198 Master Minds of Modern Science 



duty is levied — and samples of finished beer are brought 

 in from public-houses in order to discover whether the 

 liquor has been adulterated. At one time it was quite 

 usual to find that the beer had been diluted with water, 

 but heavy fines have discouraged those guilty of this 

 mean swindle. 



Formerly spirits were tested only by an instrument 

 called the hydrometer, but this method failed badly when 

 colouring or sweetening matter had been added, and in 

 1881 a change was made to testing by distillation. 



Spirits are usually stored in wooden casks, and the wood 

 absorbs a considerable quantity of alcohol. Traders dis- 

 covered a means of extracting this alcohol from the wood, 

 with the result that every barrel yielded two to three 

 gallons of spirits which were practically duty free. But 

 the chemists of the Government Laboratory caught on to 

 this ingenious bit of tax-dodging, and ' grogging/ as it 

 is called, no longer pays. 



Not only alcoholic liquors, but ginger beer, herb beer, 

 and similar temperance drinks, are all tested in the 

 Laboratory. The law allows two per cent, of proof spirit 

 in these, but a surprisingly large number are found to 

 exceed this limit. Ginger beer is most often at fault. 

 Many samples are found to contain as much as two per 

 cent, of alcohol, and one was found to contain four per 

 cent., making it more intoxicating than an ordinary light 

 beer. 



Second only to drink, from the standpoint of tax 

 returns, is tobacco, and a whole department of the 

 Laboratory deals with tobacco and nothing else. All 

 tobacco entering the ports of Great Britain pays duty, 

 but there is of course much waste, or offal, on which a 

 rebate is allowed to the manufacturers. Waste includes 

 stalks, 'shorts/ and 'smalls/ 



A close watch is kept upon manufactured tobacco. Sir 

 Robert's chemists take very good care that the legal limit 



