1830.] Affairs in General 323 



of encouragement to England ; and the cultivation of British gin is, as 

 naturally, the " remunerating boon," as " Science" says. 



Science is vigorous in its proceedings, and the cultivation of that truly 

 British commodity has succeeded to a flourishing extent, which must 

 enrapture the eye of an economist. But to the fact. In the year 1825, 

 Science reduced the duties on British spirits, with the avowed purpose 

 of increasing their consumption. Many persons doubted the wisdom of 

 such a step, and foresaw its consequences. But the measure was recom- 

 mended by Mr, Huskisson ; and, being founded upon the most approved 

 principles of political economy, the apprehensions for the health and 

 morals of our population were treated economically. The result, it must 

 be admitted, has completely answered the purpose of those who recom- 

 mended the expedient. The consumption of British spirits has, within 

 these few years, prodigiously increased. The police reports give the 

 most attractive evidence of the zeal with which the populace second the 

 zeal of the philosophers ; and we must give credit to Mr. Peel for his 

 provident invention of the blue devil police, whose chief office being, to 

 pick up those practical " economists" from the kennel, we understand 

 that they intend to apply for a new civic order of merit, which Lord 

 Alvanley says should be the " Spinning-ginny " and the name, the Blue- 

 ruins. But to the fact again. It appears, from papers laid before Par- 

 liament, that the average consumption of 1820, 21, and 22, amounted, in 

 round numbers, to 11,974,000 gallons; while the average of 1825, 26, 

 and 27, was 23,540,000 gallons. In the last of these years it was 

 24,346,460 gallons ! Of those, nearly twenty millions of gallons were 

 the manufacture of the United Kingdom, and produced a revenue of 

 4,107*5822. The public evidence of this brilliant change is palpable in 

 the enlarged magnificence and picturesque beauty of the gin-shops, in 

 the rapid conversion of all the minor sinning tribe of coffee-shops, wine 

 cellars, porter houses, &c. into vermilion arid gold-flourished and deco- 

 rated temples of the gin Goddess, and in the crowd of devotees that 

 bring their hourly offerings to the shrine, and continue their prostrations 

 all the way home. 



Mr. Hodges has just announced a boiler that would float a seventy- 

 four ; and Mr. Deady has threatened to rival him before a month is over, 

 with a boiler that empties the Islington reservoir to cover its bottom to 

 the depth of one inch " imperial." The truth is, that the trade thrives, 

 and gin is " looking up," whatever its drinkers may do. The ordinary 

 statesman may go the way of so many other statesman, and sink into a 

 babbler at Brussels and Boulogne ; or repose himself in the majesty of 

 gout on his borough sofa, until he ceases to haunt back-benches, and 

 becomes divested of the power of scribbling a frank. But the tomb of 

 the philosopher deserves to be not unknown ; they should not " sleep 

 without the meed of some melodious tear," to whom during life, so many 

 owed "a drop i' the eye." Where is the feeling that would deny to 

 him a cordial recollection ? They should not sink into unregarded clay 

 to whom so many owed " spirit ;" they should not be pressed by the 

 common obscurity, whom the arts of decorating shop windows, andpfaint- 

 ing noses, hail as revivers and Raphaels. 



All the world knows the reply of the Sultan Mustapha to Cromwell's 

 Ambassador, who wanted to make a protestant of the magnificent unbe- 

 liever : " If I ever turn Christian it shall be Catholic, for I never heard 



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