Holland has brewed good beer for centuries, and though this country has been better known as a producer of gin, the national beverage is certainly beer. Professors Tilamus and Swingar of Amsterdam, and the Secretary of the “Netherlands Society for the Abolition of Spirituous Drinks,” say that gin drinking is no longer respectable, and they recommend beer as a daily beverage. The beer gardens of Amsterdam and Rotterdam are very widely known. Good bands are provided and people of all ranks congregate to sip beer, smoke, talk, or listen to the music. On his first visit to these places the writer made careful inquiries as to the consumption of gin and other spirits, and was agreeably surprised to learn that their use was practically confined to the lowest classes and that beer was the common beverage. To find a drunken man it was necessary to go to the docks and wharves, among the Irish and American sailors. Nine-tenths of the gin manufactured is exported to the United States, and most of its use at home is for medical purposes. The little kingdom of Belgium ranks next Bavaria as a beer consuming country. There are three kinds of beer—Mars, a light beer and generally used by the laboring class, Lambic, strong and light, and the Faro, a mixture of Mars and Lambic. Brussels and Antwerp have some of the finest beer gardens in the world, which furnish music to their patrons equal to the best, and the general habits of the people are temperate. Drunkenness is hardly found even among the lower classes. Spain even is becoming a beer-drinking country. The beer formerly consumed there was imported from England, Germany and Austria, and in 1869 all the breweries in the country did not produce 500,000 liters, equal to 132,062 gallons, while the returns of the year 1878 show a production of over 4,750,000 liters, or 1,254,594 gallons—an astonishing increase in a wine producing country—and the beer brewed at the Santa Barbara brewery at Madrid is taking the lead of the imported article.