25. I have here estimated every thing at its very lowest. The entertainment which I have here provided is as poor, as mean, as miserable as any thing short of starvation can set forth; and yet the wretched thing amounts to a good third part of a good and able labourer's wages! For this money, he and his family may drink good and wholesome beer; in a short time, out of the mere savings from this waste, may drink it out of silver cups and tankards. In a labourer's family, _wholesome_ beer, that has a little life in it, is all that is wanted in _general_. Little children, that do not work, should not have beer. Broth, porridge, or something in that way, is the thing for them. However, I shall suppose, in order to make my comparison as little complicated as possible, that he brews nothing but beer as strong as the generality of beer to be had at the public-house, and divested of the poisonous drugs which that beer but too often contains; and I shall further suppose that he uses in his family two quarts of this beer every day from the first of October to the last day of March inclusive: three quarts a day during the months of April and May; four quarts a day during the months of June and September; and five quarts a day during the months of July and August; and if this be not enough, it must be a family of drunkards. Here are 1097 quarts, or 274 gallons. Now, a bushel of malt will make eighteen gallons of better beer than that which is sold at the public-houses. And this is precisely a gallon for the price of a quart. People should bear in mind, that the beer bought at the public-house is loaded with a _beer tax_, with the tax on the public-house keeper, in the shape of license, with all the taxes and expenses of the brewer, with all the taxes, rent, and other expenses of the publican, and with all the _profits_ of both brewer and publican; so that when a man swallows a pot of beer at a public-house, he has all these expenses to help to defray, besides the mere tax on the malt and on the hops. 26. Well, then, to brew this ample supply of good beer for a labourer's family, these 274 gallons, requires _fifteen_ bushels of malt and (for let us do the thing well) _fifteen pounds of hops_. The malt is now eight shillings a bushel, and very good hops may be bought for less than a shilling a pound. The _grains_ and yeast will amply pay for the labour and fuel employed in the brewing; seeing that there will be pigs to eat the grains, and bread to be baked with the yeast. The account will then stand thus: _L._ _s._ _d._ 15 bushels of malt 6 0 0 15 pounds of hops 0 15 0 Wear of utensils 0 10 0 ----------- _L._ 7 5 0[4]