[170] Petronius (Bohn’s Classical Library); Athenæus, &c.
[171] Athenæus, p. 729.
[172] Petronius, Trimalchio’s Feast.
[173] Originally the skeleton was carried round to remind the feasters of their mortality, and to warn them not to indulge too freely in the pleasures of the table.
[174] In England it was customary in the Middle Ages to pour the wine down the offender’s sleeve. At Haddon Hall there is still an iron clasp fixed against a wall, which was used for the purpose of holding the wrist whilst that operation was performed.
[175] Book iv. cap. 28.
[176] More than two gallons at a draught! It seems an incredible feat.
[177] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. p. 215. Edinburgh: Strachan, 1782.
[178] Bohn’s Tacitus, vol. ii. p. 312 et seq.
[179] J. W. Petersen. Geschichte der Deutschen Nationalneigung rum Trunke, p. 7. (History of the German National Tendency to Drink, originally published in Stuttgart, 1782.) Stuttgart: Scheible, 1856.
[180] Klemm’s Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft, vol. ii. p. 326, Leipzig, Romberg, 1856; and Petersen, p. 9.
[181] Readers who are desirous of following the extension of vine-culture in Germany and Europe generally, will find full details in a work by H. von Carlowitz, Leipzig, 1846; and a fair list of all important works on the subject published in past times in Germany is to be found in Klemm, p. 327 et seq.
[182] All the chief vineyards on the Rhine were planted by the monks. See “Speise und Trank vergangener Zeiten in Deutschland” (Food and Drink in Past Times in Germany), by Dr. A. Schlossar, p. 23. Vienna: A. Hartleben, 1877.
[183] For an account of the preparation of mead, see “Speise und Trank vergangener Zeiten,” &c., p. 24.
[184] “Ut nullus ebrius suam causam in mallo possit conquirere, neo testimonium dicere. Nec placitum comes habeat, nisi jejunus.” See Petersen, Appendix, p. 128. Also Klemm, pp. 342, 343.
[185] “Ut in hoste nemo parem suum, vel quemlibet alium bibere coget, et quicunque in exercitu ebrius inventus fuerit, ita excommunicetur, ut in bibendo sola aqua utatur, quousque se male fecisse cognoscat.” Petersen, p. 128.
[186] “Jus Potandi,” from the original, published in 1616, by “Dr. M. Oberbreyer,” Introduction. Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger. Whether “Jus Potandi” be a satire, as it probably is, or a serious production, it very faithfully reflects the drinking habits of the time.
[187] Studenten-Lieder des Mittelalters. Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger.
[188] Jus Potandi, p. xvi., Introduction.
[189] “Das Leipziger gekräuterte, bauchzerreissende Rastrum.”—Jus Potandi, clause 8, p. 13. See also, “Speise und Trank vergangener Zeiten in Deutschland,” p. 46, where many other kinds of beer are mentioned.
[190] Jus Potandi, clause 24, p. 31.
[191] Ibid., clause 25, p. 34.
[192] Ibid., clause 48, p. 69. See “Speise und Trank,” &c., p. 38, where the drunkenness of females is referred to.
[193] Ibid., clause 18, p. 22.
[194] Jus Potandi, clause 34, p. 45.
[195] Ibid., clause 15, p. 20.
[196] Ibid., clause 45, p. 64.
[197] Similar codes will hereafter be referred to, of an undoubtedly serious character, as existing in France and England.
[198] Full confirmation of this state of things is given in “Speise und Trank,” &c., pp. 10, 11, 28, 31, 32, and at p. 34, where an account is given of a hundred and ten persons drinking four tuns of beer and one and half ohm of wine at a sitting.
[199] “Saus und Braus” in German is equivalent to “revelry” in English.
[200] The same practice prevailed even amongst women. Speise und Trank, &c., p. 38.
[201] Speise und Trank, &c., pp. 11, 12, 18.
[202] Eckehardus, jun.: De Casibus Monast. St. Galli, cap. ix. p. 41; also Speise und Trank, &c., p. 17, as to monasteries in the Black Forest.
[203] Rabanus Maurus. The Discipline of Drink, by Rev. T. E. Bridgett. Burns & Oates.
[204] Loc. cit., p. 141.
