342 QUALITIES AND SPECIES OF MALT. 



knowledge, a London brewer, half a century since, 

 drew from a quarter of the best Herts white malt, 

 only two barrels of fine ale, which he sold to publicans 

 at forty shillings, and to private houses at two guineas 

 per barrel. It was perhaps a singular instance, he 

 used no adulteration whatever. The immense lengths 

 which have been drawn since, both in the porter and 

 pale beer brewery, are an abundant proof of the virtue 

 of taxation, in improving the art, by exciting the 

 chemical skill of the brewer. A late observation of 

 Mr. Wodehouse, in parliament, is the best commen- 

 tary on this : the honourable gentleman observed 

 that, notwithstanding the vast increase of population, 

 the consumption of malt has not increased, during 

 upwards of the last thirty years : and the patriotic 

 Lord Teynham, at a late meeting in London on the 

 malt and beer duties, those disgraces to our national 

 finance, repeated the following extraordinary fact; 

 at the present moment there is a less consumption of 

 malt, by two- thirds, than there was in 1773 ! Mr. 

 Maberly's motion for changing the duties merits the 

 most serious attention from every Englishman who 

 values his own, or the interests of his country. 



On the above topic, the decrease in the consump- 

 tion of malt, notwithstanding the immensely increased 

 consumption of beer, the following astounding and 

 discouraging facts are given on the authority of Mr. 

 R. Montgomery Martin. "The tax on Malt was first 

 imposed in England by the 7th money act, William 

 III. first Parliament, section 2, at the rate of 6d. per 

 bushel, or 4s. per quarter. The duty stole on from 

 time to time, until, in 1787, it reached to 10s. 6d. per 



