lish: they communicate a momentary
exhilaration: but, they give no force to the body, which, on the contrary,
they enfeeble, and, in many instances, with time, destroy; producing
diseases from which the drinker would otherwise have been free to the end
of his days.

73. But, look again at the receipt for making porter. Here are _eight_
bushels of malt to 180 gallons of beer; that is to say, twenty-fire
gallons from the bushel. Now the malt is eight shillings a bushel, and
eight pounds of the very _best hops_ will cost but a shilling a pound. The
malt and hops, then, for the 180 gallons, cost but _seventy-two
shillings_; that is to say, only a little more than _fourpence three
farthings a gallon_, for stuff which is now retailed for _sixteen pence a
gallon_! If this be not an abomination, I should be glad to know what is.
Even if the treacle, colour, and the drugs, be included, the cost is not
_fivepence a gallon_; and yet, not content with this enormous extortion,
there are wretches who resort to the use of other and pernicious drugs, in
order to increase their gains!

74. To provide against this dreadful evil there is, and there can be, no
_law_; for, it is _created by the law_. The _law_ it is that imposes the
enormous tax on the _malt_ and _hops_; the _law_ it is that imposes the
_license tax_, and places the power of granting the license at the
discretion of persons appointed by the government; the _law_ it is that
checks, in this way, the private brewing, and that prevents _free and fair
competition_ in the selling of beer, and as long as the _law_ does these,
it will in vain endeavour to prevent the people from being destroyed by
slow poison.

75. Innumerable are the benefits that would arise from a repeal of the
taxes on malt and on hops. Tippling-houses might then be shut up with
justice and propriety. The labourer, the artisan, the tradesman, the
landlord, all would instantly feel the benefit. But the _landlord_ more,
perhaps, in this case, than any other member of the community. The four or
five pounds a year which the day-labourer now drizzles away in tea-messes,
he would divide with the farmer, if he had untaxed beer. His wages would
_fall_, and fall to his _advantage_ too. The fall of wages would be not
less than 40_l._ upon a hundred acres. Thus 40_l._ would go, in the end, a
fourth, perhaps to the farmer, and three-fourths to the landlord. This is
the kind of work to _reduce poor-rates_, and to restore