But here I must restrain my rovings, and recall my purpose to descant on other points. And indeed the uses of water are so numerous and varied that the subject might well engross a lecture by itself; and I must needs therefore cut the matter short. It is only Hodge-Podge, moreover, I have undertaken to dish up before you, and I must keep my word. For, fain as I am to dilate on the many economic virtues of water, I must not forget that the pot contains other ingredients, and that the dish I am serving out of it would yield but poor fare, if it did not.

2. I come therefore to the next ingredient in the soup I am providing; for, as the housewife said, "there's mutton intilt," and it is the most important ingredient in the mess. But the animal which produces it, like the kindred animals that produce the like, serves other purposes as well, and these no less essential to the exigency of the race; and it is of them I propose to speak. It is beside my design to enter on the domain of the sheep-breeder, and attempt an account of the different kinds reared by the farmer; enough to say that, numerous as these are, they are all fed and tended for the benefit of the human family, and that they minister to the supply of the same human wants.

The child, as it frolics on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service and value, all such sentimental and aesthetic emotions pass out of court, and only calculations of base utilitarianism fill the eye from horizon to horizon. No doubt the creatures are lovely and beautiful to behold on the meadows and hill-sides of the landscape, which they enliven and adorn; but man must live as well as admire, and unless by sacrifice of the sheep he must not only go without hodge-podge to his dinner, but dispense with much else equally necessary to his life and welfare. The cook requires the sacrifice, that he may purvey for the tables of both gentle and semple; the tallow-dealer requires the sacrifice, that he may provide light for our homesteads, and oil for our engines, both stationary and locomotive; and the wool-merchant and the currier insist on stripping the victim of his fleece, and even flaying his skin, before they can assure us of fit clothing and covering against cold and rain for our bodies and our belongings. And what a wretched plight we should be in, if the sheep, or their like, did not come to the rescue, or the help they are fitted to render were not laid under contribution! For not only might we be fated to go often dinnerless to bed, and to live all our days in a body imperfectly nourished, but our evenings would in many cases be spent without light, and our journeys undertaken without comfort, and our outer man left to battle at odds, unshod and unprotected, with the discomforts of the highway and the inclemency of the seasons. Of all the services rendered by the sheep to the race of man, perhaps the most invaluable is that which is accorded in the gift of wool; and it is for the sake of this alone that, in many quarters, whole flocks, and even breeds, are reared and tended,—so great is the demand for it, and such the esteem in which it is held for the purpose of clothing the body and keeping it in warmth.

3. But, again, to advance a step further, there are, as the landlady of the inn remarked, "neeps intilt." On this part of the subject, that I may pass to the next topic on which I mean to speak, and which is of wider range, I intend to say little. I have already referred to the important place assigned to this vegetable by a living economist as affording a basis for grouping society into two great classes. To the farmer it is of equal, and far more practical, importance; for it is, by the manner of its cultivation, a great means of clearing the land of weeds; it is the chief support of sheep and cattle through the months of winter; and it is one of the most valuable crops raised on British soil, and of equal account in the agriculture of both England and Scotland. The culture of turnips on farms involves considerable expense indeed, and is sometimes attended with loss, and even failure; but they are of inestimable value in cattle husbandry, as without them our sheepfarms would soon be depopulated, and the animals hardly outlive a winter. One function they, and the like, fulfil in nature, is turning inorganic matter into vegetable, that the component elements may in this form be more readily assimilated into animal flesh and blood; while their introduction as an article of farming is of great importance as rendering possible and feasible a regular rotation of crops.

4. But I must, as I said, hasten on to another ingredient of the dish we are compounding; I refer to barley, for that too, as our gracious hostess would say, is "intilt." From this single grain what virtues have been developed! what mildness, what soothing, what nourishment, and what strength! What a source it is to us of comfort, of enjoyment, and of wealth! There is barley-water, for instance, a beverage most harmless, yet most soothing; meet drink for the sick-room, and specially promotive of the secretions in patients whose disease is inflammatory, and who suffer from thirst. Then there is barley-bread, extensively used in both England and Scotland, than which there is none more wholesome to the blood and more nourishing to the system; the meal of which is of service too in the shape of a medical appliance, and, when so used, acts with most beneficial effect. But its strength is not so pronounced or decisive either in the form of an infusion or in that of bread, much as in these forms it contributes to health and vigour: it is not when it is put into the pot, or when bruised by the miller, that it comes out in the fulness of its might; it is when it is immersed in water, and subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt. In this form it can be converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe, it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will dare with impunity to enter the lists with it, and can hope to retire from the contest with the strength unshorn and a firm footstep.[C]

Whisky, which is what I now refer to as the highest outcome of the strength of barley, is, like hodge-podge, of Scotch incubation, and deserves, for country's sake and the fame it has, some brief regard. The process by which the grain is prepared may be described as follows. The grain is first damped, then spread out on a floor, and finally a certain quantity of water and heat applied, when it begins to germinate, which it continues to do to a certain stage, beyond which it is not allowed to pass. At this moment a Government official presents himself, and exacts a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so valuable an article a modicum of tax. The grain thus prepared is now in a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or less alcoholic drink.

