They have also a fashion in large parties among the working and middle classes, of ordering what is called a "Queen Ann," which is simply three pints of beer in a large, brightly burnished metal pot with a handle, and the man who calls for it having paid, takes a drink, then wipes the edge of the pot with the cuff of his coat-sleeve, to remove the foam from his lips,--then passes it to his wife, sweetheart or his eldest child, who each in turn drink and wipe the edge of the measure; then it is passed to the stranger, and all around the board, each person being careful to wipe the "pewter" in the same fashion. This custom seems rather strange and savage at the first sight to an American, but it is the custom of the country, and therefore cannot be quarreled with. Benjamin Franklin, as we learn by his diary, was disgusted by the beer-swilling Londoners. When a journeyman printer in London before 1776, he says--"I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were drinkers of beer. We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply workmen. My companion at the press drank every day, a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another pint when he had done his work. I thought it a detestable custom, but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink _strong_ beer, that he might be _strong_ himself. He had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every week for the detestable liquor." This is pretty strong testimony from Franklin, and I find that although he frequented alehouses in London, where all the men of wit and learning of the time were to be found, yet he never indulged in beer. [Sidenote: QUANTITY DRANK IN LONDON.] Any foreigner passing through a London street which is inhabited by working men and their families, or in the neighborhood of factories or other industrial establishments, if the period of the day be between twelve and one o'clock, or just after twelve, cannot fail to notice a sudden commotion and rush of men, women, and half naked children, with jugs, pewter measures, tin cans, and earthen vessels, to the neighboring tap-room or beer-house. All this large multitude are in quest of beer for the noonday meal. At noon and night the pot boys of the innumerable beer-shops may be seen carrying out the quarts and pints daily received by those families who do not choose to lay in a stock or store of their own beer, or the mothers and children of the same families, to whom the half-penny given to the pot boy is a matter of consequence, may be seen journeying to the beer-conduits themselves, and the drinking goes on from morning until night, among truckmen, coal heavers, street pavers, mechanics in the "skittle grounds," medical students in the hospitals, law students in the Inns of Court, and "swells" in taverns.