GIN.
Massinger’s Duke of Milan—Pope’s Epilogue to Satires—The Dunciad—William III.—Lord Hervey—Sir R. Walpole—The Fall of Madame Geneva—Hogarth’s Gin Lane—Schiedam Adulteration—Gin Sling—Captain Dudley Bradstreet—Tom and Jerry Hawthorn.
Gin is an alcoholic drink distilled from malt or from unmalted barley or other grain, and afterwards rectified and flavoured. The word is French, genièvre, juniper, corrupted into Geneva, and subsequently into its present form. It is to the berries of the juniper that the best Hollands owes its flavour.
Perhaps one of the earliest allusions to gin is in Massinger’s Duke of Milan (1623), Act I., scene i., when Graccho, a creature of Mariana, says to the courtier Julio, of a chance drunkard,
“Bid him sleep;
’Tis a sign he has ta’en his liquor, and if you meet
An officer preaching of sobriety,
Unless he read it in Geneva print,
Lay him by the heels.”
In this extract the word is played upon, Geneva suggesting both the habit of spirit-drinking and Calvinistic doctrine.
When Pope wrote, the corrupted word “Gin” had become common. In the Epilogue to the Satires, I. 130.
“Vice thus abused, demands a nation’s care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,
And hurls the thunder of our laws on gin.”
Pope has added a note to this passage, to the effect that gin had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people before it was restrained by Parliament in 1736.
Another early allusion to Geneva is to be found in Carmina Quadragesimalia, Oxford, 1723, vol. i., p. 7, in a copy of verses contributed by Salusbury Cade, elected from Westminster to Ch. Ch. in 1714.
The thesis of which Salusbury Cade maintained the affirmative, is whether life consists in heat, or in the original An vita consistat in calore?
“Dum tremula hyberno Dipsas superimminet igni
Et dextra cyathum sustinet, ore tubum,
Alternis vicibus fumos hauritque, bibitque,
Quam dat arundo sitim grata Geneva levat.
Languenti hic ingens stomacho est fultura, nec alvus
Nunc Hypochondriacis flatibus ægra tumet.
Liberior fluit in tepido nunc corpore sanguis,
Hinc nova vis membris et novus inde calor.
Si quando audieris vetulam hanc periisse: Genevæ
Dicas ampullam non renovasse suam.”
Which being Englished, is
“Dipsas, who shivers by her wintry fire,
While her pipe’s smoke ascends in spire on spire,
Alternate puffs and drinks—Geneva lays
That thirst the weed is wont in her to raise.
With this her belly propped, its pain expels;
Intestine wind no more her stomach swells;
A freer blood runs leaping through her frame,
New heat, new strength recalls the ancient game.
And should you hear she’s dead, the cause you’ll know
Was that Geneva in her jug ran low.”
In the Dunciad, which Pope wrote in 1726 (book iii., l. 143), we read,—
“A second see, by meeker manners known,
And modest as the maid that sips alone;
From the strong fate of drams if thou get free,
Another D’Urfey, Ward! shall sing in thee!
Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house[64] mourn,
And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return.”
An early allusion to Geneva is in a poem by Alexander Blunt, Distiller, 8vo, 1729, price 6d., called “Geneva,” addressed to the Right Honourable Sir R⸺ W⸺. It commences,
“Thy virtues, O Geneva! yet unsung
By ancient or by modern bard, the muse
In verse sublime shall celebrate. And thou
O W⸺ statesman most profound! vouchsafe
To lend a gracious ear: for fame reports
That thou with zeal assiduous dost attempt
Superior to Canary or Champaigne
Geneva salutiferous to enhance;
To rescue it from hand of porter vile,
And basket woman, and to the bouffet
Of lady delicate and courtier grand
Exalt it; well from thee may it assume
The glorious modern name of royal Bob!”
Though “Brandy cognac, Jamaica Rum, and costly Arrack” are alluded to, there is no mention of Hollands in the poem, which is a defence of Geneva against ale.
In this poem a statement is contained that Geneva was introduced by William III., and that he himself drank it.
