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liquors. Now, if a manufacturer does not like to buy his
gypsum by the ton from the Stogumber Quarries and put
it into his vat out of a sack, is he to be allowed to bore
a well into a vein of gypsum and pump up into his vat
water which is merely a solution of gypsum? If this be
manufacturing "a pure malt vinegar from nothing but
malt, and yeast, and spring water," then it is clear that
the London manufacturer, who uses a water free from such
minerals, is entitled to put gypsum in out of a sack. Is
a pickle-maker entitled to dig a well into a copper mine,
to pump up water containing copper, and to use that water
to colour his pickles up to the morbid grass-green that
ignorant people admire ? In fact, if it be not a governing
principle that nothing but "a good drinking-water" should
be used for the manufacture of articles of food, where
are we? By "a good drinking-water" I mean a water
such as is eligible for a municipal water supply.
As to the malt, other questions have arisen of late years.
By the term "malt" the public understand malted barley.
Dodsley, in his "Agriculture," writes:—
. . . . " Some expert
To raise from leaven'd wheat the kneaded loaf;
To mash the malted barley and extract
Its flavoured strength."
Malted barley is, in fact, the base of what the purchaser
expects when he buys "malt liquor" or "malt vinegar."
But, in the phraseology of the brewing-room, the term "malt"
is now used to include cargoes of damaged maize, rice,
and other grains which have had to be reduced into a fermentable
condition by steeping with diluted vitriol at a high
temperature. And there is no Act of Parliament against
calling such materials "malt"—just as there was no Act of
Parliament to prevent Mr. Wackford Squeers from calling
his place a "Hall." Then again, since the malt-tax has been
transferred to the beer which used to be brewed from
malt, there is no longer any law against brewing beer
from other materials than barley and barley-malt. The
revenue officers are content if they get the tax upon the