bread, and it was generally regarded as nutritious and indispensable. Cider was deemed as necessary a part of family supplies as potatoes, and six or eight barrels were considered a small quantity for a family; while some went as high as twenty or thirty barrels. The following extract from the "Old American Encyclopædia" (edition of 1830) will forcibly set forth the drinking usages of this period. It was witten by a gentleman who was familiar with them:

A fashion at the South was to take a glass of whisky, flavored with mint, soon after waking; and so conducive to health was this nostrum esteemed, that no sex, and scarcely any age, were deemed exempt from its application. At eleven o'clock, while mixtures, under various peculiar names-sling, toddy, flip, etc.-solicited the appetite at the bar of the common tippling-shop, the offices of professional men and counting-rooms dismissed their occupants for a half hour to regale themselves at a neighbor's or a coffee-house with punch, hot or cold, according to the season; and females, or valetudinarians, courted an appetite with medicated rum, disguised under the chaste name of "Hexham's Tinctures" or "Stoughton's Elixir." The dinner hour arrived, according to the different customs of the different districts of the country, whisky and water curiously flavored with apples, or brandy and water, introduced the feast; whisky or brandy and water helped it through; and whisky or brandy without water secured its safe digestion, not again to be used in any more formal manner than for the relief of occasional thirst or for the entertainment of a friend, until the last appeal should be made to them to secure a sound night's sleep. Rum, seasoned with cherries, protected against the cold; rum, made astringent with peach-nuts, concluded the repast at the confectioners; rum, made nutritious with milk, prepared for the maternal office; and, under the Greek name of Paregoric, rum, doubly poisoned with opium, quieted the infant's cries.

No doubt there were numbers that did not use ardent spirits; but it was not because they were not perpetually in their way. They were an established article of diet, almost as much so as bread; and with many they were in much more frequent use. The friend who did not testify his welcome, and the employer who did not provide bountifully of them for his help, was held niggardly; and there was no special meeting, not even of the most formal or sacred kind, where it was considered indecorous, scarcely any place where it was not thought necessary, to produce them. The consequence was that, what the great majority indulged in without scruple, large numbers indulged in without restraint. Sots were common in both

sexes, of various ages, and of every condition; and though no statistics of the vice were yet embodied, it was quite plain that it was constantly making large numbers bankrupt in character, prospects, and property, and inflicting upon communities a large amount of physical and mental ill in their worst forms.

Thus had American society invested this evil with the most potent conventional sanctions. Probably in no other country had the vice of intemperance, in its most fiery and vitiating form, viz., from the use of distilled spirits, so completely interwoven itself into the entire net-work of social life. Hitherto, individuals possessing strong minds had occasionally been found, who, standing alone, had successfully withstood this evil. But where one had stood, hundreds had fallen.

In consequence of this state of things the people were poorer than they now are. The buildings, fences, farms, animals, and the furniture of the buildings all indicated poverty, with few exceptions, in the rural towns. North Coventry was an average Connecticut town of that period, (1800-1820,) but according to the valuable testimony of Rev. George A. Calhoun, D. D., (sermon on the fortieth anniversary of his settlement,) there were

Only four floors in the town with carpets on them, but four houses painted white, and not more than ten four-wheeled vehicles. Even whitewash on the walls of rooms was very seldom used. Nor was the difference in the times merely. Real poverty was the cause. Even in the condition in which they did live, there were few who had money at interest, compared with those who were in debt, and those whose farms were mortgaged. Property was constantly changing hands by the foreclosure of mortgages and insolvency. But the expense of living then, as compared with now, was very small. What, then, was the reason for this depression in worldly circumstances? Their gains were consumed and they were oppressed by the use of intoxicating drinks. At least one man in every score became a drunkard, and not a few women were addicted to habits of intemperance. Forty years ago there was probably not one in five hundred who did not believe that the use of intoxicating drinks, as a beverage, was absolutely needful.

Let it not be overlooked that this condition of gross intemperance existed under a very stringent license system.

Under this old license system. intemperance flourished and rapidly increased.

It scarcely need be said that this period, from 1781 to 1825, was one of very low general morality, probably the lowest in the history of this country. The reports of all the ecclesiastical bodies of that day afford abundant evidence of this condition. Sabbath-breaking and profanity were alarmingly prevalent. French infidelity, and particularly the writings of Thomas Paine, had great influence. And there was not only general lukewarmness, but also much apostasy, in the Churches. The revival of 1800-1802 somewhat improved the condition of the Churches, but it left many social customs untouched. The drinking custom remained. But there were some good and true men who had not yielded to the general current, and whose voice of lamentation and warning was heard, though faintly, by the public ear. Yet they had no power to arouse the people. Some one, speaking of this period, has said that "Intemperance sat as a great nightmare upon the breast of the nation." And Rev. Dr. John Marsh has said: "There were horrid sufferings, but every limb was spell-bound. All moral power was broken. Men preferred their suffering to any disturbance of their delusion." Still the tide of evil rolled on, and deepened. The night that had been dark soon became hideous. Fears grew into alarms; misgivings into convictions. It became too palpable to be long denied that intemperance was undermining the very frame-work of society, producing a vast amount of crime, pauperism, and wretchedness, increasing the number, frequency, and violence of diseases, weakening the understanding as well as the bodies of men, blunting their moral sensibilities, and hardening their hearts. Thus by viewing the demoralizing effects consequent upon the use of ardent spirits as a beverage, public attention was aroused, and the incipient measures of a great reform were undertaken.

1

1 "Half Century Tribute," p. 5.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WINES OF THE WORLD-THE BREW OF THE WORLD.

Two

WO conspicuous attempts have been made to assemble the wines of the world for the purpose of comparing and judging them. The first was due to Philip Augustus, of France, a noted patron of learning, and "the grand consolidator of regal authority." The old chroniclers tell us that he sent forth heralds, with great "flourishing of trumpets," to summon the wines of all lands to his convivial table, that each might be honored according to its merits. The samples received are said to have not exceeded a score or two.

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In 1873, in response to the invitation of the Emperor Franz Josef, twenty thousand' specimens of fermented drinks came to the Vienna "Weltauss-tellung." The tasting, comparing, and judging the Vienna samples taxed incessantly the palates, heads, and stomachs of some thirty jurors and experts, divided into some four or more separate groups, for a period of nearly two months; whereas the French king and his gustatory adviser, hobnobbing at their ease over the Cyprus and Malaga, experienced no kind of difficulty in conferring the fanciful dignities of pope, cardinal, king, count, and peer on the few wines they found most to their liking."

At Vienna nearly all the wine-producing districts of the world were represented, covering nearly half the habitable globe. Mr. Vizetelly thus defines the area :

The northern limit of the zone, within which the vine is cultivated for the purpose of producing wine, commences at the Azores, passes south of England, and proceeding from Vannes in Brittany, beyond Mazières to Alençon in Normandy, mounts thence to Beauvais in the Isle of France,

See "Wines of the World." By Henry Vizetelly, Wine Juror for Great Britain at the Vienna Exposition in 1873. London: Ward, Locke, & Tyler. 1875, pp. 9, 10.