CIDER AS A " PRIVILEGE." 239 



is drunk within the cider districts themselves ; and for 

 both markets home and outside it is provided both 

 in cask and bottle, and in varying degrees of excellence, 

 or of inferiority, according to the quality of the apple 

 used for its production. 



It was probably owing to the abundance of cider 

 in the apple districts that the cider truck system 

 originated a system under which the farm labourer 

 is paid part of his wages in drink. Although it is 

 practically part of his pay, it is commonly included in 

 what are called the " privileges " of the men, although 

 very often it is the only " privilege." But ordinarily 

 the " privilege " does not, or at least it did not at the 

 period to which we are referring, extend to the quality 

 of the drink. It was notorious that not only the worst 

 kind of apples, but the dirtiest and the most rotten, 

 were ground up, or rather pressed in the cider " cheese " 

 as the squeezed mass of apples is called for the 

 labourers' use. Sometimes the same apples were used 

 for the men as for the farmers' own use or for sale ; 

 and then what was called the " second wringing," or 

 the juice extracted by additional pressure after the 

 first lot of juice had been run off from the " cheese," 

 was utilised for the peasants. To strengthen the 

 " second wringing " or inferior liquor, some hop water 

 about four gallons to the hogshead was added to it. 

 This addition would tend to preserve the inferior cider, 

 which otherwise, from its inferiority, would be likely 

 to turn sour. It was estimated that, as a marketable 

 commodity, the " second wringing " was worth about 

 half the value of the first or better " wringing." We 

 were, in fact, assured, by those who knew, that the value 

 of the poor stuff was no more than one-third of that 

 made for the farmers' " own drinking " and for 

 the publicans or other customers. Sometimes the 

 labourers' cider was called the " second tap," and that 

 expression originated the saying that the farmers had 



