Seventeen years later the partnership was dissolved, Mr. John Smith took the place of Mr. Grosvenor, and until 1845 the firm traded as Ind and Smith. In that year Mr. Smith sold his share in the Brewery, and Mr. O. E. Coope and his brother, George Coope, joined the firm, which then, for the first time, adopted its present title of Ind, Coope & Co. A few years back the following epigram appeared in one of the London comic papers in connection with the name of the firm and _Drink_, the English version of the play _L’Assomoir_:— The drunkards in the play of _Drink_ All reeling in a group, O, Close on intoxication’s brink, Swill stronger stuff than soup, O, What is their liquor do you think?— It should be Ind and Coope, O (Coupeau). Mr. Ind, the founder of the Romford Brewery, died in 1848, his place being taken by his son, the present Mr. Ind. Mr. E. V. Ind, another son of the founder, was also made a partner, as was Mr. Charles Peter Matthews, to whose skill as a brewer Romford Ales owe much of their reputation. In 1858, Mr. Thomas Helme (who has recently assumed the name of Mashiter) joined the firm, which consisted in 1886 of Messrs. O. E. Coope; Edward Ind; C. P. Matthews (the general managing partner); T. Mashiter; together with their four sons, and Major F. J. N. Ind, son of the late Mr. E. V. Ind. In 1853 Messrs. Ind, Coope & Co. purchased a brewery at Burton, which, having been enlarged from time to time, now rivals in size the old brewhouse at Romford. It is under the direction of Mr. E. J. Bird, the Burton managing partner. The mash tuns, vats, coppers, &c., of the Romford brewery differ but little from those used by other firms of the first rank. In the brewhouse are thirty-two malt bins, the eight largest of which hold 900 quarters, and are each about as large as a small dwelling-house. {353} Altogether 10,000 quarters of malt can be stored. Extensive hop rooms, one of which is 110 feet long by 80 feet wide, afford storage for 5,000 pockets of hops. There are six coppers, the largest of which holds 32,400 gallons. In the fermenting room are twenty-four squares with capacities ranging up to 500 barrels. The stores are in seventeen buildings connected by tramways, and the tram lines on which the casks are rolled are about eight miles in length. About 600,000 full casks of various sizes are sent out from the store every year. In the stores are twenty-three huge vats used for storing old ale. The cooperage is one of the largest departments in the brewery, giving employment to thirty-two coopers and fifty-six assistants. In the stables are some forty or fifty horses, and the more thoroughly to dispel the popular delusion that brewers’ horses are fed on grains, it may be worth while stating that these have each an allowance of 42 lbs. per day of oats, beans, clover, meadow-hay, oat-straw and bran, all either cut or bruised and mixed together.