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DRINKS.
Success
to
recommend
its
virtues
vast
To
late
posterity.
In
1736
Lord
Hervey,
describing
the
state
of
England,
says
:
The
drunkenness
of
the
common
people
was
so
universal
by
the
retailing
a
liquor
called
Gin,
wuth
which
they
could
get
drunk
for
a
groat,
that
the
whole
town
of
London
and
many
towns
in
the
country
swarmed
with
drunken
people
from
morning
till
night,
and
were
more
like
a
scene
of
a
Bacchanal
than
the
residence
of
a
civil
society.
Retailers
exhibited
placards
in
their
windows,
in-
timating
that
people
might
get
drunk
for
the
sum
of
id.
and
that
clean
straw
would
be
provided
for
customers
in
the
most
comfortable
of
cellars.
On
Feb.
20,
1736,
in
the
ninth
year
of
George
II.,
a
petition
of
the
Justices
of
the
Peace
for
Middlesex
against
the
excessive
use
of
spirituous
liquors
was
presented
to
the
House
of
Commons,
setting
forth-
That
the
drinking
of
Geneva
and
other
distilled
spirit
uous
liquors
had
greatly
increased,
especially
among
the
people
of
inferior
rank,
that
the
constant
and
excessive
use
thereof
had
destroyed
thousands
of
his
Majesty's
subjects,
debauching
their
morals,
etc.,
that
the
"
pernicious
liquor
"
was
then
sold
not
only
by
the
distillers
and
Geneva
shops,
but
many
other
persons
of
inferior
trades,
*'by
which
means
journeymen,
apprentices
and
servants
were
drawn
in
to
taste
and
by
degrees
to
like,
approve,
and
immoderately
to
drink
thereof,"
and
that
the
petitioners
therefore
prayed
that
the
House
would
take
the
premises
into
their
serious
consideration,
etc.
The
House
having