getting

somewhat dry over the prosy argument. “Well,” said the knight of St.

Crispin, “all you say amounts to this—that water is the best thing any

man can drink. Now I am not proud, and am easily satisfied, and don’t

want the best—stout, or ale, or even bitter-beer is quite good enough

for the likes of me.”

It is very often pointed out that the agricultural labourer and

the working classes generally would be better off if they spent the

money devoted to beer in food. This is, however, open to question,

keeping in mind the fact that alcohol enables the human frame to exist

with a smaller amount of food than would be otherwise necessary. Dr.

C. D. Redcliffe, in giving his views on alcohol, in the form of a

conversation between himself and a patient, speaks very positively on

this point. “The glass of malt liquor,” he writes, “or cyder or perry

or common wine, if the man have the luck to live in a wine-growing

country, will {434} cost less than the amount of ordinary food which

must otherwise be eaten in order to preserve health. I have no doubt

of the saving in pocket which will result from the adoption of the

practice recommended . . . . and I am equally certain that the

result will be as beneficial to health as it will be satisfactory

financially.” Liebig also testifies to the same effect, stating that in

families where beer was withheld, and money given in compensation, it

was soon found that the monthly consumption of bread was so strikingly

increased that the beer was twice paid for, once in money and a second

time in bread.

Mr. Brudenell Carter, while he was practising his profession in a

mining district, and daily brought into contact with the results of

drunken habits, determined that he “should be a better advocate of

abstinence if he practised it,” and he accordingly gave up his liquor.

The results we give in his own words:—“After about two months of total

abstinence, the conviction was reluctantly forced upon me that the

experiment was a failure, and that I must give it up.” His symptoms

pointed, he says, “in a perfectly plain way to an excess of waste over

repair. I returned to my bitter beer, and in the course of a week was

well again.”

A volume could be filled with similar experiences, but in summing up

the result of modern medical opinion, we are contented to rest our

case on what has been said on this point by the two great authorities

we have before quoted, viz., Sir James Paget and Dr. Bernays; the

former writes: “As for the opinions of the medical profession, they

are, by a vast majority, in favour of moderation. It may be admitted

that, of late years, the number of cases has increased in which

habitual abstinence from alcoholic drinks has been deemed better

than habitual moderation. But, excluding those of children and young

persons, the number of these cases is still very small, and few of

them have been observed through a long course of years, so as to test

the probable influence of a life-long habitual abstinence. Whatever

weight, then, may be assigned to the balance of opinions among medical

men, it certainly must be given in favour of moderation, not of

abstinence.” Dr. Bernays is still stronger. “The experience of mankind

is better than individual experience, and so, for every medical man of

distinction who is in favour of total abstinence, I would find twenty

men who are against it.” Hardly anyone who has lived among teetotallers

will deny that they are large eaters. Now the greater the amount of

solid food that is required to keep a human being up to the normal

level of health and strength, the greater amount of nervous energy

will be consumed {435} in the process of digestion, and the less

superfluity of energy will that person have in reserve to meet the

other exigencies and activities of life. It therefore seems to follow

with the certainty of a mathematical demonstration, that if, as those

who are best qualified to judge assure us is the case, the moderate

consumption of alcoholic liquors enables a person to keep himself in

health and strength upon a less amount of solid food than would be

necessary without the aid of alcohol, the life of that man, other

things being equal, must be fuller of capacities for all kinds of work,

both mental and bodily, than that of a man who takes no alcohol, and

who is in consequence forced to use up a greater amount of nerve force

in the consumption of a sufficiency of solids to support himself. It

is an uncontrovertible fact that the best work has always been done by

the moderate drinkers. The physical condition of rigid abstainers has

frequently been commented upon; and without wishing to say anything

unkind, or uncharitable, about men who are doubtless honest and

conscientious, though, in our view, misguided, we cannot but suggest

the question—Is the appearance of the average abstainer, who now,

happily for the cause of truth, is known to all the world by the blue

ribbon he wears, such as may be considered a good advertisement for the

opinions he advocates? Does his appearance seem to indicate a physical

or intellectual superiority to the average member of the _genus homo_?

We think there can be but one opinion on this point, and it is that

each and every of these questions must be answered with an emphatic

negative.

On the action of the Temperance Societies, Dr. Moxon, in a very able

article, _Alcohol and Individuality_, after relating how a poor cooper,

having a fever caused by a wound, died rather than take the alcohol

which was absolutely necessary to sustain him, says: “I believe that

to a large extent teetotalism lays firmest hold on those who are

least likely ever to become drunkards, and are most likely to want at

times the medicinal use of alcohol—sensitive, good-natured people, of

weak constitution, to whom the Sacred Ecclesiast directed his strange

sounding but needful advice, ‘Be not righteous over much, neither make

thyself over wise: why shouldst thou destroy thyself?’”

