1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

GLORIOUS BEER 49 springing up all over the country, and those who purchase shares in them receive, for the most part, substantial dividends. "Beer and the Bible " have won more elections than any other combination ; the organization of the brewers has hitherto proved powerful enough to withstand all the slings and arrows of the Prohibition party, whilst there has been an enormous increase in the value of houses licensed to sell fermented refreshment; and the name of Bass will "live on," like Claudian, " through the centuries." There be more than one description of beer put before the public. I forget at this moment who was responsible for the " swipes" of my school days, which tasted like red ink—and I have sampled both—but I have always believed that the manufacturer—I do not believe him to have been a brewer at all—had a special spite against the rising generation, which he wished to die a lingering death. The "ninepenny" quaffed beneath the holy shade of Henry was good, sound, wholesome tipple ; but I fancy an inferior brand was poured forth to us at "half time" in the football field. Since those days I have tasted pretty nearly all sorts and conditions of beer, from the "Number One" Bass drawn fi'om the wood in pewter pots, in a little hostelry just off the Waterloo Road—the very best according to my taste—to the awful stuff tasted, and only tasted, one Sunday in a charmingly rural-looking little inn, with a thatched roof—a licensed house which apparently laid itself out to entrap the daring and enterprising " bona fide traveller," and whose malt liquor was apparently composed for