“Great Nassau,
Immortal name! Britain’s deliverer
From slavery, from wooden shoes and chains,
Dungeons and fire; attendants on the sway
Of tyrants bigotted and zeal accurst,
Of holy butchers, prelates insolent,
Despotic and bloodthirsty! He who did
Expiring liberty revive (who wrought
Salvation wondrous!) God-like hero! He
It was, who to compleat our happiness
With liberty, restored Geneva introduced.
O Britons. O my countrymen can you
To glorious William now commence ingrates
And spurn his ashes? Can you vilify
The sovereign cordial he has pointed out,
Which by your own misconduct only can
Prove detrimental? Martial William drank
Geneva, yet no age could ever boast
A braver prince than he. Within his breast
Glowed every royal virtue! Little sign,
O Genius of malt liquor! that Geneva
Debilitates the limbs and health impairs
And mind enervates. Men for learning famed
And skill in medicine prescribed it then
Frequent in recipe, nor did it want
Success to recommend its virtues vast
To late posterity.”
In 1736 Lord Hervey, describing the state of England, says: The drunkenness of the common people was so universal by the retailing a liquor called Gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people from morning till night, and were more like a scene of a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society.
Retailers exhibited placards in their windows, intimating that people might get drunk for the sum of 1d. and that clean straw would be provided for customers in the most comfortable of cellars.
On Feb. 20, 1736, in the ninth year of George II., a petition of the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex against the excessive use of spirituous liquors was presented to the House of Commons, setting forth: That the drinking of Geneva and other distilled spirituous liquors had greatly increased, especially among the people of inferior rank, that the constant and excessive use thereof had destroyed thousands of his Majesty’s subjects, debauching their morals, etc., that the “pernicious liquor” was then sold not only by the distillers and Geneva shops, but many other persons of inferior trades, “by which means journeymen, apprentices and servants were drawn in to taste, and by degrees to like, approve, and immoderately to drink thereof,” and that the petitioners therefore prayed that the House would take the premises into their serious consideration, etc. The House having resolved itself into a committee on Feb. 23, Sir Joseph Jekyll moved the following resolutions: (1) That the low price of spirituous liquors is the principal inducement to the excessive and pernicious use thereof. (2) That a discouragement should be given to their use by a duty. (3) That the vending, etc., of such liquors be restrained to persons keeping public brandy-shops, victualling houses, coffee houses, ale houses and inn-holders, and to such apothecaries and surgeons as should make use of the same by way of medicine only; and, (4) That no person keeping a public brandy-shop, etc., should be permitted to vend, etc., such liquors, but by licence with duty payable thereon. These Resolutions were agreed on without debate.
On March 8, Mr. William Pulteney affixed a duty of 20s. per gallon on gin, on the grounds of ancient use and sanction, and of its reducing many thousands of families at once to a state of despair.
Sir Robert Walpole had no immediate concern in the laying of this tax on spirituous liquors, but suffered therefrom much unmerited obloquy. The bill was presented by Jekyll from a spirit of philanthropy, which led him to contemplate with horror the progress of vice that marked the popular attachment to this inflammatory poison. The populace showed their disapprobation of this Act in their usual fashion of riot and violence. We are told in Coxe’s Walpole that numerous desperados continued the clandestine sale of gin in defiance of every restriction.
The duty of 20s. per gallon was repealed 16 Geo. II., c. 8. On the 28th of September, 1736, it was deemed necessary to send a detachment of sixty soldiers from Kensington to protect the house of Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls, in Chancery Lane, from the violence threatened by the populace against this eminent lawyer. Two soldiers with their bayonets fixed were planted as sentinels at the little door next Chancery Lane, and the great doors were shut up, the rest of the soldiers kept garrison in the stables in the yard.
This agitation gave rise to many a ballad and broadside, such as the “Fall of Bob,” or the “Oracle of Gin,” a tragedy; and “Desolation, or the Fall of Gin,” a poem.
The Lamentable Fall of Madame Geneva.—29 Sept., 1736.[65]
The Woman holds a song to yᵉ tune to yᵉ Children in yᵉ Wood.
“Good lack, good lack, and Well-a-day,
That Madame Gin should fall:
Superior Powers she must obey.
This Act will starve us all.”
The Man has the second part to yᵉ same tune.