In August, 1884, _The Times_ devoted several columns to an exhaustive

consideration of teetotal theories and the use of alcohol, and it

may be said, without fear of contradiction, that neither before nor

since has a more valuable treatise appeared on the subject. The writer

divides total abstainers into three classes. Of the first class

he says: “There are some persons who seem not to require alcohol

because they easily {436} digest a large quantity of solid food, and

especially of saccharine and starchy matters, . . . . but it is fairly

questionable whether their work in life would not be better in quantity

or in quality, or both, if they were to consume less solid food, and

to make up for the deficiency by a little beer or wine. There are

others who have a distinctly morbid tendency towards excess, . . . .

which leaves them no safety except in total abstinence. The difficulty

with these persons is to keep them from drink, however hurtful they

may know it to be, for their condition is one of disease, and they

have seldom sufficient resolution to abstain. When they do abstain

they furnish striking examples of the success of teetotalism by being

changed from a state closely bordering on insanity into responsible

members of society; but the ordinary experience with regard to them

is that they have a succession of relapses into intemperance, and

that they ultimately die, directly or indirectly, from the effects of

drink. . . . The third class of abstainers is formed by those who are

actuated in the main by benevolent and conscientious motives, which,

unfortunately, are seldom controlled by the possession of adequate

knowledge. Many clergymen abstain ‘for the sake of example,’ without

pausing to consider whether the example may not, in some cases, be a

bad one, and whether they would not discharge their manifest duties

more efficiently by help of the added force which alcohol would give.

Many persons get on fairly well without alcohol because their powers

are never subjected to any considerable strain, and these persons too

often break down when any strain comes upon them, unless they will

consent to modify their mode of living. This, as is too well known,

they will not always do; and every medical man has seen instances of

fanatical teetotalism leading to complete destruction of the health of

those who were governed by it.”

With regard to teetotal societies, the writer considers that they do

very little good and a great deal of harm. “They fail,” he says, “to

touch the evils of drunkenness, except in a very limited fashion, and

they take away alcohol from vast numbers who would be better for the

moderate use of it. We think the time has come when philanthropists

should cease to listen to mere declamation, and should try to look

calmly and fearlessly at the results of observation and experience.

Many a good man is injuring his health and diminishing his usefulness

in order to adhere, ‘for the sake of example,’ to a fantastic

deprivation.”

To check the evils of drunkenness, we rely not on prohibitory

legislation, which has been tried elsewhere and found wanting, but

on the gradual spread of education and enlightenment; the effects

of public {437} opinion, the improvement of the well-being of the

humbler classes more particularly with reference to their habitations

both in town and country. Perhaps also, but here we speak with greater

diffidence on account of the practical difficulties in which such a

proposal is involved a remedy is to be found in the confinement of

those persons who have shown by their conduct that their inability to

refrain from vile excesses arises from actual mental disease.

Lord Bramwell, in a pamphlet called _Drink_, has written to very

much the same effect. He also calls in question the right of society

to interfere with individual liberty to the extent proposed by the

teetotallers. Is it reasonable, he asks, that because some people drink

to excess, alcoholic liquors are to be denied to millions to whom it

is a daily pleasure and enjoyment with no attendant harm? If a man is

drunk in public, punish him; but it does seem hard that the sober man

should be punished—for withholding a pleasure and inflicting a pain are

equally punishment. “Then see the mischief of such laws,” he continues.

“The public conscience does not go with them. It is certain they will

be broken. Every one knows that stealing is wrong; disgrace follows

conviction. But every one knows that drinking a glass of beer is not

wrong; no discredit attaches to it. It is done, and when done against

the law you have the usual mischiefs of law-breaking, smuggling,

informations, oaths, perjury, shuffling, and lies. Besides, as a matter

of fact, it fails. Nothing can show this more strongly than the failure

in Wales of the Sunday Closing Act.” Lord Bramwell in the end comes to

the conclusion that drunkenness cannot be prevented by legislation.

“Whether it is desirable to limit the number of drink shops,” he

writes, “is a matter as to which I have great doubt and difficulty. But

grant that there is the right to forbid it, wholly or partially, in

place or time, I say it is a right which should not be exercised. To do

so is to interfere with the innocent enjoyment of millions in order to

lessen the mischief arising from the folly or evil propensities, not

of themselves, but of others. And, further, that such legislation is

attended with the mischiefs which always follow from the creation of

offences in law which are not so in conscience. Punish the mischievous

drunkard, indeed, perhaps, even punish him for being drunk in public,

and so a likely source of mischief. Punish, on the same principle, the

man who sells drink to the drunken. But go no further. Trust to the

good sense and improvement of mankind, and let charity be shown to

those who would trust to them rather than to law.”

Other arguments in opposition to those who would introduce what {438}

is known as local option may be briefly summed up as follows:—Such a

system would establish the principle that a majority of ratepayers in

one district may put a stop to any trade or calling to which they may

happen to object, although the same trade remains perfectly legitimate

in other places; it would concentrate the evil, shifting the area of

the sale of drink, and thus intensifying the mischiefs complained of;

it would introduce invidious class distinctions, since its effects

would principally be felt by the poor and the labouring classes, and in

place of a trade which is now subject to inspection and regulation, it

would substitute a secret and irresponsible one.

In this discussion, the balance of experience, of reason, and of

authority is vastly in favour of the temperate man rather than the

abstainer, and it may be said without fear of contradiction from any

reasonable or unbiassed person that, for the great majority of the

people of this country, the most wholesome, the most nutritious, and

the most pleasing alcoholic liquor, is the “wine of the country,” good,

sound ale and beer.

