Tz On Oolonial Wines. 
In my youth I spent full seven years in and near the 
great capital of Portugal, in times of turmoil and almost dis- 
organisation of society, consequent on civil wars, when the 
utmost excitement prevailed and the bad passions of men 
for a season broke loose, yet in that city of three times the 
- population of Melbourne, and where wine was not more 
than two pence the quart bottle and strong brandy five 
or six pence the imperial pint, | never saw a Portuguese 
drunk. The occasional spectacle of a Dutch or British 
sailor drunk in the gutter, and dealing largely in loyalty to 
his own country and eternal execration of all others, used to 
afford an hour’s cheap amusement to a whole street. Among 
themselves drunkenness, and delirvun, tremens, and our 
forms of liver complaint were wholly unknown. 
In the interests then of health and morality, and cheerful 
and happy homes, may I be pardoned for recording my 
heartfelt wish, that I may live to see the time when 
even the humblest labourer, at the close of his hot day’s 
toil, will stroll into our fine parks and public gardens, and 
there with his happy family around him, enjoy his hour 
of relaxation and drink his bottle of wholesome wine at the 
cost of a few pence, without either the reproach of extrava- 
gance or the danger of intoxication. In fact I hope and wish 
to see the Victorians a healthy, sober, jolly, wine-drinking 
population. 
es in eri akan 
STILLWELL AND KNIGHT, PRINTERS, 78, COLLINS-STRERT HART, 
a aa OE, Kamer atc 
