I.] BREWING. 17 



family may drink good and wholesome beer ; in a 

 short time, out of the mere savings from this waste, 

 may drink it out of silver cups and tankards. In a 

 labourer's family, wholesome beer, that has a little 

 life in it, is all that is wanted in general. Little 

 children, that do not work, should not have beer. 

 Broth, porridge, or something in that way, is the 

 thing for them. Hdwever, I shall suppose, in order 

 to make my comparison as little complicated as pos- 

 sible, that he brews nothing but beer as strong as 

 the generality of beer to be had at the public-house, 

 and divested of the poisonous drugs which that beer 

 but too often contains ; and I shall further suppose 

 that he uses in his family two quarts of this beer 

 every day from the first of October to the last day of 

 March inclusive : three quarts a day during the 

 months of April and May ; four quarts a day during 

 the months of June and September ; and five quarts 

 a day during the months of July and August ; and 

 if this be not enough, it must be a family of drunk- 

 ards. Here are 1097 quarts, or 274 gallons. Now, 

 a bushel of malt will make eighteen gallons of bet- 

 ter beer than that which is sold at the public-houses. 

 And this is precisely a gallon for the price of a quart. 

 People should bear in mind, that the beer bought at 

 the public-house is loaded with a beer tax, with the 

 tax on the public-house keeper, in the shape of 

 license, with all the taxes and expenses of the brew- 

 er, with all the taxes, rent, and other expenses of the 

 publican, and with all the profits of both brewer and 

 publican ; so that when a man swallows a pot of 

 beer at a public-house, he has all these expenses to 

 help to defray, besides the mere tax on the malt and 

 on the hops. 



26. Weil, then, to brew this ample supply of good 

 beer for a labourer's family, these 274 gallons, re- 

 quires fifteen bushels of malt and (for let us do the 

 thing well) fifteen pounds of hops. The malt is now 

 eight shillings a bushel, and very good hops may be 

 bought for less than a shilling a pound. The grains 

 and yeast will amply pay for the labour and fuel 

 2* 



