1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

TEJIPERANCE DRINKS.

was unreasonable to

ponent parts of the liquor in question, it

call it beer at all ; was beer within the Act of 1880, inasmuch as these proceedings had been taken under an earlier Act, beer meant beer as then understood, that is to say with malt or hops ; and therefore the magistrates were right in dismissing the summons. Baron Pollock in giving judgment in favour of the respon- dent, said it was admitted that beer at one time meant malt or hops, and before the Court could say that something else which had been substituted for these ingredients was beer," it was necessary to see what the Legislature had said ; and though it would have been easy enough to do so, it did not appear that in any of the Acts they had passed, they had framed a definition which would include such an article as had been sold by the respondent. The Inland Revenue Act of 1880, provided that sugar might be used as an equivalent for malt ; but this did not mean when sugar was used for fer- mentation that it must mean beer. Seeing that the question was one of a penal nature, the words of a statute ought not to be strained, and he was of opinion that the justices were right and the appeal must be dismissed. Mr. Baron Huddlestone concurred." But we must return to the subject matter of this chapter. A Temperance drink, pure and simple, if I understand the rules of temperance societies, ought to be non alcholic and unfermented. I refer to the Good Templars, the Uc K. Alliance, the Rechabites, and others, who are termed the extreme section of the temperance party ;" who say they do not allow the minutest particle of alcohol produced by fermentation to enter into their bever- ages. Of course, we as well as they, know that the purest water contains a certain decimal proportion of alcohol ; from the muddy water of the Thames to the clear translucent waters of St. Winifred's Holy Well, in North Wales, the and that even assuming that it