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Offenders, however, again grew bold. The tribunals treated them leniently. First, fines were levied; then came confiscation of property, Michael Kors Outlet Online imprisonment, and hard labour; next, banishment: and none of these courses meeting the evil, the Judges at length cut off the head of an incorrigible criminal, Ehrni of Erlingen; and, for a while, terrified the whole brotherhood of wine-spoilers into a temporary Michael Kors Outlet observance of honesty. The next struggle which occurred in Germany, was between those who applied tests to detect the presence of metals, and those who invented processes to Michael Kors Handbags Outlet defy them.

It was otherwise in Germany, where Diets were assembled to discuss what was, in truth, no unimportant matter; the members of whichMichael Kors Outlet Online began to think, that if wine was worth having, it was worth providing for its purity. For centuries Governments made laws, but bad wine was drunk in spite of them. Beckmann gives it as his opinion, that wines cannot be poisoned by gypsum; but that is Michael Kors Outlet more readily said than proved. The ancients clarified their wine with it; but they did so at the expense of a portion of the spirituous part.

Home-made Madeira is a compound of bad port, Vidonia, that African nastiness called " Cape," sugar-candy, and bitter almonds; and the Vidonia, which is an ingredient in itself, often adulterated with cider and rum; and a little carbonate Michael Kors Outlet Online of soda, " to contumace the x 2 appetites acidities." The lowest and cruellest insult to human taste and stomachs is, perhaps, the adulteration of Cape. It is had enough in itself; but Cape, with some¬thing worse in it, is only fit for the thirsty hounds of Pluto.

The "bees wing," the "thick crust on the bottle," the "loss of strength," and so on,—all these are declared by the best judges to be nothing more than forbidding manifes¬tations of decomposition, and the disappearance of the very best qualities of the wine. Many years ago, I made a " note" on this subject, but am now unable to Michael Kors Outlet Online recollect from what work, nor can I say whether the following remarks on the qualities of wine were made by the author of an original work, or by a reviewer commenting thereon. Such as they are, however, they are not without value. " The age of maturity," says the writer, " for exporta¬tion from Oporto, is said to be the second year after the vintage ; probably sometimes not quite so long.

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