“Th’ Afflicted she has caus’d to sing,
The Cripple leap and dance;
All those who die for love of Gin
Go to Heaven in a Trance.”
Underneath are the following verses—
“The Scene appears, and Madame’s Crew
In deep Despair, Exposed to view.
See Tinkers, Cobblers, and cold Watchmen,
With B⸺s and W⸺s as drunk as Dutchmen.
All mingling with the Common Throng,
Resort to hear her Passing Song.
“Whilst Mirth suppress’d by Parliament,
In Sober Sadness all lament,
Pursued by Jekyl’s indignation,
She’s brought to utter desolation.
With Oaths they storm their Monarch’s name,
And curse their Hands that form’d the Scheme.
“All Billingsgate their Case Bemoan,
And Rag-fair Change in Mourning’s hung;
Queen Gin, for whom they’d sacrifice
Their Shirts and Smocks, nay, both their Eyes.
Rather than She want Contribution,
They’d trudge the Streets without their shoes on.”
The following verses on the Gin Act, in 1736, are supposed by John Nichols to be the production of Dr. Johnson.
“Pensilibus fusis cyatho comitata supremo,
Terribili fremitu stridula mæret anus.
O longum formosa vale mihi vita decusque,
Fida comes mensæ fida comesque tori!
Eheu quam longo tecum consumerer ævo,
Heu quam tristitiæ dulce lenimen eras.
Æternum direpta mihi, sed quid moror istis,
Stat, fixum est, nequeunt jam revocare preces;
I, quoniam sic fata vocant, liceat mihi tantum,
Vivere te viva te moriente mori.”
A clever cento from the Latin poets, which may be thus represented in English:—
“... Left with her last glass alone,
Thus loud laments her lot, the squeaking crone:
Farewell, my life and beauty, thou art sped,
Faithful companion of my board and bed!
My earthly term fain with thee would I live,
Who to my sorrowing heart can’st solace give.
Bereft of gin, alas! am I for aye!
The Act is passed. ’Tis all in vain to pray.
Go where the Fates may call, and know that I
Living, with thee would live, and dying, die!”
Hogarth’s Gin Lane was advertised in 1751, with a note that, as its subject was calculated to reform some reigning vices peculiar to the lower class of people, in hopes to render them of more extensive use, the author had published them in the cheapest manner possible. “The cheapest manner possible” was one shilling which in those days was a fairly good price for a print. The following lame and defamatory verse was composed for the occasion by the Rev. James Townley:—
“Gin Lane.
Gin, cursed fiend, with fury fraught,
Makes human race a prey;
It enters by a deadly draught,
And steals our life away.
Virtue and Truth, driven to despair,
Its rage compels to fly;
But cherishes, with hellish care,
Theft, murder, perjury.
Damned cup, that on the vitals preys,
That liquid fire contains;
Which madness to the heart conveys,
And rolls it through the veins.”
Hogarth tells us that in Gin Lane every circumstance of the horrid effects of gin drinking is brought to view in terrorem. Idleness, poverty, misery, and distress, which drives even to madness and death, are the only objects that are to be seen; and not a house in tolerable condition but the pawnbrokers and gin shop. The same moral is taught by Cruikshank, but not before his conversion to teetotalism.
Schiedam is the metropolis of gin, and its numerous distilleries are omnivorous, taking with equal relish cargoes of rye and buckwheat from Russia, and damaged rice or any cereal from other countries, and sometimes also potato spirit from Hamburg.
The distillery of De Kuypers is probably that of the greatest note, and that firm’s black square bottles, packed in cases filled with hemp husks, are known all over the world. In Africa “square face” is king, but he frequently holds some counterfeit liquor, even sometimes the vilest of Cape Smoke.
Schiedam is the Mecca of the Dutchman, the birthplace of his beloved Schnapps. This drink is always acceptable, and fifty good reasons exist for drinking it.
The chief varieties of the aromatised popular spirit called gin are now known as Geneva, Hollands, and Schiedam. It is current in some parts of Africa as a species of coin.
Since, however, every distiller varies his materials and their proportions, the species of this beverage are practically unlimited. Generally, however, the distinction is clear between Hollands or Dutch and English gin. The former is commonly purer than the highly flavoured and too frequently adulterated British product.
