cookshops, and a stable or two. To
cursory spectators, such as you and I are, the
brewery will offer very little besides this, and
a general impression of " bigness," length,
height, breadth, rotundity. The premises are
large, the vats are large; the stables, the
strong, stalwart horses, the provisions of hay
and straw, of malt and hops, of smoke and
steam, are all large. Large, also, to almost
Titanic extensiveness, are the draymen —
gladiators of the Beery arena, with Phrygian
caps of scarlet hue, and wide-spread leathern
aprons. Large are their labours ; larger still,
their appetites ; largest and mightiest of all,
their thirst of beer. Grocers and pastry-cooks,
they say, give their apprentices and
shopmen the run of all the delicacies they
deal in, for the first month of their service—
carte blanche to the plums, and figs, and tarts,
of which — to the ultimate benefit of the
tradesman — they speedily get very sick and
tired ; but with the drayman-neophyte it seems
quite different : for I never heard — nor, did I
hear, should I credit the assertion — that any of
Barclay and Perkins's men ever got tired of
Barclay and Perkins's tap. Largely impressed,
therefore, with their pervading largeness, we
will leave the brewhouse for the present.

Privately, we may be allowed, and
confidentially, to surmise, that the profits of the
proprietors are also large—very large, indeed;
but goodness forbid that we should venture
to hint (aloud, at least) that the prices they
demand and obtain for beer are large, and—
considering malt, and hops, and grain, and
Free Trade, and that sort of thing — a great
deal too large, and not quite just.

The heavy wheels of our chariot have been
rumbling, while I spoke, through the great
thoroughfare which commences at Charing
Cross, and ends at Mile End — somewhere
about where there was, once on a time, a
Maypole. It diverges, going westward; and
we are in a trice in a street, in which / never
was in a vehicle in my life without being
blocked up, and in which, in the present
instance, we are comfortably wedged with a
timber-laden waggon, a hearse, and an
advertising-van in front, and a Hansom cab or
two, a mail-phaeton, and Mr. Ex-Sheriff
Pickles's elegant chariot behind. Leaving
the respective drivers to exchange
compliments, couched in language more or less
parliamentary, we will descend for a moment—
for the neighbourhood is thickly studded with
public-houses — and we shall have time, ere
our chariot be extricated, to investigate
numerous varieties of " London on Tap."

Here, first — blatant, gay and gaudy — is a
GIN PALACE — a "ginnery," in full swing.

The Palladio or the Vitruvius who built
this palace, has curiously diversified the orders
of architecture in its construction. We have
Doric shafts with Corinthian capitols — an
Ionic frieze — Renaissance panels — a Gothic
screen to the bar-parlour. But French polish
and gilding cover a multitude of (architectural)
sins ; and there is certainly no lack of either
the one or the other here. Tier above tier
surround the walls, supporting gigantic casks,
bearing legends of a fabulous number of gallons
contained within. Yet are they not dummies ;
for we may observe spiral brass pipes,
wriggling and twisting in snake-like contortions
till they reach the bar, and so to the spirit-taps,
where they bring the costly hogshead of
the distiller home to the lips of the humblest
costermonger, for a penny a glass. Beer is
sold, and in considerable quantities — a
half-penny a pint cheaper, too, than at other
hostelries ; but it is curious beer — beer of a
half-sweet, half-acrid taste, black to the sight,
unpleasant to the taste, brown in the froth,
muddy in consistence. Has it been in delicate
health, and can that shabby old man, in close
confab with the landlord at the door, at the
steps of the cellar, be the " Doctor ? " Or
has it been adulterated, " fined," doctored,
patched, and cobbled tip, for the amusement
and instruction of amateurs in beer — like
steam-frigates, for instance, or Acts of
Parliament ?

The area before the bar, you will observe,
is very spacious. At this present second
hour of the afternoon, there are, perhaps, fifty
people in it; and it would hold, I dare say,
full twenty more, and allow space, into the
bargain, for a neat stand-up fight. One seems
very likely to take place now between the
costermonger, who has brought rather an
inconvenient number of " kea-rots " and
"turmuts " into the bar with him, and a
peripatetic vendor of fish — the quality of
whose wares he has (with some show of
justice, perhaps) impugned. So imminent
does the danger appear, that the blind
match-seller — who was anon importuning the
belligerents — hastily scuttles off; and an imp
of a boy, in a man's fustian jacket, and with
a dirty red silk 'kerchief twisted round his
bull neck, has mounted the big tub, on which
he sits astride, pipe in hand — a very St.
Giles's Bacchus — declaring that he will see
"fair play." Let us edge away a little towards
the bar — for the crowd towards the door is
somewhat too promiscuous to be agreeable;
and it is not improbable that in the mêlée,
some red-'kerchiefed citizen, of larger growth,
whose extensor and flexor muscles are
somewhat more powerfully developed, may make
a savage assault on you, for his own private
gratification, and the mere pleasure of hitting
somebody.

This ginnery has not only a bar public, but
divers minor cabinets, bibulous loose boxes,
which are partitioned off from the general
area; and the entrances to which are
described in flowery, but somewhat ambiguous,
language. There is the "Jug and Bottle
Entrance," and the entrance "For Bottles
only." There is the "Wholesale Bar," and
the " Retail Bar; " but, wholesale or retail,
jug or bottle, the different bars all mean Gin!
The long pewter counter is common to all.