CONSEQUENCE OF LOW WAGES. 337 



the custom of private brewing has been immemorial 

 and nearly universal. It is a favourite topic of the 

 present day, to warrant something similar of the 

 country labourers of former and better times. So 

 far as my recollection extends, I have never known 

 such a custom to be general, but prevailing only, in 

 any considerable degree, in the rich counties, and 

 even in those, confined to the best paid and most 

 provident labourers. In the poor counties, and 

 where wages are low, very little ability subsisted 

 among the labourers to supply themselves with 

 home-brewed beer, upwards of threescore years 

 ago. Within my knowledge, it was a thing con- 

 stantly attempted, and periodically relinquished, 

 from want of funds. Casks could not always be ob- 

 tained, and the drink was therefore to be used from 

 the tubs, which, in due time, from defect of the 

 means to procure malt, stood rotting without doors. 

 Granting, indeed, a bold push to be made by virtue 

 of some saving or God-send, how could a wretched 

 family contrive to brew, upon such wages as five or 

 six shillings per week, the then standard in the 

 Western counties? Certainly, the practice has 

 greatly diminished since, and its opposite, of pur- 

 chasing beer, greatly increased, to a lamentable de- 

 terioration of the morals of the country labourers, 

 whose advance in the scale of society is devoutly to 

 be wished, and to whom the custom of brewing their 

 own beer is peculiarly appropriate ; and with respect 

 to their health and well-doing, indispensable. 



The present topic of the comforts of the labour- 

 ing classes naturally introduces the modern, but 



Q 



