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THE FLOWING BOWL
are spent annually in Great Britain on spirituous
liquors. Half of this sum, it may be fairly stated,
is spent in the provinces. It may also be taken
as read that 5 per cent of beer and stout is
wasted, in the way of froth, spillings, and leav
ings, and 3 per cent of spirits. This brings us
face to face with the calculation that the value
of our daily waste in drinks is nearly ,^6500.
Carbonic acid gas is undoubtedly answerable
for a lot of this waste. In The Old Guard
a musical piece produced at the Avenue
Theatre some years ago, Mr. Arthur Roberts in
his instructions to Miss Phyllis Broughton
who made a very comely stage barmaid par
ticularly enjoined her, when drawing ale, to use
her left hand to bring the handle down.
" The right hand," he observed—of course it
was all "gag"—"is for the froth." And then
he shewed her how to make half a pint of liquor
fill a pint measure. Of course there be some
professional imbibers who would object stroiiP-lv
and refuse to accept the froth programme • but
on the other hand it pays the retailer, in the lone:-
run. I am not going to re-tell the old story of
the Quaker; but will only mention that in the
early seventies the landlord of a favourite tavern
in the Strand—a house of call for histrions which
has since then been transmogrified and adorned
with much bevelled glass and carved walnut
—once confided to me that he made every bit of
j^300 per annum out of his froth. His barmaids
wereall of angelic appearance, with most beautiful
heads of hair (the girls wore plenty of it in those
days) and a wealth of pretty prattle. And the
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