"In going through the wine growing regions he found it expected, as an act of politeness, that wine must everywhere be presented and drank, and if he consented at all to drink, he would be compelled to drink many times a day, and would become a wine toper with others. He declared that touch not, taste not, handle not the accursed thing, was the only rule of safety.
"He said if each grape grower would grow only the raisin grape for sale, there would be no end to the profitable disposal of all which he could ever produce without sin or danger to any one.
"I remarked that European travellers told us that very few drank to intoxication in those places where wine was made from the pure juice of the grape, and it was generally supposed that the manufacture of pure domestic wine in this country would do away almost entirety with intemperance.
"In answer, he read us a letter which he had just received from his friend, a well known resident of this city now in France. It contained a flat contradiction of the statements to which I had alluded, and drew a dark picture of the intemperance in the wine producing districts of France and Germany. In fact, it was a radical plea—as Daddy would say—'agin the hull infarnel stuff.'"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Another Death in the Old Brown House.