The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-06

the year 100 about seven shillings. It had then replaced beer in nearly all To- calities in New England in daily diet; yet at the commencement dinner at Harvard in 1703 four barrels of beer were served. and one of cider, and eighteen gallons of wine, Judge Sewall constantly refers to cider drinking. By this time 1t was cheaper by the barrel than was corn or carrots.
 In 172l one village of forty families made three thousand barrels of cider, and Judge Joseph Wilder of Lancaster, Mass, made six hundred and sixteen barrels in the year 172S.
 Metheglin was another drink univer- sally liked, yet not of large consump- tion as was cider. In the list of values fixed by the Piscataqua planters pound of beaver paid for three gallons of metheglin. In the middle of the cen- tury it was worth ten shillings a gallon in the Connecticut valley. It was a kind of mead made of water, honey and yeast; also sometimes of the fermented beans of the honey locust All kinds of strong herbs were boiled in water, and then the honey was added to the strong
 
 ed, and the liquor fermented. Some- times ginger, cloves, cinnamon and mace were boiled in It was very in- toxicating, as the old Druids found in their carousals. We find records of ar rest for drunkenness through metheg- lin drinking. James Howell said; "Metheglin does stupefy more than any other liquor if taken tmmoderately, and l. s,,-. l,1 r ty,
 Mead was also made from honey and hops. Beverage was name applied to various mild mixtures of weak cider with water and various flavorings. Perry was made from pears, and peachy from peaches, but not in any considerable quantity.
 It is curious to note that in those days of struggling, Of pioneering, of compar- ative lack of money, rare French, Por- tuguese and Spanish wines and bran- dies were found in the Virginia ordina- ries in such plenty that their rates of sale had to be fixed by law. To-day only the meanest and rankest brands of whiskey can be bought at Virginia country tavern. Then Madeira, sack sherry. Malaga, muscadine, alicant, Fayal, palm wine, Rhenish wine, and other foreign wines were sold at inns. Governor Harvey said in 1888 that half the tobacco raised was thrown away in a superflnity of wines and brandies. The massacre by the Indians in 1922 was gravely attributed by the company in London to enormous excesses in apparel and drinking"
 To check exorbitant charges by inn keepers the rates were fixed in 1645, &C., cording to "Henning's Statues" at thir- ty pounds of tobacco for gallon of Canary. Malaga, sherry, muscadine or alicant; for Madeira and Fayal. twenty pounds; for English spirits, eighty pounds; for brandy, forty pounds. In 1647 the prices had doubled. Ten years later still the prices had again doubled, apparently, but in fact tobacco was a sliding scale of value. and prices also were given in hard money. Spanish and Portuguese wines and rum were ten shillings a. gallon. which was cheaper than they could be bought in England at the same date; brandy, English spirits and Virginia drams, which were apple and peach brandies, were sixteen shillings. In 1871 those latter were classed and priced along with the Spanish wines.
 In New England the consumption of choice wines was also great, and the first object of foreign trade. The first ship built in Boston-the Trial-brought back from her first voyage, which was to Fayal, in 1643, a load chiefly of wine, sugar and cotton, which, through Gods blessing" were thus plentiful and cheap in Boston. The next trip, to Malaga, brought back Spanish wines. Ten years later, when the colonies seemed half paraiyzed by the complete stoppage of immigration still the wines of the Western islands and of Portugal and Spain found ready purchasers In Boston. Tn 1885 there was great scar
 city in wine." and the apostle Eliot sug- l gested an awakening of the land, to l consider ye excesse vt hath here bene that way" But in 1850 Johnson, in his
 'Wonder- Working Providence says that wine and sugar were ordinarily spent more freely in Massachusetts than In England"
 But more than beer more than wine did the colonists drink rum-and rum
 deserves chapter by itself,-Chicagc l Record