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and at funerals.
Our marriage feasts are bride-ales.
We pledge the new-born babe in strong liquors, and renew our memory of the dead in wine.
We Teutons are the poets of good cheer.
A Saxon princess left us the phrase, “Liever Kyning wass heal — dear King, your health” --the origin of our present Wassail.
An English damsel gave us the Toast.
To us belong the loving cup and the parting glass.
Ours among nations are those fines and footings which are levied on the tradesman and artisan, to be spent by good fellows in drink.
In truth, we have a craving for strong waters which no religious precepts, no municipal regulations have ever yet been able to subdue.
Americans have our virtues and our appetites.
They drink a great deal more than Gauls, Italians, and Iberians drink; on the other side, they work harder and fight fiercer than Gauls, Italians, and Iberians work and fight.
Alike in what they do, and what they fail to do, the emphasis of a strong original character comes out in them.
Alike in England and America, we have tried a hundred methods of repression.
We have tried fines in money; we have tried exposure in the 3r3
1875.
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