Forest of Rossendale. 



145 



distances in the heat of summer, with their parched throats and 

 high spirits, they were naturally less critical of the quality of their 

 drink than at ordinary times, and the publicans, with what amount 

 of truth, beyond the declaration of the official Ale-taster, I am not 

 prepared to vouch, were suspected of taking advantage of the 

 circumstances to thin down their ales. 



The post of Ale-taster, though still nominally maintained, is in 

 reality obsolete, and could not be revived, even in out-of-the-way 

 places, without committing an anachronism. Even in Dick Taylor's 

 day the office was looked upon as- belonging to the past — a relic of 

 a bygone age, in which a different social system to the present 

 prevailed. It belonged to the days of stocks and pillories, of 

 ducking and cucking stools and scolds' bridles, of sluggard 

 wakeners and dog whippers. Tempora mutanliir. It needed a 

 genial humorist to assume the duties of the office in this latter 

 half of the nineteenth century, and a vulgar imitator would find 

 no favour. 



In a wide and populous district the duties, when conscientiously 

 performed, were more than mortal stomach could bear unharmed, 

 even though the paunch were like that of Falstaff, which Dick's 

 was not, and leaving out of account the temptations which beset 

 such an official. Dick took to ale-tasting as a jest, though he 

 performed his duties with an imperturbabje gravity which enhanced 

 the fun of the situation. Keen as was his taste for ale, he had a 

 keener relish for the humour of the position. Alas ! it was joking 

 perilously near to the edge of a precipice. The last of the Ale-tasters 

 died, a martyr to duty, on the loth day of October, 1876. Sic 

 itur ad astra. 