First the brewer produces therefrom those excellent beverages called beer and porter, and so contributes to our refreshment, enjoyment, and strength. These beverages are, in one shape or other, nearly in universal demand, and the money spent upon the consumption of Bass and XX almost passes belief. They are exported into every zone of the world, and consumed by every class. And then the distiller takes the grain in the same form, and, by slow evaporation and subsequent condensation, extracts the pure, subtle, and potent spirit we have referred to, and which, in more or less diluted form, we call whisky, or Scotch drink. And this article also, in spite of cautions, is in large demand and extensively exported, though perhaps not so much is consumed among us as was fifty years ago. It is not by any means so bad an article as it has a bad name; for when of good quality, and moderately indulged in, it is perfectly wholesome; only when the quality is bad, or the indulgence excessive, do evil results follow. And indeed such are its merits when good, that it is said dealers sometimes export it to France and other parts, from which it is imported again to this country, transfused into splendidly labelled brandy bottles, and sold untransformed as best brandy!

Little do we think, when eating our quiet dinner at a Scottish country inn, what power and wealth are represented in the hodge-podge which belike forms one of the dishes, and which, by suggestion and in the style of the housewife, we are now analysing. As we disintegrate the mess, and resolve it into its elements, we may well bethink ourselves of the cost of our board on the planet, and of the value of the articles we are daily consuming. To help you to a clearer idea of this, in regard to the article barley alone in the form of malt, let me commend to your attention the following statistical statement:—

A Parliamentary return of 1876 shows that the quantity of malt charged with duty during the year was—

BUSHELS. DUTY. England, 54,655,274 L7,412,621 Scotland, 2,927,763 396,241 Ireland, 3,346,606 453,883 ————— ————— Total of United Kingdom, 60,929,633 L8,262,746

The quantity of barley imported into the United Kingdom during the year was equivalent to 2,736,425 quarters. See how great a fire a little spark, hodge-podge, kindleth!

So much for the quantity of malt produced, and the revenue derived from it, in a year in the United Kingdom. I have spoken of this malt as being convertible into a form which possesses, among other virtues, the power of quenching our thirst. I wish it did not also quench our thirst for the knowledge we all ought to have of its production and really serviceable qualities; that it would stimulate inquiry after such things, and not smother it, as it is too apt to do; and, in general, prompt us to a wiser study of our social wants, and the means at our command for further social improvement; which we might prosecute with less and less recourse to the stimulant virtues of malt in such forms as whisky. And this we may do, if we limit our indulgence in it to the less potent form of it in beer, which, while it is calculated to quench man's bodily thirst, is equally calculated to quicken his mental. How much it contributes to allay the former, and how many thirsty souls are refreshed by it, we may estimate from the statistics of the sale of it furnished by a single firm in London. I refer to the firm of the Messrs. Foster, Brook Street, who are friends of my own, and to whom I should be glad to refer all who may be in want of a wholesome beer, for theirs is so good and genuine. The Messrs. Foster are among the most extensive bottlers and exporters in the country; and I find from the information they have kindly supplied me, that the beer bottled by them for export purposes during the year 1874 was 6000 butts, of 108 gallons each; that their contracts for the supply of bottles during that period represented 25,000 gross, or 5,040,000 bottles, which, if laid end to end, would extend to about 1000 miles; and that their accounts with Bass & Co. alone for that term amounted to L150,000. All, from the highest to the lowest, drink beer in England; and when unadulterated and taken in moderation, it is one of the most healthful beverages of which the human being, man or woman, can partake.

Though I have only partially gone over the ground contemplated at first, I feel I must now draw to a conclusion, which I am the less indisposed to do, as I think in what I have said I have pretty fairly set before you the wonderful properties latent in a basin of hodge-podge. For it is a habit of mine, which I have sought to indulge on the present occasion, to analyse every subject to which my attention is directed, and in which I feel interest, before I can make up my mind as to the proper significance and importance of the whole compound. Thus, for instance, set a dish of hodge-podge before me; it does not satisfy me to be told that it is only a basin of broth, and that it is wholesome fare; I must, as I have now been doing in a way, resolve the compound into its elements, see these in other and wider relations, and refer them mentally to their rank and standing in the larger world of the economy of nature and of social existence. I am always asking "What's intilt?" and am never satisfied, any more than the English tourist, with a bare enumeration: I must subject the factors included to rational inspection, and watch their play and weigh their worth in connection with interests more general.

And if, in the delivery of this lecture, I have persuaded any one to regard common things in a similar light and from a similar interest, I shall deem the time spent on it not altogether thrown away. Mind, not water, is the ultimate solvent in nature, and everything, when thrown into it, will be found in the end to resolve itself into it, or what in nature is of kin to it. And if a Latin poet could justify his interest in man by a reference to his own humanity, so may we rest content with nature when we find that we and it are parts of each other. It is well to learn to look on nothing as private, but on everything as a part of a great whole, of which we ourselves are units; so shall we feel everywhere at home, and a sense of kinship with the remote as well as near within the round of existence.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] The Highlanders are said to be able to offer it a stout defiance, for they can stand an immense quantity; and I have heard of an innkeeper in the north, who, when remonstrated with on account of his excessive drinking, so far admitted the justice of the charge implied, but pled that he could not be accused of undue indulgence the night before, as, whatever he might have drunk during the day, he had, after supper, had only seventeen glasses!

THE END.

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