COLONIAL SPIRIT DRINKING,,

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1355, 2 December 1872, Page 2

COLONIAL SPIRIT DRINKING, ,

The most experienced topers, says /the Melbourne Telegraph,. ma hardly in a position to say : what ;they drink in Melbourne:.: Frequent actions- for damages instituted in r the; District • Court at the instance *bf agents and patentees sh'bw that there is a large amount of imitation 'going on, and that liquor is frequently sold having.no more connection with the. thing it is meant to imitate: than the label on the outside of the bottle 'gives it. The market - has been flooded with "ale o "la Carlisle," "Henuessy's brandy '»' "Steane's sarsaparilla," and other .compounds, which have, been declared to; he none of these. The 'Chinese; "however, import spirits of a more potent and deadly kind than any other spirit sent to Australia. They have a drug which'lacalled Chinese brandy, and which is 'mi P°rted by them, and sold without lioenseV It is a brandy more destructive tjo the stomach and liver, and brain of Europeans than any of that stuft which a virtuous Victorian Government draws a revenue from. The brandy is a spirit similar to rum in appearance, imported in bottles of English manufacture,' and th&e protected by envelopes of English straw, with the peculiarity only that the straw envelopes are worked transversely, instead of perpendicularly, as European straw envelopes are. The brandy is a spirit prepared from rice, carrying with it no evidence of its having been rectified. An analysis shows that it contains, as sold bY the Chinese^ 30,6 in the lOOgftlo^prdof spirit, and if diveated of IU »aochMin«

matter it shows five 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 the Chinese in minute doses, and invavariably forms with them a preliminary dram to the opium pipe. They sell it, however, cheaply, and many yonng Europeans of both sexes, imitating the Chinese habit in drinking it, imitate them only in that act, paying no regard to quantity. The result is a new type of drunkenness in young people which puzzles thoughtful Magistrates, fills watch-houses and gaols, and is breeding a new type of criminal among younger Europeans. -The Chinese also import a spirit which they call gin, bat which is pronounced by old Indians to be very bad arraok. 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 which it induces does not last so long, nor does it seem to have the serious after effects which are inevitably the result of the other. An examination of one of the so-called bottles of gin showed that it was, although elaborately got up, evidently bottled in Melbourne, in an old porter bottle, corked with an old cork which had previously done duty in one of the quart bottles containing " Byass's Porter, that name being on it, and capitalled with about half-an-ounce of resin, all of which unmistakably show that the* evil thing has been imported in bulk, and prepared for sale in Melbourne.