by Jackson, brought in a different type--Westerners
who drank whisky and brandy, with the result that drunkenness in public
station was much more common. Many of the Virginia gentlemen of
Washington's day spent a fourth or even a third of their income upon
their cellars. He was no exception to the rule, and from his papers we
discover many purchases of wine. One of the last bills of lading I have
noticed among his papers is a bill for "Two pipes of fine old London
particular Madeira Wine," shipped to him from the island of Madeira,
September 20, 1799. One wonders whether he got to toast "All our
Friends" out of it before he died.

[Illustration: One of Washington's Tavern Bills]

His sideboard and table were well equipped with glasses and silver wine
coolers of the most expensive construction. As in many other matters,
his inventive bent turned in this direction. Having noticed the
confusion that often arose from the passing of the bottles about the
table he designed when President a sort of silver caster capable of
holding four bottles. They were used with great success on state
occasions and were so convenient that other people adopted the
invention, so that wine _coasters_, after the Washington design, became
a part of the furniture of every fashionable sideboard.

To cool wine, meat and other articles, Washington early adopted the
practice of putting up ice, a thing then unusual. In January, 1785, he
prepared a dry well under the summer house and also one in his new
cellar and in due time had both filled. June fifth he "Opened the well
in my Cellar in which I had laid up a store of Ice, but there was not
the smallest particle remaining.--I then opened the other Repository
(call the dry Well) in which I found a large store." Later he erected an
ice house to the eastward of the flower garden.

His experience with the cellar well was hardly less successful than that
of his friend, James Madison, on a like occasion. Madison had an ice
house filled with ice, and a skeptical overseer wagered a turkey against
a mint julep that by the fourth of July the ice would all have
disappeared. The day came, they opened the house, and behold there was
enough ice for exactly _one_ julep! Truly a sad situation when there
were _two_ Virginia gentlemen.

Mention of Madison in this connection calls to mind the popular notion
that it was his wife Dolly who invented ice-cream. I believe that her
biographers claim for her the credit of