The use of Ar

very natural that its use should become extended; and hence, moreover, not satisfied with having aqua vitæ as the panacea for all bodily ills, it began to be habitually taken as a preventive of disease; and for this purpose, was intro- dent Spirits duced into the English army, while serving in the Netherlands, in the year 1581.

It is to this application of alcohol, as an habitual potation, that must be ascribed the evils that have since resulted to posterity, by its thus becoming an addition to the intoxicating beverages of society. Alas! mankind had not need that alghole should have assumed this fresh and more formidable shape to torture the sons of men; for his presence in the tankard and the wine glass had long been sufficiently mischievous.

made

habitual.

Alcohol

Alcohol, contained in all liquids, whether wine, beer, brandy, rum, gin, or whisky, is exactly alike; the differ- homogeneous. ence in the taste and color of one distilled liquor from another, being the result of the different substances with which it is in combination. The proportion of alcohol which enters into the composition of distilled or spirituous liquor (somewhat vaguely so called, seeing that wine, beer, and all fermented liquors contain spirit, and are therefore spirituous) is about fifty per cent.; at which height it is called proof spirit. The remaining ingredients consist of water, coloring, and other matter added by the rectifier, with more or less of the essential oils which pass over during distillation from the matter from which it is distilled.

Brandy is the spirit distilled from wine, and the fermented husks and refuse of grapes. As alcohol boils at only 174 degrees, while water requires 212, it will be seen that the spirit contained in wine, or any other fermented liquid, will be thrown into a state of ebullition by a temperature considerably too low to boil the water with which it is combined; consequently, the spirit is evolved from the wine in the form of vapor much more rapidly, and being condensed, forms brandy, or, as the term implies, burnt wine. By the same operation upon a fermented mixture of molasses and water, with portions of the sugar cane, rum is produced; and, again, upon the fermented extract of grain, whisky is produced; which, by the art of the rectifier, is converted into gin: the addition of juniper berries impart

C

Percentage of

Alcohol in Ar

dent Spirits.

Character of
Brandy.

Distillation.

Rum,

Whisky, and

Gin.

Present con-
Brandy

sumption of

Of Rum

Of British
Spirits.

ing to it, its peculiar flavor. The first of these inflammable liquors is manufactured, to a considerable extent, in most wine-making countries. France alone, at one time, produced sufficient for home consumption, and ten million gallons additional for exportation. Great Britain and Ireland consume annually upwards of a million gallons: the consumption for 1845 being 1,058,775 gallons.

Rum is principally produced in the West Indies; and consumed in this country, to the amount of between two and three million gallons annually: the consumption for 1845 being 2,469,549 gallons.

Whisky and gin are produced at home, and comprise what are denominated British spirits, so called in contradistinction to brandy, rum, and hollands, which are imported, and denominated foreign spirits. The consumption of British spirits for 1843 was 20,642,333 gallons. The last named liquor, hollands, is a description of gin, or geneva, manufactured in Holland, (whence its name,) and is considered by dram soakers, to be of superior quality to British; and is, consequently, termed hollands, as a mark of excellency. According to the authority adopted by Extent of the M'Culloch, there were, some years ago, in that country, not less than four hundred distilleries, producing annually about twenty million gallons of this liquor; fourteen millions of which were exported. Its proper name, geneva, is a corruption of the French genievre, denoting juniper berries. Happily a high duty has, for a considerBritish con- able time, restricted its consumption in this country to a comparatively trifling amount: the consumption of 1845 being 15,676 gallons.

Geneva man

ufacture in Holland.

sumption of Hollands.

Ale or beer an Egyptian

Such are the principal drug and spirituous intoxicants employed at home and in various parts of the world; the evils of which, the promoters of temperance reform are desirous of impressing upon the minds of the universal public; that among the many changes of this age of change, the abandonment of intoxicating liquors, and the substitution of nonintoxicating ones, may be enrolled.

SECTION III.

The practice of making ale and beer-the national intoxiinvention. cating beverages of England (and until supplanted by the more deleterious usquebaugh, whisky, also of Ireland and

Scotland,)—from barley, is, by general consent, allowed to
have originated with the ancient Egyptians, who, at all
times producing corn in abundance, and having but a
stinted supply of wine, were not long before they invented
a barley beverage. A learned writer on the wines of
the ancients says: "That the quantity of wine made in
Egypt was not sufficient for the use of all the inhabitants,
is evident from a beverage made of barley having been
drunk there by the people, analogous, no doubt, to our
beer."*
At the present day, the same liquor is found
among the modern inhabitants of that country.
"The
Egyptians,' says a certain traveller, "still make a fer-
mented liquor of maize, millet, barley, or rice, but it bears
little resemblance to our ale. It is of a light color, and in
hot seasons will not keep above a day."+

Beer still found in

the

Egypt:

Britons.

Meud the common intoxicant of the Saxons.

