MORMON’S ATTEMPT TO RAISE THE DEAD.
BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO
Connected with or near to the distilleries in this part of Ontario a custom milling was generally done. Sometimes the farmer brought his grain to the mill, and sold it out there; but this was not the usual course, for ordinarily then the miller could not pay for much grain. The usual course was for the farmer to bring his grain to the mill, and get it ground or chopped on the tolling system.
After cleaning up a load of wheat, there would ordinarily be a bag of tailings remaining. These tailings would consist mostly of small grain, which the farmer generally traded for whiskey, usually getting in exchange his ten-gallon can pretty nearly filled—whiskey then being considered a necessary of life as much as ordinary food was. To buy it for cash cost fivepence per gallon. This style of doing things went on until the Government began to put a tax on it. Then when the big distillery of Gooderham & Worts, Toronto, got better machinery, enabling them to extract more alcohol from the grain, the small distilleries could not compete, and one by one closed up, until now there are none about the country.
“Tuppence” per glass was the price for whiskey at the hotel bars in those days, and one could fill the tumbler quite full or take only a sip, at will, for this price.
Treating in those days was far more common than now, and the man who would not treat was generally considered “mean,” as they expressed it then. So freely did the people at large at that time partake, that the individual who did not indulge was made the subject of curious comment.
Drinking bouts for the whole night were then very common. Usually a party of boon companions—say eight or ten of them—would assemble in the sitting-room of the hotel, next the bar, and someone would at once “stand treat” all round. This having been partaken of, one of the number would sing a song, and then someone else would provide a drink all round. Probably a story would follow, succeeded by another drink; then another song and another treat, as a matter of course, and so the song, story and glass passed around, until everyone had treated, and if, like Robert Burns,
“They were na’ fou’,
But juist had plenty,”
they were by no means disposed to stop.