Wine is far too wide a subject to be treated here. The great mass of ports at a cheap and moderate price are made up, it is well known, of several kinds, and doctored according to cost. There is one compound, however, which particularly claims our attention, "publicans' port." We are all of us familiar with the announcement to be seen in the windows of such tradesmen, "Fine old crusty port, 2_s._ 9_d._ a bottle;" and the extraordinary thing is, that upon opening the sample we often find that _it is_ crusted, and that the cork is deeply stained. How can they afford to sell an article bearing the appearance of such age and quality at so low a price? The answer is simple: wine, crust, and stained cork are fabricated. There is a manufactory in London, where, by a chemical process, they get up beeswing to perfection, and deposit it in the bottles so as exactly to imitate the natural crust; here corks are also stained to assume any age that is required. The wine itself contains a very little inferior port, the rest being composed of cheap red French wine, brandy, and logwood as a colouring matter, if required. The port wine sold over the bar at 3_d._ a glass--and we are assured that this article is making its way in preference to gin in the low neighbourhoods, one gin palace, to our knowledge, selling a butt a week over the counter--is an inferior article even to this, and its taste is quite sufficient to prove that only an infinitesimal portion of it ever came from Oporto. London gin, under a hundred names, is notoriously a compound. Most people flatter themselves that its peculiar flavour is due to the admixture of sugar and juniper-berries alone. It is, however, a much more elaborate concoction than the public imagine. Those accustomed to the unsweetened West Country gin think the London article only fit to drink when raw, and in many cases they are right; for the publican and inferior spirit-dealers, like milkmen, are great customers of the pump. It appears that some of the samples examined by the analyst contained only half as much alcohol as was present in others; and as the gin of commerce is never above proof, it follows that these specimens were scarcely as good as "stiff" gin-and-water. So much for the pure spirit; now for the fancy work or "flavourings." The quantity of sugar in the samples examined ranged from 3 oz. 4 drms. 23 grains, to 13 oz. 4 drms.; two of them contained oil of cinnamon, or, more probably, of cassia; seven contained cayenne pepper, some of them in very large quantities; and most of the samples contained combined sulphates; whilst there is good authority for stating that sulphate of zinc, or white vitriol, is often used. The very "beaded bubbles winking at the brim," which are considered to be a proof of the strength of the article, are produced artificially. Mr. Mitchell, in his "Handbook of Commerce," states that this is done by adding a mixture compounded of alum, carbonate of potash, almond-oil, sulphuric