1914 Beverages de luxe

The quality, as well as quantity, of wine differs to a great extent, due to meteorological ellects and to herbivorous vermin which tend to destroy the fruit of man's labor. The last century gave us some very fine vintages, amongst which the years 1811, 1834, 1865 and 189:^ were excellent in quality and quantity. The last five or six years have yielded hardly any crop at all, and were almo.st a total failure. Rich old wines were nur.sed with great skill in the (lerman cities by the employees of the city council and were dispensed in the council cellar in olden times. Yea, wine had the (luality of being used as currency, and fines on miscreants were impo.sed 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 Rathskeller (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 feast to sing with Mathias Claudius:

And every coming morrow

"Drink to the Rhine I

Be mirth and music thine! And when we meet a child of care and sorrow. We'll send him to the Rhine."