Hock and Bucellas, with some Moselle, is
also disposed of in a similar manner, and to
similar customers. The people frequenting
these Shades are clerks, artisans, day labourers,
and others; and they all come for wine—few, if
any, for spirits. Speaking of the proposed
reduction of duty, this witness observed:

"If we could sell it at twopence or threepence
a quartern, we should have them all
day; even as it is now, if you were to see my
bar, and see the people how they come there
and drink wine!—they take a glass of wine—
bricklayers' labourers, coal-heavers, journeymen
carpenters, and men of all grades, come
in and take their fourpenny glass of wine, and
they go out sober. You never see anybody
drunk in my house. We have one thousand
people a day in it, and not a drunken man
among them. We have a great many cabmen
and omnibus men who used to drink gin—
they come often to my house, five or six of
them together, to drink a glass of sherry for
fourpence, instead of gin at twopence. . . .
Irish labourers very often carry home a
bottle of Port wine to their sick family."

Of the moral effect of supplying the bulk of
the labouring population with wholesome
wine, at a less cost than the poison sold as gin,
there can be but one sound opinion. There is,
however, another class, not so large, but still
more capable of being benefited by a reduction
of duty. The sick poor in hospitals,
in workhouses, and in their own humble
dwellings, would all be largely indebted to
any legislature which placed within their
reach a supply of generous wine: now but too
often impossible to be obtained. How many
cases of low fever among the poor might
not be arrested and cured by the timely
use of a little good wine! One of the
witnesses spoke to this point, for, in his evidence
as to the advantages of lowering the duty on
all kinds of wine, he said, " A little girl I was
fond of, thirteen years of age, was attacked
with typhus fever. Doctor S——, a friend of
mine, said, ' We cannot bring her about, except
by wine. I cannot give her quinine enough.
She must have wine every four hours.' I left
my own bed to attend to her, and she took no
less than six bottles of Port wine in eight
days: she recovered. You debar the population
of a sovereign remedy by your high
duties on wine, in a Christian land." The
medical value of this wine consists in the
tannin found so abundantly in it, similar,
indeed, to the principle of quinine, but more
capable of being taken in quantity without ill
effects.

It is further argued by the advocates of
free trade in wine that if, with the reduction
of duty, the license to retail the article were
reduced from the present sum of ten guineas
to one or two, very many shopkeepers of
respectability would gladly become retailers
of wines. In foreign countries, the traveller
may obtain a glass of wine at many places; in
this country, only by entering a public-house
or gin-palace, which none but the lowest
orders care to do. There is no doubt that,
were wine obtainable at pastry-cooks and
similar places, very many persons of both
sexes and in the middling and better classes,
would resort thither for an occasional glass
after a long day's walk in town: materially
helping the consumption.

Mr. Redding, the author of a work on wines,
gave some curious evidence relative to the
blending and adulteration of wines in this
country by dealers and retailers. It would
appear, indeed, from the substance of his
remarks, as well as from the evidence of other
witnesses, that the chances of our ever
swallowing a glass of genuine wine are against us
by very long odds. One witness, an importer
of Spanish wines, on being asked how much
genuine Sherry reached this country, replied,
"None whatever. " The real vintage of
Xeres, it seems, is blended with a dozen other
varieties, far inferior, but with more body.
Yet we are told that Spain could supply this
country with hundreds of thousands of gallons
of beautiful choice wines not known in this
market.

If to the medication pursued by the original
producers of these wines we add the additional
doctoring bestowed upon them after their
arrival in this country, it will no longer appear
wonderful that the English, nation are not
given to such beverages, but prefer beer and
spirits. The " Making up " of wines, whether
in or out of dock, would seem to be a
comparatively harmless process, merely consisting
of a blending of Beni-Carlos, Figuera, red
Cape, Port, Mountain, Brandy-washings, and
Elder-juice, with sundry pleasant articles, such
as salt of tartar, gum dragon, sanders wood,
&c.,—included under the head of etceteras.
These " blenders " would seem, however, to be
spotless beings as compared with certain
other gentry of the vinous profession, who are
in the habit of cooking up pipes of Port
from the most extraordinary materials. These
gentlemen have stolen the laurels from the
brows of Anderson and M. Robin, and
actually produce " fine old Port," and
"excellent Sherry," from no wine at all. One of
these wine wizards takes certain proportions
of brandy, cider, elder-juice, and other innocent
matters, places them in a Port pipe, with an
old brand on it, and lo! with one wave of
the magician's—pen, it is found to be fine old
Port! Those who are very particular, and
painfully conscientious, prefer adding a few
gallons of real Port; but these are not the
bold scientific men.

When the above magical compounds are
bottled, the ends of the corks are steeped in a
strong decoction of alum and Brazil-wood,
with the view of inducing an appearance of
premature old age; a teaspoonful of powder
of catechu being added to each bottle, a fine
crusted appearance will quickly follow. Who
would be silly enough to keep his Port twenty
years in his cellar, when, by the friendly aid