BREWING INTRODUCTION. 333 



SECTION XIX. 

 The Brewery. 



MALT LIQUOR, or BEER, is styled the natural bever- 

 age of Englishmen : which being rendered into plain 

 English, will stand thus our country produces the 

 materials, and custom almost immemorial has esta- 

 blished the manufacture, and sanctioned its universal 

 use. There is, moreover, another sanction of superior 

 rationality to mere custom. The quality of genuine 

 malt liquor, when of sufficient age, but not old, is 

 peculiarly nutritious, adapted to the moist and varia- 

 ble climate, and to the constitutions of the people of 

 this country. To speak first of the 



PUBLIC BREWERY. It is to be lamented, that 

 commercial and fiscal interests have interfered, most 

 mischievously, in this great article of human sub- 

 sistence. The BREWERY represents one of our most 

 considerable and profitable manufacturing concerns ; 

 from its universality, the most convenient and ready 

 instrument of taxation. The consequence has been, 

 that the health and interest of the people have, on 

 this, as on every other occasion, been sacrificed to 

 fiscal and trading profit. The exigencies of the state 

 have demanded an enormous impost on malt. This 

 the brewers cannot afford to pay, preserving at the 