To the reader who has been patient enough to follow us thus far, we

give our best thanks, hoping that he may have found something to amuse,

something, perhaps, to instruct in these pages—our best thanks, we say,

and, as a parting word, a few verses by old John Gay, entitled

A BALLAD ON ALE.

Whilst some in epic strains delight,

Whilst others pastorals invite,

As taste or whim prevail;

Assist me all ye tuneful Nine,

Support me in the great design,

To sing of nappy Ale.

Some folks of cider make a rout,

And cider’s well enough no doubt

When better liquors fail;

But wine that’s richer, better still,

Ev’n wine itself (deny ’t who will)

Must yield to nappy Ale.

Rum, brandy, gin with choicest smack,

From Holland brought, Batavia rack,

All these will nought avail {439}

To cheer a truly British heart,

And lively spirits to impart,

Like humming nappy Ale.

Oh ! whether thee I closely hug

In honest can, or nut-brown jug,

Or in the tankard hail,

In barrel or in bottle pent,

I give the generous spirit vent,

Still may I feast on Ale.

But chief when to the cheerful glass,

From vessel pure, thy streamlets pass,

Then most thy charms prevail;

Then, then, I’ll bet and take the odds

That nectar, drink of Heathen Gods,

Was poor compared to Ale.

Give me a bumper: fill it up:

See how it sparkles in the cup;

O how shall I regale !

Can any taste this drink divine,

And then compare rum, brandy, wine,

Or aught with nappy Ale?

Inspired by thee, the warrior fights,

The lover wooes, the poet writes

And pens the pleasing tale;

And still in Britain’s isle confest,

Nought animates the patriot’s breast

Like generous nappy Ale.

High church and low oft raise a strife

And oft endanger limb and life,

Each studious to prevail:

Yet Whig and Tory, opposite

In all things else, do both unite

In praise of nappy Ale.

Inspired by thee, shall Crispin sing

Or talk of freedom, church and king,

And balance Europe’s scale: {440}

While his rich landlord lays out schemes

Of wealth in golden South-Sea dreams,

The effects of nappy Ale.

Ev’n while these stanzas I indite,

The bar-bells’ grateful sounds invite

Where joy can never fail.

Adieu, my Muse ! adieu, I haste

To gratify my longing taste

With copious draughts of Ale.

+ The + End +

[Illustration]

{441}

[Illustration]

APPENDIX.

PASTEUR’S DISCOVERIES.

One talks glibly enough of fermentation, but the majority of us would

be puzzled if asked to say what it is. For many years it has been known

that minute particles of life are ever present in substances undergoing

fermentation, but until recently proved beyond question by M. Pasteur,

it was not known that the peculiar changes are wholly caused by these

living atoms, which are so small that they can only be seen through the

most powerful microscope. This discovery was the key to many problems.

Pasteur soon traced the diseases of wine to the presence of various

organisms which, fortunately, could be easily destroyed by heat. From

this it followed that wine once heated to a certain temperature could

be kept an indefinite length of time, provided, of course, no exposure

to the air took place, for from the air germs of organisms similar to

those killed by the application of heat might again enter the wine and

multiply themselves.

The method of preserving the wine discovered by Pasteur is simple: In

a suitable metal vessel the bottles of wine are placed, their corks

firmly tied down. The vessel is then filled to such a depth that the

water is level with the wires of the corks. One of the bottles, in

which is placed the bulb of a thermometer, should be filled with water.

The water in the vessel is then gradually heated until the thermometer

shows that the water in the bottle has attained a temperature of 212

Fahr.

Pasteur proved by repeated experiments that the flavour of the wine

is not in any way damaged by this operation. The discovery solved an

important economic question, for wines heated in this manner can now be

exported into all countries, or kept for an almost indefinite period

without losing their flavour or perfume.

We have mentioned Pasteur’s labours for the wine-growers, for on them

were based his studies on beer. {442}

At the close of the Franco-Prussian war, Pasteur, who was then

recovering from an illness which lasted over two years, became eager

to commence an investigation which would bring him again to the study

of fermentation. Influenced, no doubt, by the patriotic wish of making

for French beer a reputation equal to that of Germany, he attacked the

diseases of malt liquors.

Beer is far more difficult to keep than wine, and it is said to be

diseased when it has turned sharp, sour, ropy or putrid. To trace the

causes of these undesirable conditions was Pasteur’s aim, and, as

usual with any investigation undertaken by him, he met with success.

In studying the fermentation of wine, he had discovered a new world

peopled with minute beings of many different species, and in the

fermentation of beer his discoveries were of much the same nature.

In wine the fermentation may be said to take place by itself, the

organisms which cause it, finding their way into the liquid without

the assistance of man; but in beer-brewing a small quantity of certain

organisms (yeast) is put into the sweet wort by the brewer. These

organisms multiply themselves, and, if of the right species, turn the

sugar principally into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. The one remains

in the beer, the other partly escapes and hangs about the surface of

the liquid, as anyone who has put his nose into a fermenting tun has

no doubt discovered. It is absolutely necessary for the production of

drinkable beer that the right species of organism be set to work in

the wort. If the wort was left to itself to ferment, as is wine, the

results would be very unsatisfactory. Various kinds of organisms (from

which wine is protected by its acidity) would enter into it from the

air, divers ferments would take place, and more often than not an acid

or putrid beer would be the result.

