Bang to rights ...

As with many heavy drinkers, it wasn't until Britain switched over to
shorts that the trouble started. By the last years of the 17th
century, it has been estimated that consumption stood at 24 pints of
gin a year for every man, woman and child in England. In 18th-century
London, where two pints of "mother's ruin" were consumed per person
per week, gin was cheaper than milk. I'm not sure which part of that
last sentence is more striking. Is it "two pints per person per week"
or "gin was cheaper than milk"?

To you, this gin-epidemic episode might be old news. But we aren't
taught a lot of English history in Irish schools. So you can
understand my glee at discovering the gin epidemic. We get a lot of
grief, the Irish, about being heavy drinkers, but you . . . had a gin
epidemic. Oh sure, we like a pint now and again but . . . you had an
epidemic . . . of gin. This is like finding out that your
disciplinarian stepfather actually has a teenage police record for
possession of marijuana.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/oct/02/dara-obriain-england-football-london

 

Don't they have any examples of Hogarth's work in Irish art galleries?

http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/hogarth_william_ginlane.htm

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Eight Hundred and Fifty pints a year.

Oh Mother!!

 

There's some very nice Hogarth works at St Barts too.

http://www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/aboutus/st_bartholomews_hospital.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bartholomew's_Hospital

 

Not surprising really. It was safer than drinking the water!

 

In message

"For drinking will make a man quaff,
And quaffing will make a man sing;
Singing will make a man laugh,
And laughter long life doth bring."

From "Old Sir Simon the King".

 

Good fucking god!

 

It's less than three a day though

 

Indeed, the lightweights.

 

I thought he meant Gin at first

 

IIRC from a TV prog somewhere one of the the principle differences
between European and oriental cultures is down to that. In the middle
ages we used to drink alcohol because it was safer than the water,
they drank tea.

 

and so had more children

 

To some perhaps.

Gin was the original crack.

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine

 

Considering what it was variously doctored with.

 

In message

We have William Cobbett to blame for that

 

Marc wrote:
[gin]

heh.