The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

I 2 The Dri)tking Systcnz our Clzicf Social Evil.
ing makes no change in the substance of the article
cooked, but simply renders it more digestible or palatable,
whereas fermentation radically alters the constitution of
the thing fermented.* What has to be particularly noted,
however, in the production of the intoxicating liquors in
comnmon use is that fermentation on so extensive a scale
involves the appropriation of corn to an enormous
amount, which thereby ceases So be azvalable for food. In the
United Kingdom the grain annually used in distillation is
about ten million bushels, and in the manufacture of malt
liquors fifty million bushels-a total of sixty million
bushels. But in distillation not a trace remains of the
nutritious parts of the corn employed, so that the
waste is complete. Hence, in times of scarcity, distillation has been repeatedly prohibited by the British Legislature. Paley on this ground condemns the production
of spirits;t and the Ti/res newspaper has, for the same
reason, described their manufacture as an "infinite
waste." Nor can it be denied that in the processes of
malting and brewing a similar waste occurs. The notion
that beer "is liquid bread" could not be retained were it
remembered that the whole object of brewing is the production, not of a thick, soup-like solution of the barley,
but of a clear, attenuated, and exciting drink. Franklin
acted upon this discovery when a journeyman printer;;
and an accurate study of the brewing process, and an
analysis of the liquors produced, concur in exposing the
superstitious esteem in which malt liquors have been held
from the darkest fges.~ Beer is the British fetich, and
the sooner the ridiculous idolatry is overthrown, the
* In baking with yeast, part of the sugar of the dough is changed into a
cohol and carbonic acid gas, but the former is entirely dissipated by the het
of the oven. The latter, whose struggle to escape makes the bread porou
and light, is alone of any service, and mneans have been applied for obtainin
and using it for this purpose, apart from the employment of yeast,
t Moral Philosophy, book ii. chapter r i.
' See Appendix A. See Appendix B.
It