1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

ALL ALE 63 customers being susceptible, and liberal-minded, the rest was easy. Egyptian manuscripts written at least 3000 years before the Christian era shew conclusively that even at that primitive period the manufacture of an intoxicating liquor from barley or other grain was extensively carried out in Egypt. Probably the wretched Israelites got far more birch and bastinado than beer given them whilst engaged in briclcmaking ; but it is quite on the cards that Cleopatra, when fatigued with prac tising the spot stroke on her billiard-table, often commanded one of her slaves to draw her a pint of bitter with a head on it; and who knows but that her beloved Antony cooled his coppers with small ale ? Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to have in a daily newspaper office nowadays—re cords that in his time a fermented drink rhade from " corn and water " was in regular use in all the districts of Europe with which he was ac quainted. But in Britain little was known about beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider. But the Romans, although they never quite succeeded in subduing the stubborn dispositions of the " barbarians," managed to teach them a bit of husbandry, and to shew them something about brewing. There were no means of mak ing wine in those days, and—save in Wales— there were no grapes to make it with ; but the Latins were not long in teaching the Britons— who were never slow to learn anything which might lead to revelry—that a very good sub-

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