Every beer-disease Pasteur found to be caused by its own peculiar

organisms, which enter into the liquid sometimes from the air and

often in the yeast, and the causes of many mysterious occurrences

in breweries at once become clear. Professor Tyndall said of this

discovery: “Without knowing the cause, the brewer not unfrequently

incurred heavy losses through the use of bad yeast. Five minutes’

examination with the microscope would have revealed to him the cause of

the badness, and prevented him from using the yeast. He would have seen

the true torula overpowered by foreign intruders. The microscope is,

I believe now everywhere in use. At Burton-on-Trent its aid was very

soon, invoked.”

The brewer has, therefore, to keep his wort free from foreign organisms

{443} other than the yeast plant. When the wort is boiled, any harmful

organisms it may contain are killed, and it can be indefinitely

preserved even in a high temperature, provided the air with which

it comes in contact is free from the germs of the lower microscopic

organisms. Pasteur’s son-in-law, in the account he has written of

the great _savant’s_ life and labours, says that some brewers have

constructed an apparatus which enables them to protect the wort while

it cools from the organisms of the air and to ferment it with a leaven

as pure as possible. At the Exhibition of Amsterdam were shown bottles

only half full, containing a perfectly clear beer which had been tapped

from the opening of the Exhibition.

As the causes of disease in beer are much the same as in wine, the

same preservative—heating—may be applied. But beer differs from still

wines in containing carbonic acid gas which heat displaces, and as beer

which has lost its briskness is not pleasant drinking, it can only be

advantageously so treated when contained in bottles. Both in Europe and

America, says M. Pasteur’s son-in-law, the heating of beer is practised

on a large scale. The process is called _Pasteuration_ and the beer

_Pasteurised_ beer.

A very high temperature, as we have shown, kills the germs of disease

in wine and beer. Extreme cold has the effect of indefinitely

suspending the action of the ferment. A moderate temperature seems

most favourable to the action of the organisms which work the wondrous

changes in the wort. In England beer is usually fermented at a

temperature of between 60° and 70° Fahr., and the process only lasts

a day or two. In Germany the general practice is to ferment at about

40°, a temperature maintained by means of vessels containing ice, which

are thrown into the fermenting tuns. This lower temperature checks the

action of the ferment and the process lasts for fifteen or even twenty

days.

The only other point to be noticed here in connection with fermentation

is the peculiar fact discovered by Pasteur, that the organisms

causing the ferment can live without air. When the wort is in the

fermenting tun, the sides of the tun, together with the heavy carbonic

acid gas hanging over the surface of the wort, exclude all air from

the organisms, which can only obtain a small amount of oxygen from

the liquid. There is, in fact, life without air. Pasteur made some

interesting experiments which showed that there was a great difference

in the action of the organisms according as they were placed in

deep vats, cut off from the air by the carbonic acid gas, or in

flat-bottomed {444} wooden troughs with sides a few inches high. In

this latter situation the life of the ferment seemed enhanced, but

the amount of sugar decomposed by the organisms was proportionately

different from that decomposed in the vats. In the vats one ounce of

ferment decomposed from seventy to a hundred and fifty ounces of sugar,

while in the troughs the same quantity of ferment decomposed only five

or six ounces of sugar. The experiment showed that the more the yeast

was exposed to the air, the less was its power as a ferment, and that

there is a remarkable relation between fermentation and life without

air.

Dumas once said to Pasteur before the Academy of Sciences: “You have

discovered a third kingdom—the kingdom to which those organisms belong

which, with all the prerogatives of animal life, do not require air for

their existence, and which find the heat that is necessary for them in

the chemical decompositions which they set up around them.”

[Illustration]

{445}

[Illustration]

INDEX.

A.

Adulteration of Beer … 423–4

Ale Drinkers, Great … 421

Ale, English, on the Continent … 414

Ale-bench, The … 190

Ale-berry, or Ale-brue … 383

Ale-bush, The … 216

Ale-conners … 106, 109

Ale-draper … 190

Ale-founder … 107

Ale-gafol … 35

Ale-garland, The … 216

Ale-house Lattices … 188

Ale-house Poetry … 226

Ale-houses in Mediæval Times … 187

Ale-houses in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries … 188, 191

Ale-houses, Suppression of … 110

Ale-pole, The … 216

Ale-sellers in fourteenth century, Tricks by … 39

Ale-stake … 108, 215, 219

Ale-taster … 109

Ale-wives … 104, 124–6, 128–9, 134, 192, 215, 314

_Ale-wife’s Supplication_ … 129

Ale-yard, The … 401

Alice Everade, a Brewster … 104

_All is ours and our Husbands_ … 112

Allsopp and Sons, Messrs. … 336

Ancient Britons, Use of Beer by the … 1, 28

Angel at Islington, The … 198

_Answer of Ale to the Challenge of Sack_ … 8

Apricot Ale … 386

Arboga, Beer of … 181

Armenia, Xenophon’s account of Beer in 401 B.C. … 27

_Arraigning and Indicting of Sir John Barleycorn, Knight_ … 20

Assize of Ale … 99, 102–3, 129

Atkinson, Richard, Advice to Lord Dacre … 8

B.