[205] As to the luxury and drunkenness of priests, see also “Speise und Trank,” &c., pp. 10, 11, 17.
[206] Speise und Trank, &c., pp. 47, 48. The first coffee-house was opened in Vienna in 1683; in Augsburg, 1713; in Stuttgart, 1712. This part of the subject will be fully treated of in one of the chapters on England.
[207] Petersen, “Concluding remarks.”
[208] The German Working Man. Longmans & Co.
[209] Discipline of Drink, p. 255. All the German Culture Unions are practically temperance societies, although alcoholic drink (chiefly German beer) is freely obtainable in them.
[210] The events which have happened in Berlin whilst this treatise is passing through the press lead the author to add, “without assassination.”
[211] Discipline of Drink, chap. xi.
[212] Homes of Other Days, by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., p. 294, Trübner & Co.; British Monachism, by T. D. Fosbrooke, p. 47, Nichols & Son and Rivington, 1802.
[213] Homes of Other Days, p. 42.
[214] Discipline of Drink, p. 77.
[215] Harleian, Cottonian, &c.
[216] Homes of Other Days, pp. 45-47. The various instrumentalists of the Anglo-Saxon period are called by the author hearpere, the harper; bymere, the trumpeter; pipere, the piper or flute-player; fithelere, the fiddler; and horn-blawere, the horn-blower.
[217] Legend of St. Juliana, Homes of Other Days, p. 50.
[218] Discipline of Drink, p. 135.
[219] Ibid., p. 135.
[220] Ibid., p. 136.
[221] Fosbrooke’s British Monachism, vol. i. pp. 16, 17.
[222] Ibid.
[223] Fosbrooke’s British Monachism, vol. i. p. 24.
[224] Homes of Other Days, p. 25.
[225] Homes of Other Days, p. 119.
[226] The reader must remember that noon was the dinner-hour.
[227] Justiciar was equivalent to our Lord Chief-Justice.
[228] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, by T. E. Tomlins and J. E. Rokewode. Whittaker.
[229] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 27.
[230] Homes of Other Days, p. 94.
[231] Homes of Other Days, p. 288.
[232] Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 124.
[233] Discipline of Drink, p. 80.
[234] Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 124.
[235] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, pp. 30, 31.
[236] Ibid., p. 35.
[237] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 44; also Fosbrooke, vol. i. p. 83.
[238] Beer and wine were both made by the monks. In the time of William Rufus there were four brewers, and five servants in the vineyard at Kresham monastery (Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 102). A most amusing record for posterity, by the by, of the customs of our day will be the advertisements which appear from time to time in our English papers, of the right of certain monasteries to the sole manufacture of well-known liqueurs—Gin and Gospel!
[239] A Book about the Clergy, by J. C. Jeaffreson, vol. i. p. 354. Hurst & Blackett.
[240] Discipline of Drink, p. 113.
[241] It is but right to say that decrees were from time to time promulgated by the synods and bishops against the practice of holding “ales” in churches, but they seem to have had little effect.
[242] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 356.
[243] Homes of Other Days, p. 368.
[244] Homes of Other Days, p. 427.
[245] Ibid., p. 445.
[246] Homes of Other Days, p. 346.
[247] Ibid., p. 397.
[248] Discipline of Drink, p. 175; see also p. 176 and elsewhere. Also, British Monachism, vol. i. p. 66. For some time after the Reformation some of the poorer English clergy kept taverns. ‘Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlisle’ (1703-7) by William Nicholson, late Bishop of Carlisle, ed. by R. S. Ferguson. (“Contemporary,” May 1878.)
[249] King Henry IV., Part II. Act ii. sc. 4.
[250] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 25.
[251] British Monachism, vol. ii. p. 122.
[252] Homes of Other Days, p. 181; MS. Sloane Museum, No. 2435.
[253] British Monachism, vol. ii. p. 167.
[254] British Monachism, vol. i. p. 121.
[255] Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 71. Murray.
[256] British Monachism, vol. i. pp. 138-140.
[257] Ibid., vol ii. p. 19.
[258] British Monachism, vol. ii. pp. 32, 33.
[259] Ibid., pp. 42-47.
[260] Ibid., p. 177.
[261] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 91.
