210. MEALS MEDICINAL. 
it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of 
not taking enough of it.” Furthermore, after “the leg-of- 
mutton swarry” at Bath, when Sam Weller played the host to 
the departing guests, ‘‘Mr. Tuckle, the coachman in red, laid 
aside his cocked hat, and stick, which he had just taken up, and 
said he would have one glass for goodfellowship’s sake ; and, 
as the gentleman in blue went home the same way, he was 
prevailed upon to stop, too. When the Punch was about half 
gone, Sam ordered in some oysters from the greengrocer’s shop ; 
and the effect of both was so extremely exhilarating that Mr. 
Tuckle, dressed out with the cocked hat, and stick, danced the 
frog hornpipe among the shells on the table, while the gentleman 
in blue played an accompaniment upon an ingenious musical 
instrument formed of a hair-comb and a curl paper.” 
Rum is a spirit usually produced by the distillation of fer- 
mented molasses, as obtained in the manufacture of raw sugar, 
but the best varieties are procured by direct fermentation of 
sugar-cane juice. “Rum,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “I 
take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike 
to the product distilled from molasses, and the noblest juices 
of the vineyard. Burgundy in all its sunset glow is Rum / 
Champagne, the foaming wine of Eastern France, is Rum/” As 
a spirit it owes its dark colour to burnt sugar. A considerable 
quantity of the Rum sold in this country is made from “ silent 
spirit,” being flavoured chemically with “ ethyl-butyrate.” 
The most esteemed Rum comes from the West Indies, as Jamaica 
Rum, Antigua, Grenada, or Santa Crux Rum. Our forefathers 
a generation ago were fond of Rum Shrub (from Shariba, drink), 
which was concocted by boiling fresh currant juice for about 
ten minutes with an equal weight of sugar, and adding a little 
Rum. Thackeray wrote (Phillip’s Adventures): ‘‘ There never 
was any liquor so good as Rum Shrub, never! and the sausages 
had a flavour of Elysium.” ‘Oh! my young friend,” said the 
red-nosed Mr. Stiggins, the shepherd, to Sam Weller (in Pickwick), 
“all taps is vanities: if there is any one of them less odious 
than another it is the liquor called Rum,—warm, my dear young 
friend, with three lumps of sugar to the tumbler.” Rum is 
remarkable for its freedom from fusel oil, or amylic alcohol. 
Again, a Sherry Cobbler (originally Cobbler’s Punch) as a 
summer drink, to be sucked through a straw, is reviving, and 
wholesome in hot weather. It is made by mixing up together 
