This was the kind of sight which Hogarth could see every day when he painted ‘Gin Lane.’ It was in the time when drinking-shops had placards stuck outside to the effect that for a penny one might get drunk, and blind drunk for twopence. But an example of a ‘blue ruin,’ actually walking in the flesh, in these days one certainly does not expect to see. Next to gin, rum was the most popular. There is a full rich flavour about rum. It is affectionately named after the delicious pineapple, or after the island where its production is the most abundant and the most kindly. It has always been the drink of Her Majesty’s Navy; it is still the favourite beverage of many West India Islands, and many millions of sailors, niggers, and coolies. It is hallowed by historical associations. But its effects in the good old days were wonderful and awe-inspiring. It was the author and creator of those flowers, now almost extinct, called grog-blossoms. You may see them depicted by the caricaturists of the Rowlandson time, but they survived until well past the middle of the century. The outward and visible signs of rum were indeed various. First, there was the red and swollen nose; next, the nose beautifully painted with grog-blossoms. It is an ancient nose, and is celebrated by the bacchanalian poet of Normandy, Olivier Basselin, in the fifteenth century. There was, next, the bottle nose in all its branches. I am uncertain, never having walked the hospitals, whether one is justified in classifying certain varieties of the bottle nose under one head, or whether each variety was a species by itself. All these noses, with the red and puffy cheeks, the thick lips, the double chins, the swelling, aldermanic corporation, and the gouty feet, in list and slippers, meant Rum--Great God Rum. These symptoms are no longer to be seen. Therefore, Great God Rum is either deposed, or he hath but few worshippers, and those half-hearted. The decay of the Great God Rum, and the Great Goddess Gin his consort, is marked in many other ways. Formerly, the toper half filled a thick, short rummer with spirit, and poured upon it an equal quantity of water. Mr. Weller’s theory of drink was that it should be equal. The modern toper goes to a bar, gets half a wineglass of Scotch whisky, and pours upon it a pint of Apollinaris water. The ancient drank his grog hot, with lemon and sugar, and sometimes spice. This made a serious business of the nightly grog. The modern takes his cold, even with ice, and without any addition of lemon. Indeed, he squashes his lemon separately, and drinks the juice in Apollinaris, without any spirit at all--a thing abhorrent to his ancestor.