“Sourings” ought to have been cheap enough. Even as early as 1741 lemons were plentiful and not at all dear. In the _Salem Gazette_ in 1741, is this notice: “Extraordinary good and very fresh Orange Juice, which some of the very best Punch Tasters prefer to Lemmons, at one dollar per gallon. Also very good Lime Juice and Shrub to put into Punch, at the Basket of Lemmons. J. Crosby.” So there was with all the punch-bowls, a regular profession of punch-tasting; just fancy it. Occasionally there is some definite means of tracing the age of one of these pieces. Thus the fine, perfect punch-bowl owned by William C. Townsend, of Newport, is said to have been brought out by Captain Jacob Smith, of the Semiramis, a ship that, returning home in 1804 after an absence of three years, was lost on Nantucket Shoals. Of her cargo, valued at three hundred thousand dollars, but little was saved; but, strange to say, this great punch-bowl, twenty-two inches in diameter, holding eight gallons, was brought off in safety. It has the typical Lowestoft border of blue enamel with gold stars, and on the sides are large medallions so European in appearance that at first they seem to stamp the bowl as English. Examination, however, shows that the figures have the almond eyes of the Chinese, as well as other Oriental characteristics, and were undoubtedly copied from French or English prints sent to Canton. A modern writer thus sadly deplores the “good old times:” “Fifty years ago the punch-bowl was no mere ornament for the side-board and the china-cabinet; it was a thing to be brought forth and filled with a fragrant mixture of rum, brandy and curacoa, lemon, hot water, sugar, grated nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. The preparation of the bowl was as much a labor of love as that of a claret-cup, its degenerate successor. The ladles were beautiful works of art in silver—where are those ladles now, and what purpose do they serve?” Yes, it is true, the days of universal use for the punch-bowl are over—ornamental and curious they now are, and nothing more. Lucky it is for us china collectors, that dinners and everything else _à la russe_ did not obtain with our hospitable ancestors. No great tureens, no generous pitchers, no vast platters, and no noble punch-bowls should we now have to admire and gloat over, and place in our cabinets as monuments of ceramic art. Had they lived as we do, not a single punch-bowl should we have to glory in and grow sentimental over. An ignorant butler would have carelessly and prosaically mixed the drink in his pantry in any kind of a pot or a pan, and then ignominiously bottled it, and brought it in when required in driblets, in stingy little glasses that say plainly: “Drink this, and no more.”