Ale, or beer, was in use in this country as far back as the In use among times of the aborigines, but after the possession of the country by the Saxons, the more popular, or at least, more common, beverage, seems to have been mead, a preparation of honey and water fermented. The extent to which this drink prevailed among the ancestors of our fair-haired population, is curiously indicated by the nature of the fine that was imposed upon the members of their friendly societies, whose conduct should happen to be culpable. In Mr. Ansell's Treatise on Friendly Societies may be among the found the rules of an institution of this kind, established Saxons spent in drinking. previously to the conquest; from which it appears, that for seven out of thirteen descriptions of offence, the members were mulcted in a quantity of honey, varying in measure with the nature of the offence. This honey, Mr. Ansell

* Extracts from the Athenæum in the British Permanent Temperance Documents, p. 55.

† Browne's Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, p. 26. Vide Dr. Lees' " Strong Drink Question," p. 33.

Any member calling another member names was fined one quart of honey.

For using abusive language to a non-member, one quart of honey. A knight (i. e. servant-at-arms) for waylaying a man, a sextarium of honey.

For setting a trap or a snare for any person's injury, a sextarium of honey.

Any member neglecting when deputed to fetch a fellow member who

Club Fines

NOTE.

Rules of a Saxon Friendly Society.

Ale made the

symbol of

hospitality.

is of opinion, was preserved till the feasts of the society, and then made into metheglin, or mead.

After the conquest, however, malt liquor became the national beverage, and its use became connected with almost every circumstance of life: hospitality was incomplete, unless the flagon of "nut-brown ale" was handed, flowing over, to the traveller, or the visitor.

In accordance with this notion, the mansions of the great were ever open to the wayfarer, "in the goode olde times of merrie Englande," where he was sure of the appointed measure of the good creature, occasionally accompanied by the better creature, bread. In some few instances, where the vapory track and shrill whistle of the steam engine have not yet disturbed the retreat of Queen Mab, the relict of this hospitality of bygone days may be found in the allowance of a "tot of ale" to every wayfarer popular usage who may choose to call for it. Such, for instance, is the custom at Old Fashioned Hall, and at the castle of my Lord Lag-Behind.

Vestiges of a

in olden times.

Hospitality

in the monasteries.

In the monastic institution, this show of hospitality seems to have been exercised with great liberality; for Cobbett, in his defence of the monasteries, quoting from Bishop Tanner, states, that “in the Priory of Norwich, one thousand five hundred quarters of malt were generally spent every year," which, at ten gallons to the bushel, would 124000 gallons brew upwards of one hundred and twenty thousand gallons of ale! The worthy monks of those times, (with all due respect be it said,) were no doubt as liberal in this respect towards themselves as to any one else.

of ale brewed

annually in

one.

Malt Liquors supplanted in Ireland

and Scotland

by Ardent Spirits.

The introduction of ardent spirits into extensive use in the sixteenth century, made a considerable change in the drinking customs of the three kingdoms. The sotting, mopish drunkenness of malt liquor drinking was almost entirely superseded in Ireland and Scotland, by the business-like, drink-and-be-drunk nature of the more virulent whisky. To such an extent did the rage for usquebaugh

might have fallen sick, or died at a distance from home, forfeited a sextarium of honey.

Any member refusing to fetch a deceased member from his late home, forfeited a sextarium of honey.

Any member absenting himself from the obsequies of a deceased member, forfeited a sextarium of honey.

proceed in Ireland, during the reign of Philip and Mary, that the people actually converted their grain into spirit to such an extent, as not to leave themselves a sufficiency for the purposes of life. Famine and privation were the consequence, and the interference of the legislature was called for to prevent a recurrence of such a state, by putting a check upon the practice of free distillation.

Famine produced by the destruction of grain in distillation.

Drunkenness

criminal offence.

In England, in 1606, it was found necessary to constitute drunkenness a criminal offence against society; the first made a first time, perhaps, that any nation incorporated the vice of drunkenness with the other crimes of the penal code. The grounds stated for this enactment were, that" the loathsome and odious sin of drunkenness had of late grown into common use within the realm; being the root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as bloodshed, stabbing, murder, swearing, fornication, adultery, and such like; to the great dishonor of God and of our nation; the overthrow of many good arts and manual trades; the disabling of divers workmen, and the general impoverishing of many good subjects: abusively wasting the good creatures of God."* This act of the legislature, however, was productive of but little, if any, good. It is certain that no permanent benefit resulted from it, for seventeen years after (1623) it was considered essential, for its due execution, so far to amend it, as to put it within the power of a justice of the peace, to convict upon the oath of only one witness, or upon his own personal observation.

Other legisla

tive measures for the sup

pression of Drunkenness.

Still, however, the commendable zeal that prompted to this course of legislation, was doomed to disappointment, for in their wisdom the legislators had thought it necessary to deal with effects only, while the cause was left untouched. Convictions and finings might be carried to any extent, but while the means and inducements to intoxication were permitted to exist, they had no better reasons to expect drunkenness to cease, among a people of perverted taste, than they could have had to expect that felony might be suppressed by severe enactments, while the causeways of rich men's houses were composed of gold coins. So signal, Their signal indeed, was the failure of this attempt, as also of subsequent ones, that at the end of a century, drunkenness, with its numerous progeny of ills, had increased beyond all

* Vide Capil on "The Laws of Drunkenness.”—Sentinel.

failure.