Chinese Brandy and Gin.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 164, 31 December 1872, Page 3

Chinese Brandy and Gin.

The Chinese, with all the cunning characteristic of what our fathers called " the subtlety of Kasterns," manage to keep, like the witches in li Macbeth," the words of promise to the ear and I ilea k it to the hop.*, so far as Custom house officers are concerned. They import spirits of a more potent and detdly kind than any otln r spirits sent into Australia. They have a drug which is called Chinese brandy, and which is imported by then), and sold without license. Il is a brandy inure destructive to the stomach and liver and brain of Europeans than any of that stulf which a virtuous Victorian Covernmeut draws a revenue from. The brandy is a spirit similar to rum in its appearance, imported in bottles of English manufacture, and these protected by envelopes 'of English stra.v, with the peculiarity only that the straw envelopes are worked transversely, instead of perpendicularly, as European one-; are. This brandy is a spirit prepared from rice, carrying with it no evidence of its having been rectified. An analysis shows that it contains, as shown by the Chinese, 30.6 in the 100 gallons of proof spirit, and if divested of its saccharine matter it shows 5 per cent. more. It also

contains a very large per centage of opium, and its effects* are more stupefying than mildly intoxicating. It is taken by tho Chinese in minute doses, and invariably forms with them a preliminary dram to the opium pipe. They sell it, however, ch» aply, and many young Europeans, of hoih sexes, imitating the Chinese habits in drinking it, imitate them only in that act, paying no regard to quantity. The result is a new type of diunkenness in young people, which puzzles thoughtful magistrates, tills watch-houses and gaols, and is bleeding a new type of criminal among younger Europeans. The Chinese also import a spirit, which they call gin, but which is pronounced by old Indians to he very bad arrack. It contains 33.9 of proof spirit, and is also largely mixed with opium, its effects are much more intoxicating than the brandy, although the stupor it induce-; dees not last so long, nor does it seem to have the same serious after effects which are invariably the result of the other. An examination of one of the so-called bottles of gin showed that it wjis, although elaborately got up. evidently bottled in Melbourne, in an old porter bottle corked with an old cork which had previously done duty in ene of the quart bottles containing '• By ass's Porter," that name being on it, and capitalled with about half an ounce of resin, all of which unmistakal ly showed that the evil thing had been imported in bulk, and prepared for sale in Melbourne.— Telegraph..