FOOD AND FEEDING. 623 



cal of temperate habits, is intimately associated with the cigarette or 

 cigar. Only by the uncultured classes of Great Britain and of other 

 northern nations, who appear to possess the most insensitive palates in 

 Europe, have smoke and alcoholic drinks been closely associated. By 

 such, tobacco and spirit have been sought chiefly as drugs, and are 

 taken mainly for their effects on the nervous system the easy but dis- 

 astrous means of becoming stupid, besotted, or drunk. People of cul- 

 tivated tastes, on the other hand, select their tobacco or their wines, 

 not for their qualities as drugs, but for those subtler attributes of fla- 

 vor and perfume, which exist often in inverse proportion to the injuri- 

 ous narcotic ingredients ; which latter are as much as possible avoid- 

 ed, or are accepted chiefly for the sake of the former. 



Before quitting the subject of dining it must be said that, after 

 all, those who drink water with that meal probably enjoy food more 

 than those who drink wine. They have generally better appetite and 

 digestion, and they certainly preserve an appreciative palate longer 

 than the wine-drinker. Water is so important an element to them, that 

 they are not indifferent to its quality and source. As for the large 

 class which can not help itself in this matter, the importance of an 

 ample supply of uncontaminated water can not be overrated. The 

 quality of that which is furnished to the population of London is 

 inferior, and the only mode of storing it possible to the majority ren- 

 ders it dangerous to health. Disease and intemperance are largely 

 produced by neglect in relation to these two matters. It would be 

 invidious, perhaps, to say what particular question of home or foreign 

 politics could be spared, that Parliament might discuss a matter of 

 such pressing urgency as a pure water-supply ; or to specify what par- 

 ticular part of our enormous expenditure, compulsory and voluntary, 

 might be better employed than at present, by diverting a portion to 

 the attainment of that end. But for those who can afford to buy 

 water no purer exists in any natural sources than that of our own Mal- 

 vern springs, and these are aerated and provided in the form of soda 

 and potash waters of unexceptionable quality. Pure water, charged 

 with gas, does not keep so long as a water to which a little soda or 

 potash is added ; but for this purpose six to eight grains in each bot- 

 tle suffice a larger quantity is undesirable. All the great makers of 

 these beverages have now their own artesian wells or other equally 

 trustworthy sources, so that English aerated waters are unrivaled in 

 excellence. On the other hand, the foreign siphon, made, as it often 

 is, at any chemist's shop, and from the water of the nearest source, is 

 a very uncertain production. Probably our traveling fellow country- 

 men owe their attacks of fever more to drinking water contaminated 

 by sewage matter than to the malarious influences which pervade cer- 

 tain districts of southern Europe. The only water safe for the trav- 

 eler to drink is a natural mineral water, and such is now always pro- 

 curable throughout Europe, except in very remote or unfrequented 



