1911 Beverages de luxe

extent, due to nieteorological erïects and to herbivorous Terrain which tend to destrov the fruit of ni an' s labor. The last century gave us sonie very line yintages, aniongst which the years 1811, 1834, 1865 and 1893 were excellent in quality and quantity. The last fire or six years hâve yielded hardly any crop at ail, and were alniost a total failure. Eich old wines were nursed with great skill in the German cities by the employées of the city council and were dispensed in the council cellar in olden tinies. Yea, wine had the quality of being used as currency, and fines on miscreants were iniposed in such a way that the culprit had to pay one or more ohms of wine of a certain vintage. To-day almost every German city has a Eathskeller (coun- cil cellar ) situated in the basement of the city hall, and there the wine, in goblets of crystal, causes often the partakers of a f east to sing with Mathias Claudius :

And every coming inorrow

"Drink to the Ehine !

Be mirth and m a sic thine î And when we meet a child of care and sorrow, We'll send him to the Ehine."