434 MISERIES OF BAD QUAIITEIIS. 



common people, thought in the greatest extreme 

 better than a gentleman without a title) were to 

 enter an alehouse, the most that could be procured 

 for him would be mutton or beef, both perhaps as 

 tough, and with as little fat, as the boots or gaiters 

 on his legs. A chop or steak is provided. If he 

 does not eat it, he may starve : if he does, his plea- 

 sure for the next day is possibly destroyed by his un- 

 pleasant sufferings from indigestion. He gets some 

 sour beer, which gives him the heart-burn, and pro- 

 bably calls for brandy, or gin ; the one execrably bad 

 and unwholesome ; the other of the worst quality ; 

 and, of course, mixed with water, by which adultera- 

 tion is derived the greatest part of the publican's 

 profit. The spirit merchants make it, what they call 

 above proof, in order to allow for its being diluted, 

 the doing which, so far from dishonesty, is now 

 literally the common practice, not only with many 

 respectable innkeepers, but by retail merchants them- 

 selves. Our young sportsman, at last, retires to a 

 miserable chamber and a worse bed ; where, for want 

 of ordering it to be properly aired, he gets the rheu- 

 matism ; and, from the draughts of air that pene- 

 trate the room, he is attacked with the tooth-ache. 

 He rises to a breakfast of bad tea, without milk ; 

 and then starts for his day's sport, so (to use a 

 fashionable term) " bedevilled" that he cannot " touch 

 a feather :" and, in the evening, returns to his second 

 edition of misery. 



On the other hand, "an old campaigner would, 



