1870.] Beer, Scientifically and Socially Considered. 



315 



beer is on the average half as great as in the English, so that 

 where an Englishman drinks a pint, a German may partake of a 

 quart ; but when we look at the character of the beer drunk by the 

 intemperate classes in England, and compare it with that of the 

 poorer people abroad, we may unhesitatingly assert that less injury 



Name of Beer. 



Percentage of 



Alcohol. 



Malt 

 Extract. 



Carbonic 

 Acid. 



Water. 



Strong Scotch Ale 



Burton Ale 



Barclay's London Porter 



Dreher's Vienna Beer* 



Low Brussels Beer (Faro) 



Bavarian Draught Beer 



Sweet Bohemian Beer (Prague) 

 Liverpool Doctored Beer (Mr. Tate's test) 



Berlin White Beer 



Sweet Brunswick Beer (Mum) 



8'5 



5-9 



5-4 



4-62 



4-9 



3-8 



3-9 



2-2 



1-9 



1-9 



10 



14 



6 



2 



5 



10 



5 



45 



9 

 5 

 



9 

 8 

 9 



7 

 



015 



o : i6 



: 2 

 0-14 



: 6 



80-45 



79-6 



88-44 



92-0 



90-26 



85-2 



91-8 

 53-1 



would arise from drinking half-a-gallon of German beer than from a 

 pint of English ale. And again, when we compare the Berlin 

 " Weissbier," which contains 1*9 per cent, of alcohol, with the lowest 

 Liverpool beer, which Mr. Tate found to contain only 22 per cent., 

 and consider that whilst the Prussian artisan may imbibe his beve- 

 rage all day long from quart tankards with impunity, an English 

 labourer will succumb to a few glasses of the public-house trash ; 

 what other inference can be drawn, than that it is not the beer 

 but the drugs it contains which affect the brain? I have been 

 told that English labourers will not take kindly to German beer ; 

 it is not strong enough for them. This is quite true of the present 

 generation ; how should it be otherwise, when their taste has been 

 corrupted by cocculus indicus, tobacco, and salt ? But unless the 

 advocates of temperance strenuously support the introduction of a 

 mild, pure, cheap drink (for the Englishman not alone buys bad 

 beer, but pays three or four, aye in some cases five or six times as 

 much for it as the German does for his unadulterated beverage), 

 unless, I say, a vigorous effort is made to change the taste of the 

 next generation as it grows up, the same difficulty will still remain 

 to be overcome by posterity. 



And now let me, in conclusion, refer to the data which have 

 been given by an eminent Swiss social economist, to show (as I 

 have done elsewhere!) that comparative sobriety is the result of 



* For this test, I am indebted, through the kindness of Dr. Frankland, to 

 Mr. W. Valentin, of the Eoyal College of Chemistry. 



f ' The German Working Man,' p. 70, quoting Gustave Moynier, ' Les Insti- 

 tutions ouvrieres de la Suisse. Cherbuliez : Paris. 



VOL. VII. Z 