[262] Canons of Œlfric, A.D. 970; Discipline of Drink, p. 150.
[263] Decree of Giles of Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury, A.D. 1256, against “Scot-ales,” loc. cit., p. 176.
[264] Synod of Kilkenny, A.D. 1614, loc. cit., p. 180.
[265] Nationalneigung zum Trunke, p. 97.
[266] Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 348-350; in Lingard’s History of England, vol. ix. p. 109 n., 2d ed., 1825.
[267] Macaulay’s History of England, vol. i. chap. i, Longmans, 1873; Scott’s Peveril of the Peak; Brooke’s Manners and Customs of the English, Blackwood, &c.
[268] John Evelyn, one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, A.D. 1620-56, quoted in Doran’s “Table Traits,” p. 458. Bentley.
[269] Kindly given to the author by Sir Sydney Waterlow, Bart., M.P.
[270] From Memoires de l’Angleterre, A.D. 1698, in Homes of Other Days, p. 473.
[271] Doran’s Table Traits, p. 66.
[272] Doran’s “Table Traits,” where a more detailed account is given of the clubs here named, along with many others.
[273] Alphonse Esquiros, “The English at Home.”
[274] Those who are curious to know which of the political and social leaders of the period were drunkards should read Lecky’s “History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” vol. i. chap. iii. pp. 476-482. Longmans & Co., 1878.
[275] Morewood, p. 25.
[276] The Chemistry of Wine, p. viii., by C. J. Mulder. Churchill.
[277] Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, vol. i. p. 42, 6th ed.
[278] Morewood, p. 560.
[279] The table is compiled from Mulder’s “Chemistry of Wine” (Appendix), Bloxam’s “Chemistry,” and the author’s own article on “Beer Scientifically and Socially Considered,” Quarterly Journal of Science, 1870, vol. vii. p. 315, and from other sources.
[280] Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A., Metropolitan Superintendent of the United Kingdom Alliance. From the Journal of the Statistical Society, March 1875, p. 13.
[281] Morewood, p. 560.
[282] Macfarlane and Thomson’s History of England, vol. iii. p. 258; Lecky’s History of England during the Eighteenth Century, pp. 476-482.
[283] It should be mentioned that in 1751 more stringent regulations were enacted, but none that in any degree approached the “Gin Act” in severity.
[284] Fraser’s Life of Berkeley, pp. 332, 333, in Lecky’s History of England.
[285] The Upas Tree in Marybone Lane, by James Smith (1775-1839).
[286] The High Street of Edinburgh, by Sir Alexander Boswell, the oldest son of Johnson’s biographer (1775-1822).
[287] Meaning Welshman.
[288] From an old poem, in the “Discipline of Drink,” p. 84.
[289] A.D. 1678. Ibid., p. 182.
[290] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 91 n.
[291] Lecky’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 93.
[292] A.D. 1698-1762.
[293] The Court of Death. Gay lived 1688-1732.
[294] Lecky’s History of England, p. 476 and notes, where numerous authorities are quoted.
[295] Third Report of the Lords’ Committee, p. 954, Q. 10,116.
[296] For further details as to the sale of alcoholic drinks to females, and reputed drinking practices amongst them, vide First Report of Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, evidence of Captain Palin, Chief Constable of Manchester, p. 166, Q. 1601; also Third Report, evidence of Sir William Gull, M.D., p. 254, Q. 10,116. In the work on “The Uses of Wines in Health and Disease,” p. 8, by Dr. Anstie (Macmillan), the author refers to secret dram-drinking by women; but medical men, like police magistrates, usually have before their eyes the worst side of human nature.
[297] First Report of Lords’ Committee, p. 16, Q. 184.
[298] Third Report, p. 32, Qs. 8311, 8312.
[299] It must be clearly understood that the above remarks are not intended to disparage the evidence that was tendered by Mr. Chamberlain, M.P., who replied to the questions of Lord Aberdare, and whose efforts in the cause of licensing reform merit, in the author’s opinion, greater appreciation than they have received.
[300] First Report, p. 240, Qs. 2416-2418.
[301] Table No. 22, Extract from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1876.
[302] In the same report (1876) the reader will find that Colonel Henderson attributes the additional number of arrests to “the increased activity of the police,” but he believes there has been some increase in drunkenness during the last six years. Of course he can only judge of the class which comes under the notice of the police.