_Bacchanalian Joys Defeated_ … 192

“Baiersk öl” … 180

_Ballad on Ale_, Gay’s … 438

Banbury Ale … 171

Baptism in Ale … 38, 401

Barclay, Perkins & Co. … 341, 368

_Barrel of Humming Ale, The_ … 12

Barnstable Ale … 172

Bass, Ratcliffe and Gretton, Messrs. … 343

Bavarian Beer … 180

Bede-ales … 99

_Beer_, an American Poem … 13

Beer Brewers, The … 143, 147

Beer Powders … 176

Beer Street, Hogarth’s … 16

Beer, the Temperance Drink … 16, 18

Bees, Beer used in taking Swarms of … 403

Ben Jonson … 205

_Beowulf_, Mention of Ale in … 33

Bid-ales … 272

_Birthday Ode, A_, by Peter Pindar … 357

Bitter Beer, ancient cure for Leprosy among the Jews … 26

Black Boy Inn, Chelmsford, The … 220

Black Jacks … 396

Blackberry Ale … 386

Blind Pinneaux … 385

Boar’s Head in Eastcheap, The … 203

Boorde, Andrew, on Ale and Beer … 6

Boozer … 26

Borage … 390

Boswell, Anecdote of … 292

Bottled Beer, Origin of, etc. … 178

Bragget: Bragawd … 171, 378

Brasenose College Poems, and Ale … 7, 165, 389

Breakfast, Ale at … 274, 275

_Brewer’s Coachman, The_ … 148

Brewers’ Company, Historical Notes on the, etc. … 134, 137, 143, 147

Brewers of old London, The … 123, 146

_Brewers’ Plea; or, a Vindication of Strong Beer_ (1647) … 116

Brewhouse (German) of the sixteenth century … 131

Brewhouse in sixteenth century, Contents of … 56

Brewing at the present day … 331

Brewing in a Teapot … 2, 339

Brewing Trade in 1297, Legislation concerning the … 134

Brewing Trade, Regulations for, in the fifteenth century … 104

Brewsters … 100

Bride-Ales … 269, 272

Brown Betty … 389

βρυτον, “Britain” derived from … 31

_Bryng us in Good Ale_ … 230

Burton Ales … 160

_Burton Ale_; a Song … 161

Burton-on-Trent, Historical Account of, etc. … 335

Butler’s Ale, Dr. … 413

Buttered Beere … 385, 413

Buxton, Jedediah, a Great Beer Drinker … 293

C.

Cakes and Ale … 43, 239

Cambridge Ale at Stourbridge Fair … 105

Castle Coombe, Ancient Regulations concerning Brewing at … 107

Caton, Cornelius, of the White Lion, Richmond … 194

Cereris Vinum … 28

Cerevisia … 28

Charity, Ale Distributed in … 184, 278

Chaucer’s Reference to Ale … 40

Chavelier de Malte, The … 149

Chester Ale … 162

China Ale … 386

Christian Ale … 271

Christmas Carol, An Ancient … 263

Christmas Customs … 239, 264

Christopher North’s Brewhouse … 61

Church Ales … 239, 266–70

Churches, Ale Sold in … 272

Clamber-clown … 385

Clerk Ales … 270

Cobbett on Homebrew, in 1821, 46

Cock Ale … 385

Cock Tavern, The … 209

Cœlia … 28

_Coggie o’ Yill_, a Song … 329

Cold Tankard … 390

Collistrigium … 101

_Complete Angler, The_, Sold under the King’s Head Tavern … 205

Consumption cured by Ale … 414

Cookery, Beer used in … 403

Cooperage, sixteenth century, A … 334

Cooper, Origin of the Drink … 375

Coopers, Brewers forbidden to act as … 113

Coopers of Old London … 139

Copus-Cup … 391

Cornhill, The Taverns of … 203

Cost of Brewing in the sixteenth century … 57

Cotswold Games, The … 247

Country Sports and Pastimes, Herrick upon … 233

Cowslip Ale … 386

Crown and Anchor, Strand, The … 211

Cucking Stool, A Punishment for Ale-wives … 102

Cuckoo Ales … 272

Curmi … 28

Cwrw … 28

D.

Darby Ale … 162

Dawson, John, Butler of Christchurch, Oxford … 167

Derivations of “Ale” and “Beer” … 32

Devil Inn, Fleet Street, The … 208

Dietetic uses of Ale … 273

Dinton Hermit, The … 277

Distinctions between Ale and Beer … 6, 32, 152

Dogsnose … 388

“_Doll thi, doll, doll this Ale, dole_” … 404

Domestic uses of Ale … 403

Donaldson’s Beer-cup … 391

Dorchester Ales … 172

Dover’s Games … 247

_Drinke and Welcome_ … 4, 41, 147, 153, 158, 161, 188, 414

Drinking Customs … 279, 280, 290, 383

Drinking Vessels … 393

Drink-Lean … 247

Drunkenness in Olden Times … 108, 114, 116, 282, 292

E.

