63 / 248
ALL ALE
63
customers being susceptible, and liberal-minded,
the rest was easy.
Egyptian manuscripts written at least 3000
years before the Christian era shew conclusively
that even at that primitive period the manufacture
of an intoxicating liquor from barley or other
grain was extensively carried out in Egypt.
Probably the wretched Israelites got far more
birch and bastinado than beer given them whilst
engaged in briclcmaking ; but it is quite on the
cards that Cleopatra, when fatigued with prac
tising the spot stroke on her billiard-table, often
commanded one of her slaves to draw her a pint
of bitter with a head on it; and who knows but
that her beloved Antony cooled his coppers with
small ale ?
Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to
have in a daily newspaper office nowadays—re
cords that in his time a fermented drink rhade
from " corn and water " was in regular use in all
the districts of Europe with which he was ac
quainted. But in Britain little was known about
beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite
beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider.
But the Romans, although they never quite
succeeded in subduing the stubborn dispositions
of the " barbarians," managed to teach them a
bit of husbandry, and to shew them something
about brewing. There were no means of mak
ing wine in those days, and—save in Wales—
there were no grapes to make it with ; but the
Latins were not long in teaching the Britons—
who were never slow to learn anything which
might lead to revelry—that a very good sub-