butions bearing more or less directly on some of the great social questions of the day; at the same time that a fair proportion of what belongs strictly to the department of General Literature (without losing sight of the main object of the journal) will be found to diversify and enliven its contents. Being deeply desirous that the matter of the 'REVIEW' should be fitted to accomplish the end aimed at, both as to quality and variety, it was resolved from the outset to secure, if possible, the services of men in the highest walks both of science and literature. It formed no part of the scheme to supplant any periodical already in existence. Indeed there was none that fairly sought to occupy such a field as this publication. None aimed at a price so low; none at the discussion of cognate questions bearing on social progress—at least, embracing so wide a range; and none with the special relations of this periodical to the temperance movement of the day. It could, therefore, arouse no hostility in any department of the republic of letters. It aroused none; but, on the contrary, drew forth from the daily, weekly, and other periodical press the warmest commendations. When to thisthe non-antagonistic, non-supplanting aspect of the 'REVIEW'are added the efficiency of the instrumentality sought to be employed, and the pre-eminently patriotic object pursued, we shall find, perhaps to a large extent, the secret of our success. As it respects the future, it is with no meagre, no vacillating expectations that the commencement of the second volume is anticipated. From the experience already acquired, the contributors already secured, and the pledged assistance of others whose names are familiar in the literary and scientific world, no vain assurance is uttered, when it is confidently expected that even a higher circulation will be attained before the close of another year. At all events, the proprietors, having no private, no personal gains to realize, venture to assure the public that no expense, consistent with the interests of the Scottish Temperance League, will be spared to render this periodical an organ still more befitting the great cause of social progress in all its leading departments and aims. OCTOBER, 1853. INDEX. Australia, Better Houses for the Working Classes-Bothies and Farmers' Cottages, Better Houses for the Working Classes in Cities, THE SCOTTISH REVIEW. JANUARY, 1853. BITTER BEER, PALE ALE, INDIAN PALE ALE, AND THEIR PUFFERS.* 6 It was a fortunate day for Messrs Allsopp, when the report was first given forth to the British public, that the brewing establishments of Burton-on-Trent were in the habit of employing a poisonous ingredient-strychnine-for the purpose of heightening the flavour of pale ale and bitter beer;' for not only has it given them a pretext for blazoning their name before the public in the advertising sheets of almost every journal in the empire, literary and scientific, legal, medical, and theological—those advocating total abstinence principles being, literally, the only exceptions we have met with; but it has also afforded them an opportunity, of which they have availed themselves with the ready alertness of masters in the art of puffing, of extracting testimonials from various medical practitioners, some of them of no mean reputation, in regard to the eminently wholesome and salutary qualities of their liquor. We are not going to attempt to raise the ghost of Strychnine, which has been already laid most effectually, by the authoritative reports of the distinguished chemists who have analysed twenty different samples, procured from twenty different establishments in London, of the 'bitter beer, pale ale, and Indian pale ale,' brewed by Messrs Allsopp; as well as by the acknowledgment of M. Payen, the originator of the rumour, of the groundlessness of the information on which his imprudent language was based. But we intend to examine into the merits of the assertions which have been so positively made and so extensively propagated, that the bitter beers constitute a beverage which the healthful man may use with benefit, for the preservation of the tone and vigour of his stomach, and which the debilitated invalid will find most advantageous in * A Treatise on the Dietetic Use of Certain Liquids, as Salutary Agents in the Preservation and Restoration of Health; Ilustrated by References to Scientific and Medical Testimonies. By a London Citizen. London, 1852. 8vo, pp. 12. No. I.] A [Vol. I. bringing back that organ to the due performance of its duty. And we shall specially direct our inquiry to the bold claim advanced by Messrs Allsopp, on the authority (as their hired scribe alleges) of numerous experienced practitioners, of having 'been the means of saving more lives, in the scorching heats of the Indian latitudes, than three-fourths of the elaborate appurtenances of the Pharmacopoeia.' For it is pretty evident, that if the bitter beers can save life in India, they must tend to preserve it in this country. If, on the other hand, it should prove, on more careful inquiry, that they help, like all other alcoholic beverages, to increase the mortality of Europeans in India, it is pretty evident that they cannot be really salutary, or even innocent articles for home consumption. Now, in examining the real value of the various medical certificates which have been advertised by Messrs Allsopp, it is necessary to bear in mind the circumstances under which they were written. The charge against the bitter ales was, that they were adulterated with one of the most deadly poisons known to the toxicologist; and the Messrs Allsopp thought that it would be advantageous to them to meet this charge, not merely by procuring chemical analyses of their liquors, but also by obtaining the testimony of medical men who had been accustomed to recommend them to their patients. We are not furnished with a copy of the form of application which was doubtless made to these gentlemen, in order to gain from them these expressions of opinion; but the tenor of their answers supplies adequate evidence, that by the wholesomeness and purity of the beverage are simply meant its wholesomeness and purity as a malt liquor; that is, its freedom from any deleterious impregnation, which could impair whatever good qualities it may be considered to possess as such. By far the greater number of those gentlemen who have allowed their names to appear in the 'puff medical' of the Litter beers, have limited themselves to statements of this kind, and to the mention of the benefits they have derived from the use of these beverages, as tonic and stomachic medicines; and, as some of the most distinguished among these, e.g., Dr Marshall Hall, Dr G. Budd, Mr Travers, Dr Macrorie, had previously given their sanction to the positive affirmation that total and universal abstinence from alcoholic beverages, of all sorts, would greatly contribute to the health, the prosperity, the morality, and the happiness of the human race, we cannot believe that they would sanction the interpretation which the Messrs Allsopp have endeavoured to fasten upon their language. And, among the remainder, we find only that vague, general, approval, consisting, for the most part, of the mention of their own personal and family experience of the bitter |