The pleasant aromatic bitter of the hop is chiefly contained in a glutinous powder found between the scales of which the hopblossom is composed. Hops are 'diœcious' plants, having the male and female blossoms on different plants. The hop of commerce is the female blossom, slightly dried in a kiln or hop-oast, and packed in bags or pockets for sale.

When the wort has been long enough boiled with the hops it is let down from the copper into a vessel, called a hop-back, having a perforated bottom to retain the hops now called hopdreg and useless except for manure, the wort being strained off into an open and shallow cooler. In this vessel the old practice was to allow the wort to lie till it had been reduced from boilingpoint to something not far from 55° Fahr. At present, however, an ingenious contrivance shortens this process, and nearly or altogether does away with the necessity for coolers. The wort is passed over tubes filled with cold water, and thus that which constituted the great difficulty of summer brewing, the cooling of the wort, is reduced to a certainty. As soon as the wort is sufficiently cool, it is run off into a vessel, called a fermenting tun or square; a quantity of yeast is then mixed with it, it begins to ferment, and is called a 'gyle.'

In modern breweries there are all sorts of appliances unknown to the Thrales and Whitbreads of the last century, and many of them introduced within the last few years. By these the process of fermentation is regulated from its commencement to its completion. The brewer has perfect command of his 'gyle,' so far as temperature is concerned, and by a use of cold or warm water supplied in coils of pipe running round the interior of the fermenting tun, he can check or hasten the fermentation. In foreign breweries ice is liberally used. There are also methods of removing the 'head' or creamy surface of yeast which rises to the top of the 'gyle' when fermenting. By the appearance of this 'head' the brewer knows whether his fermentation is going on well or not. Towards the end of the process the yeast has a tendency to collapse, becomes heavy, and sinks through the 'gyle." If this happens the beer contracts a peculiar flavour, and is known to the brewer as 'yeast-bitten.' This is an event not unfrequent in small and ill-managed brewings.

There are many varieties of management while fermentation is going on, as well as after its completion-a period which depends on temperature, goodness of yeast, strength of 'gyle,' weather, and other circumstances. There are yet other variations in the manner in which the beer itself is managed. Some is vatted for weeks or months, some is sent out in the casks in which the fermentation has been completed. Bitter beer generally has

a certain

a certain quantity of fresh hops put into each cask. These act as finings and improve the flavour.

In this short and cursory statement of the processes of malting and brewing we have omitted from view the varieties of the material and the varieties of the manufactured product. Beer is either pale or dark, the dark variety being called porter or stout. The dark colour is obtained by the use-first, of a proportionate part of high-dried malt, contributing strength also, although it is usually not so productive of saccharine as paler malt; and secondly, of a small quantity of roasted malt, which is dark as coffee, and simply used to give colour and flavour. It may here be observed that from its darkness of colour porter is far more easy to adulterate than any description of pale ale.

Perhaps there is no more remarkable example of a rapid increase in demand produced by improvement in manufacture than the increase which has taken place in the demand for bitter beer. Forty years ago bitter beer was hardly known, its manufacture being almost if not wholly limited to one firm in London, and its consumption being confined to India. Now, in the town of Burton alone there are not less than twelve breweries of bitter beer, two of which are among the largest in the world, one of these two being, we believe, the very largest establishment to be found anywhere.* The consumption of malt at Burton now amounts to something like half-a-million quarters per annum.

Nor are the London breweries less remarkable, producing annually, as one at least of them does, upwards of 500,000 barrels of beer-the barrel being 36 gallons-and using more than 3000 quarters of malt every week, or the barley produce of a couple of average parishes.

Years ago the consumption of the twelve largest London breweries used to be annually published in a broad-sheet almanac. That practice has for some reason or other been discontinued; but, if our memory serves us right, the first six firms used to show a consumption of upwards of half a million of quarters, and no doubt they could now show a consumption larger still.

These vast amounts imply vast capital and large profits. We believe, however, that there is nothing exceptional in the percentage, and that the money invested in breweries does not produce a larger return than that invested in wholesale business generally.

The processes of distilling and rectifying, employed as they are in the production of gin for England, and the single process of distilling for the whisky of Scotland and Ireland, are in their

*This brewery consumed 189,000 quarters of malt last year.

outset

outset not dissimilar from the process of brewing, though they speedily vary from it and ultimately attain a very different

result.

As in brewing so in distillation, the first step is that of malting; but while in brewing it is neither legal nor advisable to use an admixture of unmalted grain, in distilling, malt is used only in the proportion of about one part in eight. The remainder of the grain used is either barley or maize, maize having this great advantage, that distillers' grains,' made from a mixture of malt and maize, are worth three times as much as grains made from a mixture of malt and barley. The distiller reckons on obtaining about 150 gallons of wort or wash,' as he calls it, from every quarter of grain; and this quantity, after distillation, ought to yield somewhat more than 12 gallons of proof spirit. When the grain has been thoroughly washed, fermentation begins, produced, as in beer, by the use of yeast, but continued far longer than in beer; in fact, till the head subsides and till the yeast sinks through, after which, in a few hours, the liquid becomes clear and is drawn off for distillation. In this subsequent process the spirit which fermentation has produced is volatilized by heat, then condensed, and by ingenious methods purified from the vegetable oils with which it was mixed. In the case of gin, as we have before observed, the spirit undergoes a further process, termed rectifying, during which it is still more perfectly purified, and has a certain flavour given to it by orange-peel, raisins, juniper berries, and other aromatic substances. There is a difference in flavour between Irish and Scotch whisky, and various parts of England have their distinctive tastes as to the flavouring of gin.