Early Closing, temp. Edward I. … 109

Edinburgh Ales … 169

Egg-Ale … 387

Egg-hot … 388

Egypt, Ancient use of Beer in … 25

Egypt, Suppression of Beer Shops in … 1, 25

Elderberry Beer … 386

English Ale, famous among foreigners in fourteenth century … 37

Epitaphs on Ale-drinkers, Brewers, and Innkeepers … 150, 164, 196, 208

Eucharist, use of Ale in the Administration of the … 402

Everlasting Club, The … 214

Export of Ale in Ancient Times … 113

Extraordinary Tithes … 91

F.

Falcon Inn, Chester, The … 197

Falcon Tavern, Bankside, The … 205

_Farmer’s Delight in the Merry Harvest, The_ … 253

Farmer’s Return, Hogarth’s … 45

Fever Cases cured by Ale … 415

Fire, Ale used to Extinguish … 407

Fish, Ale used as Food for … 402

Fishing Lines, Ale used to Stain … 402

Flip … 388, 389

Foot Ales … 273

Fowls, Beer as a Drink for … 403

Foxcomb … 385

Francis Francis on Bitter Beer … 5

Freemason’s Cup … 391

Frozen Ale … 169

Furry Day at Helston, The … 244

G.

Gentleman’s Cellar of the twelfth century … 52

George Inn, Salisbury, The … 196

German Beer … 178, 180

_Geste of Kyng Horn_, Extract from … 32

Gin Lane, Hogarth’s … 17

Give Ales … 272

Glutton-Masses … 286

_Good Ale for my Money_, a Ballad … 317

Grace-cup, The … 384

Grains … 145, 403

_Grand Concern of England, etc., The_ (1673) … 118

Greyheards, Anecdote of the … 398

Grout Ale … 164

Guild Feasts … 271

Guinness, Messrs … 348

Gustator Cervisiæ … 107

H.

Hacket, Marian, Ale-wife … 128

_Hal-an-low_, The; a Song … 244

Halders, Dame, of Norwich, Ale-wife, Anecdote of … 192

Hanaps … 395

Harrison on Homebrew and Malting in 1587, 54

Harvest Home Customs and Songs … 256–9

Harwood, Ralph, supposed Inventor of Porter … 366

Haymaker’s Song, The … 252

_Health to all Good Fellowes_, a Ballad … 325

Heather Ale … 175

Heaving … 241

Help Ales … 272

Herodotus on Egyptian Brewing … 25

Herrick … 15

Hicks, William, Brewer to the King … 149

_High and Mightie Commendation of a Pot of Good Ale_ … 71, 320

Highgate Oath, The … 198

Hobby Horse Dance … 239

Hock-Cart, The … 254

Hock-tide … 241

Hollowing Bottle, The … 255

Homebrew and Malting, Earliest Account of … 47

Hop-bine Ensilage … 82

Hop-Gardens of England … 87

Hop-Growers’ Troubles … 89

Hop-growing countries of Europe … 87

Hop-Pickers … 92

Hop-poles and wires … 88

Hop-Searchers … 70

Hop-Substitutes … 78

Hop-Substitutes, Anecdote … 425

Hops, Early Introduction into England of … 67

Hops, Early Mention of … 66

Hops in America and Australia … 87

Hops in Saxon times … 66

Hops, Legislation concerning … 73, 78

Hops, Medicinal uses of … 85

Hops, Mention of, in the City Records … 68

Hops, Prosecutions for using … 69

Hops, Various uses of … 82, 84

Horkey Beer, The … 256

Horses’ Feet Washed with Ale … 402

Hospitality in England in Early Times … 183, 190

Hot Pint … 237

Hot Pot … 388

_How Mault doth deale with Everyone_, a Ballad … 301

Huff-cap … 156

Huff-cup … 421

Hugmatee … 385

Hum-cup … 158, 388

Humming Ale … 158

Humpty-Dumpty … 385

Humulus Japonicus … 82

Hungerford Park, A Beer Cup … 391

Hymele … 66

Hypocras … 384

I.

Ind, Coope & Co., Messrs. … 351

Inn-keepers, Anecdotes of … 192

Ireland, Malt Liquors in … 30

Isaak Walton on Barley Wine … 191

J.

Jillian of Berry, Ale-wife … 128

Johnson, Dr. … 182, 209

_Jolly Good Ale and Old_ … 11

K.

Kentish Hop Gardens, Origin of … 70

Kent, Restrictive Enactment on Malting and Brewing in … 110

_King James and the Tinkler_, a Ballad … 405

Knock-me-down … 385

L.

Laboragol … 164

Labouring Classes, Advantage of Ale to … 425, 433

Lager Beer … 179

Lamb-Ales … 272

Lambswool … 381

_Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth, The_ … 117

_Lamentations of the Porter Vat, etc._ … 371

Leet Ales … 272

Licensing Laws in Ancient Times … 113

_Little Barley-Corn, The_, a Ballad … 303

London Ale … 160

_London Chanticleers, The_, Song from … 306

London Taverns … 183

Lord of the Tap … 105

Loving-Cup, The … 384

Lupuline … 80, 86

_Lupus Salictarius_ … 65

M.

