"That, however much they may surprise--however pernicious or disagreeable they may appear, he has always found them requisite in the brewing of porter, and he thinks they must invariably be used by those who wish to continue the taste, flavour, and effervescence of the beer. And, though several acts of Parliament have been passed to prevent porter brewers from using many of them, yet the author can affirm, from experience, he could never produce the present flavoured porter without them. _The intoxicating qualities of porter are to be ascribed to the various drugs intermixed with it._ It is evident some porter is more heady than other, and it arises from the greater or less quantity of stupefying ingredients. Malt, to produce intoxication, must be used in such large quantities as would very much diminish, if not totally exclude, the brewer's profit." It is clear from this extract that Mr. Child considered the end of all successful brewing was to make people dead-drunk at the cheapest possible rate, regardless of consequences. Among the ingredients that Mr. Morris, another instructor in the art of brewing, tells us are requisite to produce a popular article, are--cocculus indicus and beans, as intoxicators; calamus aromaticus, as a substitute for hops; quassia, as a bitter; coriander-seeds to give flavour; capsicums, carraway-seeds, ginger, and grains of paradise, to give warmth; whilst oyster-shells are recommended to afford a touch of youth to old beer, and alum to give a "smack of age" to new; and when it is desired to bring it more rapidly "forward," the presiding Hecate is told to drop sulphuric acid into her brew; by this means an imitation of the age of eighteen months was given in a few instants. Even the "fine cauliflower head," which is held to be the sign of excellence in stout, was--and, for all we know, still is--artificially made by mixing with the article a detestable compound called "beer-headings," composed of common green vitriol, alum, and salt, and sometimes by the simple addition of salts of steel. That these articles were commonly employed we have the evidence of the Excise Department, which published a long list of such ingredients seized by them on the premises of brewers and brewers' druggists.[6] Many of these glaring adulterations are probably no longer in general use, although, from the evidence given before a recent committee of the House of Commons, it is believed that sulphuric acid, salt of steel, sulphate of iron, and cocculus indicus are still resorted to by the smaller brewers, especially those living in the country--a belief very much strengthened by the very odd taste we sometimes find in ales and porters, and which is certainly not derived from malt and hops. The common method of adulterating the national liquor is by mixing water with it. This is done almost universally by the publican, and to a very extraordinary extent. A