inn, what power and wealth are represented in the hodge-podge which
belike forms one of the dishes, and which, by suggestion and in the
style of the housewife, we are now analysing. As we disintegrate the
mess, and resolve it into its elements, we may well bethink ourselves of
the cost of our board on the planet, and of the value of the articles we
are daily consuming. To help you to a clearer idea of this, in regard to
the article barley alone in the form of malt, let me commend to your
attention the following statistical statement:--
A Parliamentary return of 1876 shows that the quantity of _malt_ charged
with _duty_ during the year was--
BUSHELS. DUTY.
England, 54,655,274 £7,412,621
Scotland, 2,927,763 396,241
Ireland, 3,346,606 453,883
---------- ----------
Total of United Kingdom, 60,929,633 £8,262,746
The quantity of barley imported into the United Kingdom during the year
was equivalent to 2,736,425 quarters. See how great a fire a little
spark, hodge-podge, kindleth!
So much for the quantity of malt produced, and the revenue derived from
it, in a year in the United Kingdom. I have spoken of this malt as being
convertible into a form which possesses, among other virtues, the power
of quenching our thirst. I wish it did not also quench our thirst for
the knowledge we all ought to have of its production and really
serviceable qualities; that it would stimulate inquiry after such
things, and not smother it, as it is too apt to do; and, in general,
prompt us to a wiser study of our social wants, and the means at our
command for further social improvement; which we might prosecute with
less and less recourse to the stimulant virtues of malt in such forms as
whisky. And this we may do, if we limit our indulgence in it to the less
potent form of it in beer, which, while it is calculated to quench man's
bodily thirst, is equally calculated to quicken his mental. How much it
contributes to allay the former, and how many thirsty souls are
refreshed by it, we may estimate from the statistics of the sale of it
furnished by a single firm in London. I refer to the firm of the Messrs.
Foster, Brook Street, who are friends of my own, and to whom I should be
glad to refer all who may be in want of a wholesome beer, for theirs is
so good and genuine. The Messrs. Foster are among the most extensive
bottlers and exporters in the country; and I find from the information
they have kindly supplied me, that the beer bottled by them for export
purposes during the year 1874 was 6000 butts, of 108 gallons each; that
their contracts for the supply of bottles during that period represented
25,000 gross, or 5,040,000 bottles, which, if laid end to end, would
extend to about 1000 miles; and that their accounts with Bass & Co.
alone for that term amounted to £150,000. All, from the highest to the
lowest, drink beer in England; and when unadulterated and taken in
moderation, it is one of the most healthful beverages of which the human
being, man or woman, can partake.
Though I have only partially gone over the ground contemplated at first,
I feel I must now draw to a conclusion, which I am the less indisposed
to do, as I think in what I have said I have pretty fairly set before
you the wonderful properties latent in a basin of hodge-podge. For it is
a habit of mine, which I have sought to indulge on the present occasion,
to analyse every subject to which my attention is directed, and in which
I feel interest, before I can make up my mind as to the proper
significance and importance of the whole compound. Thus, for instance,
set a dish of hodge-podge before me; it does not satisfy me to be told
that it is only a basin of broth, and that it is wholesome fare; I
must, as I have now been doing in a way, resolve the compound into its
elements, see these in other and wider relations, and refer them
mentally to their rank and standing in the larger world of the economy
of nature and of social existence. I am always asking "What's intilt?"
and am never satisfied, any more than the English tourist, with a bare
enumeration: I must subject the factors included to rational inspection,
and watch their play and weigh their worth in connection with interests
more general.
And if, in the delivery of this lecture, I have persuaded any one to
regard common things in a similar light and from a similar interest, I
shall deem the time spent on it not altogether thrown away. Mind, not
water, is the ultimate solvent in nature, and everything, when thrown
into it, will be found in the end to resolve itself into it, or what in
nature is of kin to it. And if a Latin poet could justify his interest
in man by a reference to his own humanity, so may we rest content with
nature when we find that we and it are parts of each other. It is well
to learn to look on nothing as private, but on everything as a part of
a great whole, of which we ourselves are units; so shall we feel
everywhere at home, and a sense of kinship with the remote as well as
near within the round of existence.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] The Highlanders are said to be able to offer it a stout defiance,
for they can stand an immense quantity; and I have heard of an innkeeper
in the north, who, when remonstrated with on account of his excessive
drinking, so far admitted the justice of the charge implied, but pled
that he could not be accused of undue indulgence the night before, as,
whatever he might have drunk during the day, he had, after supper, had
only seventeen glasses!
THE END.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.