Magpie and Crown, The … 221

Malt Liquor _v._ Cheap French Wines … 10

Malt, Medicinal Preparations of … 417

Malt, Sermon on … 289

Malting and Brewing by Women Servants in 1610, 47

Malting in Early Times … 120

Manchester Ale … 162

Mary-Ales … 273

Maule, Mr. Justice, Anecdote of … 376

May-Day Customs … 241–5

Measures, Legislation concerning … 101

Medical Opinions, Ancient and Modern, on Ale and Beer

… 403, 408, 419, 433

Mermaid in Bread Street, The … 206

_Merry Bagpipes_, The … 251

_Merry Fellows, The_, a Song … 290

_Merry Hoastess, The_, a Ballad … 308

Meux’s, Bursting of the Great Vat, etc. … 368, 371

Midsummer-Ales … 272

Mitre, Fleet Street, The … 210

Monasteries, Entertainment at … 183

_Monday’s Work_, a Ballad … 326

Monks as Brewers and Beer-drinkers … 37, 41, 50, 96, 285

Morocco, A Strong Ale … 169

Moss Ale, Irish … 176

Mother-in-Law … 392

Mother Louse, Ale-wife … 129

Muggling … 290

Mug House Club, The … 213

Mulled Ale … 378

Mum … 172

N.

_Newcastle Beer_ … 168

Newcastle Cloak … 116

_Newe from Bartholomew Fayre_ … 203

Newnton, Curious Custom at … 271

Nippitatum: Strong Ale … 157

Norfolk Ales—Norfolk Nog … 171

Northdown Ale … 162, 171, 385

North, Florence, Ale-wife … 215

Norwegian Beer … 180

_Nottingham Ale_ … 162, 167, 210

O.

October Club, The … 212

_Ode to Sir John Barleycorn_ … 20

Old Ale, The: an Anecdote … 15

Old Parr … 421

Origin of Ale … 25, 42

_Origin of Beer, The_ … 29

Origin of Inns, The … 185

P.

_Panala Alacatholica_ … 412

_Panegyric on Ale_ … 165

_Panegyric on Oxford Ale_ … 13

Parnell, Paul, A Great Beer Drinker … 59

Parsons, Humphrey, Brewer and Lord Mayor … 149

_Parson, The_, a Ballad … 287

Parsonage Alehouses … 187

Parting Cup, The … 389

Pasteur’s Discoveries … 441

_Patent Brown Stout_ … 369

Peg-tankards … 97, 394

Pennilesse Pilgrimage, Taylor’s … 162, 169, 190

_Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden_ … 73

Pharaoh … 158

_Philosopher’s Banquet_, Extract from … 44

Pig Drinking Ale out of a Jug … 15

Pledging … 383

Pliny on German Beer … 28

Plough Monday … 240

Plum-pudding Weighing 1,000 lbs., The … 203

_Pointes of Good Huswiferie_, Extract from … 56

Pope Innocent III., Anecdote of … 36

Porter at Oxford … 367

Porter Drinkers, Actors and Actresses as … 374

Porter in Ireland … 373

Porter, Origin of … 365

Porter, Professor Wilson on … 370

Posset Ale … 385

_Pot of Porter oh ! A_ … 376

Proverbs of Hendyng (thirteenth century) … 38

Purl … 387, 389

_Pye upon the Pear Tree Top, The_ … 256

Q.

Queen Elizabeth’s Breakfast … 275

_Quod Petis Hic Est_ … 328

R.

_Rape of Lucrece, The_ … 204

Receipts for Keeping and Flavouring Homebrew … 62

Rents Paid in Ale … 35

Rheumatism cured by New Ale … 416

_Robin Rough, the Plowboy_ … 426

Rouen, English Beer at, in 1582, 113

_Roxburghe Ballads_, The … 295

Ruddle … 388

Rumyng, Eleanor … 126, 216, 223

Russia, Burton Ale Exported to … 338

Russia, Burton Beer in … 181

S.

Salt & Co., Messrs. … 353

Saxon Leechdoms … 151

Scarcity of labour in fourteenth century … 39

Scot-Ales … 98, 267, 272

Scotch Ales … 169, 170, 171

Scotland, Ale Brewing and Selling in Early Times … 129

Scotland, Assize of Ale, etc., in … 129

Scurvy cured by Ale … 418

_Senchus Mor_, References to Ale in the … 30

Shakspere and Ale … 203, 270, 428

Shandy Gaff … 392

Sheep-shearing Customs and Songs … 250

Sicera … 26

Sign of the Red Lion, The, an Anecdote … 229

Signboard and Alehouse Poetry … 211, 223–7

Signboard Artists … 228

Signboards … 214–20

_Sir John Barley-corne_, The Ballad … 295

_Skelton’s Ghost_ … 110, 153

Small Beer … 159, 160, 277, 284

Smoke Question in London, Early Mention of the … 146

_Songs of the Session_, Extract from … 14

_Sonnet on Christmas_ … 262

Spiced Ale … 382

St. Dunstan, Legend of … 97

Steen, Jan, Brewer, temp. Chas. II. … 148

Stephony … 385

Stickback … 385

Stiffle … 385

Stout … 374

Strength of Malt Liquors Compared … 154

Sugar Beer … 177

Sulphuring of Hops … 81

Sunday Closing in Early Times … 115

Superstitions relating to Beer and Ale … 278

Swanne Taverne, The, by Charing Cross … 207

Swift’s _Polite Conversation_ on Homebrew … 59

_Symposii Ænigmata_, A Saxon Riddle … 34

T.

