The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-02-27
Sweet Cider.

Somebody in q late periodical, traveller
who has tasted the wines of France and
the coffee Of Turkey in their own homes,
comes back and sings heartily the praise OF
cider, declaring it is and ought to be the
national American drink, as it is the favor
ites beverage in Normandy, where it is
found on the tables of the great landed
proprietors, who cherish their apple Or
chards as the monks of Cyprus their vine
yards, He goes SO far as to declare, too,
that all genuine Americans, in secret, pre-
fer cider to any other drink, and are only
deferred from its use by shame. We heard |
keen sighted social philosopher assert
the other day, that the rapid physical de-
terioration of the New-Englanders as a |
race might be dated from the time when |
they gave up cider and the hearty good
living which it typi6es, and took to tea and
mental pabulum instead. The Massachu-
sets farmer in Endieott's time ate his four
meals day. measured six feet two in his
stockings, read his Bible, and died, believ-
ing it, at four score and ten. Nowadays,
he has cut down his apple orchards, starves
at home and sells the last cleaning of
wheat to educate his son at Cambridge,
finds his religious speculations in Emerson,
until his lean body. being too tired to work
longer, goes down to death to prove the
truth Oh LDcSe SpcCuLallOuS AT lle uutluct
ly age of fifty i've. t#
We, of course, cannot approve these
vigorous enunciations of the health and
morality latent in any drink but that of
cold water. Theoretically, we march with
the total abstinence phalanx but practi-
cally, the mere mention of the old-fashioned
apple juice brings up to us and to our read
ers pictures which somehow. embody, as
does nothing else,s the country and Its
homes, The American goes to Europe
and repairs without delay to study the
tranquility, the garden-like fullness of al
English landscape; or he hies him t.
Southern France or Italy and stands en-
raptured gazing at the dark. low-lying hills
crusted with vines, the cleaning white vii
las, the cloudless depths of color which are
not that which he has been used to call tn.
sky 1t is certain that he never saw pic
ture so fair; yet after all, it is but pic
ture. He has no part in it: his guild,
book is in his hand his courier at his elbow
his trunks are at the hotel: there are
thousand other landscapes, statues, church
es, waiting for him to see. It may be al
right for the Spaniard or Frenchman {,
talk with effusiou of olive groves or vim
clad hills but what are they to Cobbs o
Pennsylvania or White of Oregon, excep
picture belonging to somebody else
But from Pennsylvania to Oregon Their
stretch orchards each one of which belong
to some Americans childhood Every on
of our readers has such one in bis mind
eye now the grass brown after the earl,
frost; the white dandehon seed floating
drowsily in the yellow sunshine, and tn,
old crooked trees weighted will
blood-red Baldwins and golden pip
pins. These old patriarchs of th,
he L., a,.Ir =
all trees to him; he and his brothers use.
to make seats high up in their crotche,
trunks, his own children have fastened
swing Just now to their branches. Be
tween the orchard and the house the CT
der-press stands, and as he tastes tn,
mellow golden juice, it seems as if he wer
boy again, burning with patriotism ol
Independence day, hating the British ant
ready to take oath that no skies are s.
fair as the purple splendors that rise on
cold Fall evening over the old homestead
About this time Of the year. too, whel
there is nothing to be done (for not evel
the butter can be sent into market on &C
count Of the deep snows), what a par
does this homely drink play in America
hospitality Kryter, who has just moye
into this new house on Murray Hill
laughs uproariously at poor Hodge an,
his like tipping cider. Kryter has |.
cellar full of wines-his own importation
for which he outbid Royal Duke in Lon
don. He has butler, too. of like super
lative quality. He is apt to tell hi
guests before dinner is over how much b
pays that scouudrel, and has paid 70
the wines. Half his responsibility
based on the butler and the drinks, H
is afraid of the one, and does not ofte
touch the other. Whisky, half and hail
he really enjoys. Bell, Kryter's clerI
has as lofty social aims as his employer
lie boards at u stylish house on one q
the cross streets, where by dint of sleer
ing on the fourth floor in closet chamber
he eau afford his bottle of miserable chan
payne at dinner He goes with rage
shirts often to buy the sour stuff but the
what an aristocratic sound is ia the 10
OF the cork His children were born
this boarding house; they drink the dree
FROM the glasses after dinaer thew liste
to gossip of the Brooklyn trial and III
last case of bribery at breakfast, and carr
away ideas more vile than the chea,
poison of the heeltars But il Is only i
the scant fringe Of cities about this grea
country that fashionable wines and fasl
ionahle manners prevail. There are II
Vulnerable homes where, on this wintr
Eahruarv nf0tf - E.,I Al