The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-05-02
ORIGIN OF WHISKY.
1t Is Said to Have Been Discovered by an
English Monk.

1t Is Said to Have Been Discovered by an
English Monk.
Some quaint characters can be found
in the odd places of this great cosmopoli-
tan city now and then. met one of
them driving street car on the Eighth
avenue line. He is Welshman named
Evan Jones-little iron-grey old man,
with keen black eyes and highly
roseate nose. He was a school-teacher
in his own country, a revenue officer in
Ireland, an accountant in Bombay in an
English shipping house, and now drives
his Car with the profane and cynical
cheerfulness which characterizes old
drivers, old printers and old night
Waterman.
81 learned new thing about whisky
last night" he said to me yesterday, as
l stepped on the front platform of his
car.
''What was it?" / asked.
''Why, how it was made first" he re-
piled, as he pulled his old waterproof
coat through the guardrail in front and
bit off a piece of ping. cit was a monk
who first invented it. He lived all alone
in little hole in the rocks. For years
he had lived there. He was a man of
great piety and learning. He could read
the stars and fOrete1l eclipses and storms
and winters. He knew every herb and
flower in the fields and could concoct
some powerful cordials and medicines.
He could set broken bones and cure dis
eases, and he was as kind-hearted as a
child, and never harmed as much as a
held-mOuse. All the same the people
would have nothing to do with him.
They avoided him, except now and then,
when some miSchievOus lad would roll
rock down the mountain side against
his hut or else stone his old shaggy dog.
No one said kind word to him, and he
might have died and no one would have
been near him. Then he invented whis-
ky. First the people smelled it. and
they used to hang around to see what it
was, and one day the monk found poor
fellow sick and cold, and gave him
drink, and then little flask to carry
away. In week the monk had more
friends than an alderman with pull.
The people almost took his arm off shak-
ing hands. They built him fine little
stone house, and he could have founded
monastery and grown rich, but he
wouldn't, but kept on making the whis-
ky until he died.
Where did l learn that?" said the
old man, after he had paused minute
to say something sarcastic about a
woman who wanted the car to stop on
the wrong side of the crossing. '.SVhy,
there was two old ducks got on the car
late last night, and both were pretty
full. One was an Englishman and the
other an Irishman, and it was the En-
glishman who told the story about the
monk, and he wound up with: And this
happened in Ireland, an the monk was
an Englishman, an the only time an
Irishman is ever friend to an English
man is when the Englishman has the
bottle
'Ah, said the Irishman,. be off wild |
We. The first time Irishmen ever saw
whisky was at the battle of Ballyma-
cleugh, where the Saxons put up bad |
job on 'em. 1t was but short time after
the days of st. Patrick. an five thousand I
Irishmen came down upon the English |
and would have ate em up but for their
thricks. The English filled the trenches
wild buckets of whisky, and the Irish
men drank it an got to fighting among
themselves, and that is the way the En-
glishmen first bate us and brought |
trouble on Ireland
Eyes, said the Englishman you give
an Irishman drink and he'll fight his |
own father
An if an Englishman offers man
a drink look out for him, he wants to
do i'm, moind that, said the Irishman.
"And that's the way they kept it up
all the way down from Fiftv-eighth
street to Abingdon square," said the
driver. ''They were both good-natured,
and when they got off it was to take
drink and wait for the next car."-N. Y.
Star