Tabard, The … 200

Tapstere, The Chester … 125

Taverns of Old London … 188, 203

Taxes on Ale … 38

Taylor’s, John, Signboard … 211

Temperance Drinks … 373

Temperance _v._ Total Abstinence … 14, 19, 423, 429

Tewahdiddle … 389

Thames Water used in Brewing … 122

Thrale’s Brewery … 340, 368

_Time’s Alterations, or the Old Man’s Rehersal_ … 396

Timothy Burrell, Extracts from the Journal of … 59

_Tinker’s Song_, Herrick’s … 291

Tithe Ale … 172, 273

Toasting … 383

_Toby Philpot_ … 399

Toll on Ale … 35

_Toper, drink, and help the house_ … 15

Treacle Beer … 177

_Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth_ … 47

Trinity Audit … 165

Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co., Messrs. … 355, 366

Tumbrel, Punishment of the … 100

Tusser on Hops … 76

Twelfth-day Customs … 238

Typhus-fever, Malt Liquor beneficial in … 419

V.

_Village Alehouse, The_ … 186

Vinegar made from Malt Liquor … 403

W.

Wadlow, Sim … 208

Wages Paid Anciently in Ale … 36

_Warme Beere_, Verses in Commendation of … 410

_Warrington Ale_ … 168

Wassail Bowl, The … 380

Wassailing … 234

Wassailing the Fruit Trees … 236

Weddyn Ales … 272

Welsh Ales … 30, 171

Weobley Ale … 127, 171

Wheat Malt, Ancient Use of … 105

Whitbread & Co., Messrs. … 359, 368

White Ale, Devonshire … 163

Whitington and the London Brewers … 135

Whitsuntide Ales and Customs … 246, 267

_Will Russell_, a Ballad … 195

_Wine, Beer, Ale and Tobacco; a Dialogue_ … 72

“Wine is but Single Broth” … 9

Women Brewers … 124

X.

X, Origin of the Symbol … 113

Y.

Yorkshire Ale … 161

_Yorkshire Ale, The Praise of_: A Poem … 312

Z.

Zythum … 28

[Illustration]

Transcriber’s Note.

Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some

exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown like

this: {52}. Original small caps are now uppercase. Italics look _like

this_. Footnotes have been relabeled 1–75, and moved from within

paragraphs to nearby locations between paragraphs. The transcriber

produced the cover image and hereby assigns it to the public domain.

Superscripted letters are shown as for examples: “y^e”, or “Ma^{tie.}”.

Original page images are available from archive.org—search for

“cu31924029894759”.

The poetry indents are approximately correct in limited circumstances.

The indents were measured and adjusted using a monospace font: “Adobe

Source Code Pro”. Variable-width fonts will look less accurate.

Page ii. The third word of the caption seems to read “Bremhouſe”

(printed in what appears to the transcriber to be a variety of bastard

script), but has been rendered herein in the more likely “Brewhouſe”.

Page 25. Changed “What ha h been” to “What hath been”.

Page 27. Changed “οινος”—wherein the omicron was accented with psili

and perispomeni—to “οἶνος”.

Page 35. In the phrase “pay as toll to the lord   gallons of ale”, a

number was missing.

Page 35n. The footnote read “1 The translation is taken from _Nineteen

Centuries of Drink in England_.”, but there was no anchor on the page.

Possibly this note refers to the _Symposium Ænigmata_ that ends at the

top of the page.

Page 38. The first footnote on the page had no anchor. A new anchor was

installed after the word “male,”, on the second line of the poem.

Page 49. Closing quotation mark was added after the line “Parlom ore de

autre chose.”

Page 74, 79. These full-page illustrations have been moved out of

their original locations inside poems to nearby locations below or

above, and the corresponding page numbers have been removed. Full-page

illustrations likewise situated in other places in the book have been

likewise treated.

Page 85. Full stop was added after “sometimes when opium failed”.

Page 100n. There was no anchor for the footnote; a new one has been

inserted after the word “brewster” at the top of the page.

Page 180n. The footnote had no anchor. A new anchor has been inserted

for this note, on page 179.

Page 184. Changed “religous” to “religious”.

Page 208n. The last word, partially illegible, is herein rendered

“out.”.

Page 235. The phrase “bring us a bowl of the bes” was changed to “bring

us a bowl of the best,”.

Page 264. Changed “carry ing over hilland dale” to “carrying over hill

and dale”.

Page 284. Changed “trusted, as we bear” to “trusted, as we hear”, and

“strirre” to “stirre”.

Page 325n. A new footnote anchor was inserted after “he that made, made

two.”.

Page 342. Full stop added after “dilutes his clay”.

Page 433. Changed “to live in a wine-growing, country will” to “to live

in a wine-growing country, will”.

Page 435. Changed “alcholic” to “alcoholic”.

Page 449. Changed “Weobly Ale” to “Weobley Ale”.