1870-71 39,984,003 7,544,323 1,633,941 9,178,264 1871-72 40,099,243 17,001,124 3,367,537 20,368,661 1872-73 45,329,490 18,917,779 3,464,059 22,381,838 1873-74 46,573,974 18,106,310 2,491,759 20,598,069 1874-75 52,733,674 15,318,345 3,517,182 18,835,527 1875-76 64,658,767 16,705,719 2,439,762 19,145,481 1876-77 71,398,726 15,882,964 3,127,991 19,010,955 1877-78 70,183,863 15,711,651 2,450,983 18,162,634 From the subjoined table it will be seen that the consumption of champagne has almost trebled since the year 1844-5, a period of little more than thirty years. Another curious fact to note is the immense increase in the exports of the wine during the three years following the Franco-German war, when naturally both the exports and home consumption of champagne fell off very considerably. No reliable information is available as to the actual quantity of champagne consumed yearly in England, but this may be taken in round numbers at about four millions of bottles. The consumption of the wine in the United States varies from rather more than a million and a half to nearly two million bottles annually. Distinguished gourmets are scarcely agreed as to the proper moment when champagne should be introduced at the dinner-table. Dyspeptic Mr. Walker, of “The Original,” laid it down that champagne ought to be introduced very early at the banquet, without any regard whatever to the viands it may chance to accompany. “Give champagne,” he says, “at the beginning of dinner, as its exhilarating qualities serve to start the guests, after which they will seldom flag. No other wine produces an equal effect in increasing the success of a party--it invariably turns the balance to the favourable side. When champagne goes rightly nothing can well go wrong.” These precepts are sound enough, still all dinner-parties are not necessarily glacial, and the guests are not invariably mutes. Before champagne can be properly introduced at a formal dinner the conventional glass of sherry or madeira should supplement the soup, a white French or a Rhine wine accompany the fish, and a single glass of bordeaux prepare the way with the first _entrée_ for the sparkling wine, which, for the first round or two, should be served, briskly and liberally. A wine introduced thus early at the repast should of course be dry, or, at any rate, moderately so.