103 / 174
.♦ .
mixed drinks.
103
can voucli for tlie fact that they become distinctly
nauseating after even two or three hours.
"It is not the custom with the champagne mer
chants of Reims to treat their employes as the tradi
tional confectioner treats his apprentice. They do not
in fact attempt to hreed in them a distaste for cham
pagne. That I suppose was a crime of high treason
against the majesty of the noble vine. In the premises
of Pommery,indeed, it is the vogue to offer one glass
of champagne daily to the persons employed." That
taken before work begins,may well he thought to serve
as an agreeable and useful stimulant to labor. But the
common beverage in the cellars is a good,sound red
wine, which is dispensed to the workers in no stinted
measure. I am told that there are members of the fair
sex at Heidsieck's (cork stampers, bottle markers, etc.)
who dispose of four quart bottles of red wine during
their ten hours of work. The men,too,are a thirsty
race. Mme.Pommery is less lavish with her servants.
She allows them a couple of bottles each in the day,
which seems adequate.
"Prom the ground floor of the spacious warehouse
into which one enters from the inner courtyard of
Messrs. Heidsieck's premises a shaft desends vertically
about a hundred and fifty feet into the ground. It is