THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1888. 
after this, and never had the smallest return of 
his old complaint 1" Mirabile dicta we may well 
exclaim. 
The statist of Yester (East Lothian) thus gives 
expression to his faith in beer : — " The children, in 
general, are not so stout as they were forty years 
ago, which must be owing in a great measure to the 
different manner of living, as the common people 
now drink a great deal of tea, and not good small 
beer, which they did fifty years ago." An Edinburgh 
physician (Dr. W. Nisbet), who reports for Currie 
(Mid Lothian), thus states his opinions : — " Till 
within these few years, the people of this parish 
were sober, industrious, and economical. The 
vices of the capital, however, are beginning to 
spread fast among them, and the introduction of 
those baneful articles to the poor — tea and whisky — 
will soon produce that corruption of morals and 
debility of constitution which are already so severely 
felt in many parishes. . . . The introduction of 
these artioles is one bad effect of the present 
practice of debasing and vitiating malt liquor. 
Formerly when that liquor was the only beverage 
in use, excesses from it did not affect the constitu- 
tion, as it contained a good deal of nourishment. 
But now since it has been debased it is entirely 
given up." 
Such was the medical wisdom of those days — tea 
and whisky classed together as equally inimical to 
morality, and good beer pronounced harmless even 
when taken in excess. We need not wonder then 
if simple clergymen get a little wild on the subject. 
The minister of Ayton (Berwick) says : — 'The trades- 
men and labourers in the village are addicted to the 
pernicious habit of using tea. Of late also, from 
the low price of whisky, the execrable custom of 
dram drinking is gaining ground even among women 
of the lower classes." Similarly his neighbour of 
Coldingham (Berwickshire) says : — " The only extra- 
vagance they are guilty of is their breakfasting 
upon tea in place of pottage, the constant morning 
diet of their more athletic ancestors, which debili- 
tates them. . . . and the immoderate use of 
whisky, which destroys them. This is owing to 
the cheapness of these two superfluous and pernicious 
articles." The minister of Dalmeny (Linlithgow- 
shire), too, says: "The luxuries in which they 
(the common people) indulge are tea, and, what 
is worse, whisky." Every one did not, however, 
consider whisky the worse of the two ; for the 
minister of Gargunnock (Stirlingshire) says : — " Tea 
is universally used. Even the poorest families 
have it occasionally, and the last cup is qualified 
with a little whisky, which is supposed to correct 
all the bad effect of the tea." The minister of 
Dyke and Moy (Morayshire) remarks that " the use 
of tea makes rather an alarming progress among 
many who need a better nourishment at less cost." 
The minister of Sorbie (Wigtonshire,), who held 
that the effects of the public-houses were most 
injurious to the morals and industry of the people, 
especially when little else than whisky was sold 
in them, gives a very explicit opinion in these 
words — "A few pence procures as much of this 
base spirit as is sufficient to make any man mad. 
The landlords of superfluous petty public-houses 
generally waste their time and ruin their constitu- 
tions by acting like decoys on their silly, half- 
resolved neighbours. In this shameless business 
they are flattered by the notion of promoting trade." 
One claaB of curious statists give illustrative 
figures ; for example, the report for Muirhouse 
(Forfarshire) says — " When the present incumbent 
settled here, which was in the year 1701, there were 
oii.'y two tea kettles in the parish, though now there 
[s scarcely a householder who does not use that 
j usury." Ilia heigubgur of Mains of Fintry (Forfar 
also says : — " In 1760 there was only one eight-day 
clock in the parish, six watches, and one tea kettle. 
In 1790 there are thirty clocks, above a hundred 
watches, and at least 1G0 tea kettles, there being 
scarce a family but has one, and many that have 
two." The statist of Benholme (Kincardineshire) 
informs us that " about 50 years ago the excise 
officer's family was the only one in Johnshaven that 
made use of tea. When the kettle was carried to 
the well to bring in water, numbers of both children 
and grown people followed it, expressing their 
wonder, and supposing it to be a beast with a horn I" 
Bather green this, we should say. Among this class 
may be reckoned the minister of Hownam (Box- 
burghshire), who states that " the number of ale- 
houses (in his parish) are two. The effect they have 
is rather unfavourable to the morality of the people.'' 
The people are, however, "in general piously dis- 
posed," and he is evidently more afraid of a meeting 
house "of the wildest" kind of seceders, whose 
" principles are not supposed to be very favourable 
to morals and true piety," than he is of the two 
ale-houses. It was different in Bourtie (Aberdeen- 
shire), where we read— " The advantages are the 
sobriety of the inhabitants (not an alehouse being 
in the parish), and the diligence of the women 
in knitting stockings." At Keith-hall, a neighbour- 
ing parish to the last named, then under the 
incumbency of Dr. Skene Keith, a man of con- 
siderable learning and original genius, and father of 
the late Dr. Keith, St. Cyrus, well known for his 
writings on prophecy, the people were in general 
" industrious, and live plainly, and in such sobriety 
that since 1788 three different attempts to settle 
an alehouse among them have proved abortive." 
While several of the statists look back with fond 
regret on the good times gone past, others take 
care to inform us of the improvement exhibited 
in their own day, while yet a third class have an 
eye to further reform. The statist for Banff resorts 
to the use of parallel columns in illustrating the 
advance of society thus : — 
1748. 1798. 
A joyous company after | A sober party sometimes 
dinner have been quaffing | meet, whose libation con- 
the wine of a dozen bottles I sists of a solitary bottle 
from a single glass. | with a dozen glasses. 
The minister of Cromarty significantly "hopes" 
the removal of the coal tax will " supersede the 
necessity in the people of having recourse so much 
to what heats them internally, by affording them 
improved and easy access to comfortable heat of 
au external nature." His contemporary of Boharm 
(Banff and Morayshires), in a passage which we 
have rarely seen exceeded in the way of bombast, 
utters what he, no doubt, conceived to be a 
profoundly wise and eloquent deliverance on the 
subject of needed reform in the drinking habits 
of the people. He says — " By the nauseous draft 
of train oil in Lapland, and the more disgusting 
beverage of Otaheite, it may be inferred that man 
cannot be satisfied with the simple element alone 
of water." From the different circumstances "con- 
comitant " on the excise laws in England and in 
Scotland, he is of opinion that it would be difficult 
to " investigate why beer has been the prevailing 
drink among the peasantry of the southern, while 
ardent spirits have so universally obtained among 
the same class in the northern, end of the island, 
to which must be attributed their asperated and 
contracted features rather than to the influence of 
the climate." He thinks, however, that it would 
be easy for the Secretary of State so to model the 
excise law that beer instead of whisky should in 
a short time he generally adopted by all the labour- 
ing people of Scotland ; and " by those means, 
while he would contribute to maintain in a high 
