BEER AND MILK.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3028, 29 October 1878, Page 4

BEER AND MILK.

It is a sign of the times that in the last three numbers of, Truth there has been a column, more or less, in dispraise of alcohol and praise of milk.. The following correspondence appeared in the last number :~ " I am glad to see that you are preaching the advantage? of milk as a drink. ,1 ■was very ill, dyspepsic, low spirited, and all that sort of thing. I was told to abjure beer, wine and spirits, and to drink milk with a little lime water in it. This I have done for the last six months : lam now quite well, as strong as a horse, and I prefer my milk to any Other potation." "What you say about milk is quite true. In the city many hundreds of clerks have adopted it as a beverage. At several shops where they are in the habit of lunching, it is to be obtained, and these shops are so full during the lunch-hour that one has a positive difficulty to get into them. I suppose that it is not sold at restaurants because there is a greater profit on fermented liquors, but if your observations induce them, to sell it, you will have conferred a great boon upon the public." ' " For sixteen years I was a cripple from gout, and I never knew what a month was without a serious attack, when some one told me to eat whatl liked, but to drink nothing except milk. I have done this for ten months, and have not had a twinge." " You are quite right in what you Bay about milk. Drunkenness or sobriety is not the result of legislation, but of the liquor thai is habitually consumed. Thus England, if you will allow me as an American to say so, is a more drunken country than France, because the beer and the spirits consumed by Englishmen are more potent than the light wines of France. In Germany, too, there is far less drunkenness than with you, because the German beer is less heady than the English. In my country there is a great deal of tippling of spirits in the large towns, mainly because an invitation to drink is regarded as convivial, and by accepting the invitations people get their insides into such a, condition that they feel ' down' when not under the influence of stimulants. But in most of the country districts of the Northern States milk is the staple drink, whilst in city hotels, both North and South, the consumption of milk as an agreeable beverage is enormous." " You are doing a public, service in advocating the sale of unfermented liquors. The wholesale price of lemonade is three half-pence per bottle. I want to know why it is never retailed under fourpence, and often for sixpence ?,Surely the retailers would have a very fair profit were they to sell it for twopence halfpenny per bottle."