1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS,

353

And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Little Thief, or the Night- Walker , Jack Wildbrain speaks with contempt of " One that knows not neck-beef from a pheasant, Nor cannot relish braggat from ambrosia." The opponents of alcoholic drinks are often met by the objection that some of the drinks recommended by themselves are alcoholic, as indeed they often are. Even water appears to possess, in some cases, an in- toxicating property. Pliny i^Nat, Hist., ii. cvi.) speaks of a Lyncestis aqua} of a certain acidity, which makes men drunken. The celebrated Ballston waters in the State of New York, are said to be affected with qualities " highly exhilarating," sometimes producing vertigo, which has been followed by drowsiness ; in other words, they who drink them exhibit the usual symptoms of drunkenness. Timothy Dwight, in his Travels in New England and New Yo7'k, says that these waters are considered by the farmers of the neighbourhood as an excellent beverage, and are sent for from a considerable distance for drink to labourers during haymaking and harvest- ing, a time well known to be full of desire on the part of country people employed in these agricultural pur-

" They supersede,"

refreshment.

for alcoholic

suits,

*' in a great measure the use of any

says Dwight,

ardent spirits. But since the result of drinking these waters seems precisely the same, as far as regards

^ Quem quicunque parum moderate gutture traxit, Haud aliter turbat quam si mera vina bibisset.

— Ovid, Meiam.y xv. 329.