DESIRABLE NIGHTCAPS.(?)

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 42, 14 October 1867, Page 255

DESIRABLE NIGHTCAPS.(?)

• ' (Prom the London Be view.)

The ingenuity exhibited in dodging the exciseman is becoming so subtle that the professors of the art have almost elevated it into a science. Nothing that we drink is what it professes to be. Mr Prestwitch, in his report on wines, &c., in the Great Exhibition of 1851, speaking of the wines sent from North Germany—Hambro’—drily said that “ they show a marked improvement in applied chemistryand efforts are now being made to transfer the sale-of spirits to the chemists, as a medicament. Has our reader ever seen in druggists’ shops in the low quarters of the metropolis such an announcement as this -.—“ Indian Brandee, made from rare and costly products of India ” 0 r “ Medicated Whiskee ?” These are the last cun-ningly-devised beverages manufactured to cheat the Excise; and, worse still, to smuggle into households, under the name of a curative agent, one of the most deleterious and disgusting compounds imaginable. “ Indian Brandee ”is maife from methylated spirit, a liquid used in the arts and manufactures, and principally by hatters for the purpose of dissolving shellac. It is nothing more or less than common potato or beetroot spirit, mixed with naptha for the purpose, as the Excise intended, of making it too repulsive to be used as a drink, but equally useful, and cheaper than spirits of wine, for the manufacturer’s purposes. But the Excise, it appears, are not half clever enough for the purveyors of strong drink for the poor. On the trial of a chemist in' December last for the sale of these new nostrums, at the instance of the “Excise, at Preston, Mr Harkness, the analytic chemist, deposed that he received the bottles purchased by Mr Lane and analysed their contents. The bottle containing the “ brandee ” was first examined. It had in it seventy-six per cent, of methylated spirit, the rest being treacle and water. The “ whiskee ” had seventy-two per cent, of methylated spirit, and the rest was sugar aud water. Both the “brandee” and _ “ whiskee ” were equal in strength and quality to strong gin highly sweetened, and they are evidently prepared as beverages. In some places they are so used, and called “ the teetotal nightcap.” This may be a libel upon total abstainers; but it is quite, clear that it is intended to be surreptitiously used, and a maddening liquor it is. We give the analysis of the different samples sold as “ Indian Brandee,” as made by the chemist of the Inland Revenue Office:—

“ Ist. Methylated spirit, partially purified by treatment with nitric acid aud distillation, containing a trace of sweet spirit of nitre, and sweetened with brown sugar. “ 2nd. Methylated spirit, slightly flavored with rhubarb, and sweetened with brown sugar. “ 3rd. Methylated spirit, simply sweetened and colored.

“4th. Methylated spirit, containing a small quantity of chloroform, and colored.

“ sth. Methylated spirit, with a small quantity of spruce.

“ 6th. Methylated spirit, colored and sweetened, and slightly flavored, with ginger. “7th. Methylated spirit, flavored with fenugreek, aud colored. The “ Indian tincture ” or “ whiskee ” was equally sweetened and mixed with drugs in small quantites, to give it colonrably the character of some medicated preparation. But what must be the effect upon the human , stomach of these doses, infinitesimal, it may be, of tinctures, &c. ? If there is any truth in homoeopathy, here we have a surreptitious means of turning the intestines into a druggist’s shop:. • . - The people of the North appear to have more than the average national liking for stupefying drinks. There is a well-known dram specially prepared in the cotton-spinning districts for putting children to sleep, in order that mothers may go to mill-work. This is called a “ quietner; and, unhappily, in but too many cases it well deserves the name, as the poor babe once ■ nursed with this substitute for mother’s, milk only wakes in another world. • The evil of the “Indian brandee ” and “ whiskee ” is .that it can be obtained at all hours of the Sunday; and thus the provision of the Act which shuts publichouses during the honrs of Divine service is completely turned. It is asserted that this demoniacal liquor is principally, used by women under the pretence of its being necessary as a cordial; and thus they slip into drunkenness with "secresy and certainty, by the aid of the tradesman who professes to minister only to our ailments. - That the very poor should rush eagerly after such deleterious compounds is not indeed astonishing,, knowing, as we do, that it is the custom of many fashionable women to make the dressingcase a hiding place for stimulants. Our lady friends across the Atlantic indulge, we are told, in a “ bitter ” which goes by the name of “ pick-me-up” This is cunningly brewed of chloric ether, cardamoms, and ammonia, and is very stimulating. r At home, the Eau de Cologne bottle is but too often filled with spirit much stronger than is necessary for a restorative. A few drops of hollands, we are told', has a wonderful effect , in giving brilliancy to the eye. This is a dangerous cosmetic, and.is, we. fear, used like the fiunons American recipe for restoring the hair in baldness a portion rubbed in outwardly to make, it grow, and' another portion 'taken inwardly! to clench .the roots. The . exhaustion, "and; etinui brought about in high life by late hours,-excessive fetigue, and £a3t living, has its counterpart among

