Suppose a wholesale liquor-merchant imports genuine brandy. He usually "rectifies" and adulterates it by adding eighty-five gallons of pure spirits (refined whisky,) to fifteen gallons of brandy, to give it a flavor; then colors and "doctors" it, and it is ready for sale. Suppose an Albany wholesale-dealer purchases, for pure brandy, ten pipes of this adulterated brandy from a New York importer. The Albany man immediately doubles his stock by adding an equal quantity of pure spirits. There are then seven and a half gallons of brandy in a hundred. A Buffalo liquor-dealer buys from the Albany man, and he in turn adds one-half pure spirits. The Chicago dealer buys from the Buffalo dealer, and as nearly all spirit-dealers keep large quantities of pure spirits on hand, and know how to use it, he again doubles the quantity of his brandy by adding pure spirits; and the Milwaukee liquor-dealer does the same, after purchasing from the Chicago man. So, in the ordinary course of liquor transactions, by the time a hundred gallon pipe of pure brandy reaches Wisconsin, at a cost of five or perhaps ten dollars per gallon, ninety-nine gallons and one pint of it is the identical whisky that was shipped from Wisconsin the same year at fifty cents per gallon. Truly a homoeopathic dose of genuine brandy! And even that whisky when it left Wisconsin was only half whisky; for there are men in the whisky-making States who make it a business to take whisky direct from the distillery, add to it an equal quantity of water, and then bring it up to a bead and the power of intoxication, by mixing in a variety of the villainous drugs and deadly poisons enumerated in this chapter. The annual loss of strength, health, and life caused by the adulteration of liquor is truly appalling. Those who have not examined the subject can form no just estimate of the atrocious and extensive effects of this murderous humbug. CHAPTER XX. THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.--THE RURAL DIVINE AND THE WATCH.--RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.--THEIR DECLINE AND FALL. Not many years ago, a dignified and reverend man, whose name is well known to me, was walking sedately down Broadway. He was dressed in clerical garb of black garments and white neckcloth. He was a man of great learning, profound thought, long experience, unaffected piety, and pure and high reputation. All at once, a kind of chattering shout smote him fair in the left ear: "Narfnarfnarf! Three shall I have? Narfnarfnarfnarfnarf! Going at two and a half! Gone!!" And the grave divine, pausing, beheld a doorway, over which waved a little red flag. Within, a company of eager bidders thronged around an auctioneer's stand; and the auctioneer himself, a well-dressed man with a highly respectable look, was just handing over to the delighted purchaser a gold watch. "It would be cheap at one hundred dollars," said he, in a despondent tone. "It's mere robbery to sell it for that price. I'd buy it myself if 'twas legal."