We have traced the history of the principal English exciseable commodities-malt, beer, and spirits-from the raw material to the point where they leave the manufacturer's hands to go into consumption. We must now inquire how that consumption has been and is regulated. In this enquiry, as well as in much which we have already stated, we are guided by a most interesting and exhaustive Report of the Commissioners of Excise, the full title of which stands at the head of this article.

The consumption of all exciseable commodities is regulated by the imposition of licences and by Police control. The earliest licences on which a duty was imposed date from the reign of Queen Anne,* and were stamp duties of small amount;

The statute 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 25, after reciting the intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth of this realm that daily grew and increased through the abuses and disorders had and used in common ale-houses and other houses called tippling-houses,' provided that none should keep an ale-house without a licence by two Justices of the Peace.- Exc. R.' p. 54.

but

but it was not until the ninth year of George II. (1736) that a special licence was imposed on the retailers of spirits. From its amount (507.) we might be led to believe that it was not an annual but a single charge; at all events it appears to have been imposed rather in the interests of sobriety than of revenue. In the next year this Act was amended, with a provision for nonpayment of one of the penalties imposed, of a nature well suited to the brutality of the time. The offence being the non-payment of 107., the criminal is to be committed to the House of Correction for two months, and at 'his or her' discharge to be stript naked from the middle upwards, and whipt until his or her body be bloody.'

The

These duties appear to have existed till 1744; but from that year till after the close of the American War, public-house licences were levied varying from 21. to 21. 6s. per annum. whole revenue from these payments never reached 90,000Z. : they were 636,000l. in 1869. In 1784 a licence duty was imposed varying with the value of the premises, and that principle has been adhered to ever since.

At present the duties in England and Ireland vary from 21. 4s. 1d., if the value of the premises is under 107. a year, to 117. 6d., if that value is 50%. or upwards. To this is to be added a beer retailer's licence of 17. 2s. Od., under 201. value, and 31. 6s. 1 d. above that value, and a wine licence of 21. 4s. 1d. where the publican sells spirits, and 47. 8s. 24d. where he does not. In Scotland the rates are slightly higher.* The total possible licence payment is therefore 167. 10s. 8d., an enormous addition to the rent and rates of a publican, levied equally on the country trader who sells a barrel of beer a week, a gallon of gin a month, and a dozen of wine at the tithe feast once a year, and on the London gin-shop keeper who turns his 500/. a month, and makes a yearly profit of thousands.

The whole question of the imposition of licence duties on trades, whether those trades be under the Excise or otherwise, is, perhaps, rather a dull question to discuss; but it is really deserving of consideration, and we shall ask our readers to bestow a few moments upon it. There is no reason, we submit, why the trade of a publican should be almost the only trade amenable to a licence duty, and there is only an insufficient reason why that licence duty should be regulated in amount by the rent of the premises where the trade is carried on. To deal with the latter question first. The value of the premises, we shall be told, is a test of the trader's profits, and consequently of

*Inland Revenue Report,' vol. i. pp. 58-60.

his ability to pay. In that case, the licence duty is defended as being a rough form of income-tax; but why should a publican pay a supplementary income-tax, when a haberdasher or a grocer pays none? Moreover, if this licence duty be a form, of incometax, it is most unjust and unequal. Many publicans in the country pay the full licence duty, not clearing one hundred pounds a year. Many in London and the principal towns clear ten and twenty times as much, paying, of course, not more than their country neighbours. In the case of the country trader the licence duty may constitute an income-tax of sixteen pounds per cent. In the case of the London trader it may not be more than sixteen shillings. But even supposing the tax to be a fair one between one publican and another, it may be asked why one trade should be singled out from all others, and made to pay for permission to exist, whilst other trades are exempt. Might it not be better to impose on all traders a small amount of licence duty, rather than to single out one trade for the operations of the tax-gatherer? And would not this be a means of diminishing, if not of altogether obviating, the objections, on the score of public morality, which must always attach to the operation of Schedule D of the Income-Tax? There is a passage in the Report to which we have before referred, which is so striking that we crave leave to quote it. After stating a case where a large demolition of houses had given rise to a great number of claims for compensation, and where it was in consequence discovered that taxable incomes returned at 73,6427. should have been returned at 171,370l., the Commissioners assert that a large deficiency in income-tax returns exists, and proceed as follows (vol. i. p. 131):

'Moreover, this is not confined to any particular class, trade, or profession; we find the same practice prevailing among legal practitioners, when on the abolition of their exclusive privileges in some particular court they have to make good their claims to your Lordship; we find it on all occasions of large demolition of shops and warehouses for public purposes, in every variety of trade; and we find it in great public companies and in firms whose business is almost a national concern, from its magnitude and world-wide reputation: we therefore think that we may venture to generalize upon the facts which the most recent occasion of compensation cases has furnished.

...

'Those facts are, that 40 per cent. of the persons assessed had understated their incomes to such an extent that a true return would give an addition of 130 per cent. . . . Taking the account of the year 1864-5 as the most convenient for our purpose, we find that the total number of persons assessed under D was 350,512; 40 per cent. of which is 140,204. This then is the number of deficient returns or assessments. taking them at the average assesment of the whole kingdom,