the very'poor. ; “Poverty, hunger, and dirt,**' ; work as much depression on the spirits of the poor draggled-tailed creatures of Shoreditch a* the perpetual round of balla and routs does among i the “ upper ten thousand ” during the season. The Superabundance of every luxury, the difficulty of conceiving wishes .that cannot be gratified, lead almost to the same feeling of despair as the total absence of every comfort of life; and the remedy songht for in both cases is tbe same. It is, we know, a feet that gin is flavored and dosed in different parts of the town to suit the desperate palates of the peor wretches who fly to the ginpalace, to find some, solace for their troubles— ?ome Lethe for the despair that so often overtakes them-. The liqnor is matehed to the neighbourhood as a lady matches her worsteds. St. Giles’s, for instance, boasts a special gin, so spiced with cayenne pepper that the memory of it is left in the month for an hour after. Shoreditch has another kind of gin, which is totally distinct, though equally maddening. Por all we know, the poor of Clapham may be accommodated by the delicate manipulations of the gin improvers, for the most demure evangelicalism is not proof against the temptations of this creature comfort. In a memorial lately' addressed by the merchants of New York to the House of Representatives, among others,- we find the following:—“ The alarm from cholera aided consumption, inducing much reading of the Bible, and the keeping of a small quantity of brandy in the house)' Possibly the Clapham Stiggins may not see the irreverence of thus bracketing spiritual things of so different a nature: at all events, we' know that practically' so-called religious neighbourhoods are no whit superior to irreligious ones in their craving for. strong drink* The lower middle class, in the old crusted port at Is. 9d., and the “ nutty sherry,” are, equally with the poor, partakers of liquids dosed with spirit vyhich is but little superior to miserable concoctions sold at the gin-palaces. In the year 1865, we exported to Prance and Portugal large quantities of British spirit, distilled from grain and roots. Much of this was a pure neutral spirit; It was ascertained that this large quantify was taken principally by the Portuguese for the purpose of “ fortifying the. port wine they sent to this country.” This spirit at that time could he imported as cheaply as the wine could be made, at the same time it gave an enormous strength—the body we so much admire in the “ ruby port ” we have before alluded to. This, in a temperance sense, was bad enough, but last year it was discovered that our exportations to France and Portugal had fallen off by 1,715,154 gallons—to Prance by upwards of 400,000 gallons, and to Portugal by. nearly a million of gallons. This quantity must have been made up from some other source, and on inquiry it was found that the Prussians had found out a method of distilling from common roots an exceedingly coarse spirit, which, to use the words of the Inland Revenue Report, “they use for mixing with snch spirits and liqueurs as have sufficient flavor to disguise the unpleasant taste of the adulterating material,” and we may add wines also. Thus the flank of our spirit duties is turned by the wine growers as adroitly as by the druggists, and our grocers may be said to sell a mixed spirit at wine prices, which is not much purer than the “ Indian Brandee,” or the “ pure Islay Mountain.” We have heard a great deal lately and are destined to.hear more of that terrible disease “ dipsomania,” which affects the upper, middle, - and lower classes with great impartiality. Can we wonder at the gradual spread of this thirst madness when we consider the care with which, for a century, we have laid the train for the final explosion which has taken the country by surprise —when we know that so many causes are secretly at work to educate women especially in the taste for alcohol in disguised and so-called “ elegant ” forms.