EXPORT OF ICE TO INDIA NATIVE WINES. 429 



This shipment has been made as an experiment, with 

 the intention, if it should prove successful and profit- 

 able, of keeping a constant supply in the Calcutta 

 markets ; and with the hope, if the business should 

 be placed on a permanent fopting, of furnishing the 

 ice at a sufficiently low price to put it within the 

 reach of every inhabitant in Calcutta, in moderate 

 circumstances, to enjoy it as a daily luxury. The 

 shipper of this parcel has for several years supplied 

 the southern part of the United States, the West 

 India Islands, and several ports in South America 

 with ice ; and in these places it has become, if not 

 necessary, at least a common luxury of life, extended 

 even to medical practice, as an auxiliary, and in some 

 cases as a primary cure, in many of the fevers, and 

 other acute diseases peculiar to the tropics. The loss 

 on the passage did not exceed from 28 to 30 per cent. 

 A question arises as to its being admitted free of duty, 

 and this point will be brought before the proper au- 

 thorities. 



To proceed with our chief concern the manufac- 

 ture of British Wines it is necessary, primarily, to 

 advert to their number, and to distinguish those which 

 are really worth time and labour, sugar and water ; 

 among such, I cannot, in conscience, include wines 

 from turnips, potatoes, blackberries, and the sap and 

 roots of trees, unless I may be also allowed to include 

 tobacco : and, to speak my mind freely, I entertain 

 suspicion, that these are nought but the wines, whose 

 only casks and bottles have been blurred paper, the 

 mere speculations of fertile and active brains. Indeed, 

 I do not insist upon this, but can aver positively, that 



