gruel and milk potage is
changed for coffee and tea. This is the reason provisions and corn, &c.,
are so dear; we all work for vintners, and raise our prices one upon
another to such a degree, it will be an impossibility to live, and we
shall, of course, become our own devourers.

We strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; and, in this instance, the
publichouses are kept open to furnish our luxury, while we deny
ourselves other necessaries of life, out of a scruple of conscience. For
example; in extreme hot weather, when meat will not keep from Saturday
to Sunday, we throw, or cause to be thrown away, vast quantities of
tainted meat, and have generally stinking dinners, because the butchers
dare not sell a joint of meat on a Sunday morning. Now, though I would
not have the Sabbath so far violated as to have it a market-day, yet,
rather than abuse God's mercies by throwing away creatures given for our
use, nay, for our own healths and cleanliness sake, I would have the
same indulgence in extreme hot weather, as there is for milk and
mackerel; that is to say, that meat might be killed in the cool of the
morning, viz., one or two of the clock, and sold till nine, and no
longer; nor should villanous informers have power to molest them in this
innocent and reasonable amendment of a ridiculous vulgar error.

I cannot forbear taking notice of the extravagant use, or rather abuse,
of that nauseous liquor called Geneva, among our lower sort. Those who
deny that an inferior class of people are most necessary in a body
politic, contradict reason and experience itself, since they are most
useful when industrious, and as pernicious when lazy. By their industry
our manufactures, trade, and commerce are carried on; the merchant in
his counting-house, and the captain in his cabin, would find but little
employment were it not that many hands carried on the different branches
of the concern they superintended.

But now, so far are our common people infatuated with Geneva, that half
the work is not done now as formerly. It debilitates and enervates them,
and they are not near so strong and healthy as formerly. This accursed
liquor is in itself so diuretic, it overstrains the parts of generation,
and makes our common people incapable of getting such lusty children as
they used to do. Add to this, that the women, by drinking it, spoil
their milk, and by giving it to young children, as they foolishly do,
spoil the stomach, and hinder digesti