Wine merchants add alum to red wine, to communicate to it a rough taste and deeper colour; but this mixture produces on the system the most serious effects. For the discovery of the fraud in question, adopt the following means:—The wine is to be discoloured by means of a concentrated solution of chlorine; the mixture is to be evaporated until reduced to nearly the fourth of its original volume; the liquor is to be filtered; it then possesses the following properties when it contains alum:—1st. It has a sweetish astringent taste; 2d. it furnishes a white precipitate (sulphate of barytes) with nitrate of barytes, insoluble in water and in nitric acid; 3d. caustic potass rise to a yellowish white precipitate of alumine, soluble in an excess of potass; 4th. the sub-carbonate of soda produces a yellowish white precipitate (sub-carbonate of alumine) decomposable by fire into carbonic acid gas, alumine, easily recognisable by its characters. TO BOTTLE BEER. When the briskness of small liquors in the cask fails, and they become vapid and dead, which they generally do soon after they are tilted, let them be bottled. TO TRY THE GOODNESS OF SPIRITS. Set fire to some in a spoon; if good it will burn brightly away, without leaving any moisture in the spoon. TO COOL LIQUORS IN HOT WEATHER. Dip a cloth in cold water and wrap it two or three times round the bottle and place it in the sun. Repeat this once or twice. TO PACK GLASS OR CHINA. Procure some soft straw or hay to pack them in, and if they are to be sent a long way, and are heavy, the hay or straw should be a little damp, which will prevent them slipping about. Let the largest and heaviest things be always put undermost in the box or hamper. Let there be plenty of straw, and pack the articles tight; but never attempt to pack up glass or china which is of much consequence, till you have seen it done by some used to the job. The expense will be but trifling to have a person to do it who understands it, and the loss may be great if articles of much value are packed up in an improper manner. TO CLEAN WINE DECANTERS. Cut some brown paper into very small bits, so as to go with ease into the decanters; then cut a few pieces of soap very small, and put some water, _milk-warm_, into the decanters, upon the soap and paper: put in also a little pearl ash; by well working this about in the decanters it will take off the crust of the wine, and give the glass a fine polish. Where the decanters have had wine left to stand in them a long time, take a small cane with a bit of sponge tied tight at one end: by putting this into the decanters any crust of the wine may be removed. When the decanters have been properly washed, let them be thoroughly dried, and turned down in a proper rack.