The matters employed in the adulteration are very many. Corianders, crushed almond cake, angelica root powdered, liquorice, cardamoms, cassia, cinnamon, grains of paradise, and cayenne pepper, and many more substances take the place of the berries of the juniper tree. As these substances frequently produce a cloudy appearance, the liquid is subsequently refined by other adulterants, such as alum, sulphate of zinc, and acetate of lead.
The variety of gin dear to ancient beldams, which is known as Cordial, is more highly sweetened and aromatized than the ordinary quality.
The alcoholic strength of gin as commonly sold ranges from 22 to 48 degrees. The amount of sugar varies between 2 and 9 per cent.
Gin is a beneficial diuretic, but the compounds sold under that name are too often detrimental in their effects.
A popular drink called gin-sling takes its name from John Collins, formerly a celebrated waiter in Limmer’s old house. The old lines on this drink ran as follows:—
“My name is John Collins, head waiter at Limmer’s,
Corner of Conduit Street, Hanover Square.
My chief occupation is filling of brimmers
For all the young gentlemen frequenters there.”
The poetry is very far from bad, and so was the liquor. It was a composition of gin, soda water, lemon, and sugar. John was abbreviated to gin and Collins to sling.
Gin has had many popular names, but why gin should be called Old Tom by the publicans and lower orders of London has sometimes puzzled those who are inquisitive enough to consider the subject etymologically. The answer may, perhaps, be found in a curious book, called “The Life and Uncommon Adventures of Captain Dudley Bradstreet, Dublin, 1755.” Captain Dudley, a government spy of the Count Fathom species, after declaring that the selling of Geneva in a less quantity than two gallons had been prohibited, says: “Most of the gaols were full, on account of this Act, and it occurred to me to venture upon the trade. I got an acquaintance to rent a house in Blue Anchor Alley, in St. Luke’s parish, who privately conveyed his bargain to me: I then got it well secured, and laid out in a bed and other furniture five pounds, in provision and drink that would keep, about two pounds, and purchased in Moorfields the sign of a cat and had it nailed to a street window. I then caused a leaden pipe, the small end out about an inch, to be placed under the paw of the cat, the end that was within had a funnel to it.
“When my house was ready for business I inquired what distiller in London was most famous for good gin, and was assured by several that it was Mr. L⸺dale, in Holborn.[66] To him I went, and laid out thirteen pounds.... The cargo was sent to my house, at the back of which there was a way to go in or out. When the liquor was properly disposed, I got a person to inform a few of the mob that gin would be sold by the cat at my window next day, provided they put the money in his mouth, from whence there was a hole which conveyed it to me.” This, by the way, is a rare anticipation of our automatic sweetstuff, scent, and other machines. To continue: “At night I took possession of my den, and got up early next morning to be ready for custom. It was over three hours before anybody called, which made me almost despair of the project; at last I heard the chink of money and a comfortable voice say, ‘Puss, give me two pennyworth of gin!’ I instantly put my mouth to the tube and bid them receive it from the pipe under her paw”—the cat seems to have changed its sex in this short interval of time—“and then measured and poured it into the funnel, from whence they soon received it. Before night I took six shillings, the next day about thirty shillings, and afterwards three or four pounds a day. From all parts of London people used to resort to me in such numbers that my neighbours could scarcely get in and out of their houses. After this manner I went on for a month, in which time I cleared upwards of two-and-twenty pounds.”
So far Captain Bradstreet, “but,” says the Editor of Notes & Queries, “the ghost of ‘old Tom Hodges’ will probably enter a protest against Captain Bradstreet’s cat.”
Another popular name for gin was used when Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn visited Bob Logic in the Fleet. Bob says, “Let us spend the day comfortably, and in the evening I will introduce you both to my friend the haberdasher. He is a good whistler,[67] and his shop always abounds with some prime articles that you will like to look at....” A glass or two of wine made them as gay as larks, and a hint from Jerry to Logic about the whistler brought them into the shop of the latter in a twinkling.
Hawthorne, with great surprise, said, “Where are we? This is no haberdasher’s. It’s a ⸺”
“No nosing, Jerry,” replied Logic, with a grin; “you’re wrong, the man is a dealer in tape.”