[303] Table laid before the Committee of the House of Lords on Intemperance, by the Head Constable of Liverpool, being a compendium of the facts relating to the subject for twenty-one years.
[304] “Instructions” for 1845, pp. 34, 35; 1867, p. 33; and 1878, p. 42; kindly supplied to the author by the Chief Constable.
[305] Journal of the Statistical Society, March 1875.
[306] P. 7.
[307] Return to a canvass of working men made by sixty-seven of the largest employers of labour in Liverpool, and verified by the President of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. See also the remarks on the extension of the hours by the present Government.
[308] It may be added, as an expression of opinion, that the Rev. Canon Ellison considers there is a diminution of drunkenness in the agricultural districts. See his evidence before the Lords’ Committee, Third Report, p. 105, Q. 8930. From other evidence, also, the author has satisfied himself that one of the chief objects of the Agricultural Labourers’ Union, like most other trades unions, has been to prevent the payment and expenditure of wages in drink. In many parts of England a considerable proportion of the labourers’ wages is still paid in cider—an infamous system, which ought long since to have been abolished along with other forms of “truck.” The three reports also contain many expressions of opinion, very conflicting, however, on the prevalence of drunkenness amongst miners, quarrymen, &c., which are well worthy of the reader’s perusal.
[309] The English at Home, by Alphonse Esquiros, pp. 271-273. Chapman & Hall.
[310] Whilst writing these pages the author read the following narrative in the “Liverpool Daily Post,” April 25, 1878, which illustrates the condition of the poor in some of the lowest parts of that town:—
“On Tuesday afternoon the attention of a constable was drawn to the not very unusual phenomenon of a drunken man and woman in Johnstone Street. The woman had a child in her arms. It was taken from her, and found to be in a shockingly diseased and neglected state. The constable afterwards visited the ‘home’ of the inebriates. The sole piece of furniture was an old table. In the top room the woman’s father was lying on the bare boards, without a vestige of clothing upon him, and covered only by an old rug. In another part of the house was an aunt, who was much the worse for drink. Around her were three young children. There was not a particle of food in the whole place, and when the children were given some buns to eat, they devoured them savagely. Drunken parents reeling in the street with an unhealthy and neglected baby; a house in a court, with only an old table in it; an old man lying on the bare boards, with simply a rug for clothing or covering; a tipsy aunt, and three hungry, dirty children around her, make up a picture which would be considered unusually terrible if the scene were laid in the hut of a savage, and which is certainly a bitter satire on nineteenth century civilisation. The father and mother were brought up at the Police Court yesterday, and remanded; and the court ordered that the children should be removed forthwith to the workhouse.”
[311] Mr. Carnegie’s evidence before the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, First Report, p. 262.
[312] Alison’s History of Europe, vol. xv. p. 191, 7th ed. Blackwood.
[313] Morewood, p. 477.
[314] A.D. 1771-92.
[315] History of Europe, vol. xv. p. 191, 7th ed.
[316] First Report of Lords’ Committee, p. 262.
[317] In his first edition (1824) he does not refer to the smaller stills; indeed, his remarks are of no interest. His second edition is dated 1838.
[318] Morewood, p. 480.
[319] Morewood, p. 481.
[320] Rev. Dawson Burns’ paper before Statistical Society, p. 17.
[321] Morewood, p. 481.
[322] Carnegie, loc. cit., p. 263.
[323] We shall find precisely the same state of things to exist in certain parts of America.
[324] See the evidence on the “Gothenburg System” in the Report of the Lords’ Committee.
[325] A good deal of information concerning the sale of brandy (Bränvin) in Sweden may be gleaned from the Acts of June 26, 1871 (Stockholm, Norstedt & Söner), and from those of 18th September 1874 and 16th May 1877, for which the author is indebted to Mr. Oscar Dickson of Gothenburg.
[326] The author is indebted for these particulars to Mr. S. P. Wilding (son of a former American Vice-Consul at Liverpool), who has resided many years on the River Plate.
[327] Macropiper methysticum: Miquel. See Lindley’s Medical and Economic Botany, p. 133. Bradbury & Evans.