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IVIabch 3, I860.] The Leader arid Saturd...
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. . ¦ ¦ . : WINE. . . v : .. . :. ¦ I T ...
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T1IK W1I1TWORTH GUNS. : nPIIE surprising...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Iviabch 3, I860.] The Leader Arid Saturd...
IVIabch 3 , I 860 . ] The Leader arid Saturday Analyst . 205
. . ¦ ¦ . : Wine. . . V : .. . :. ¦ I T ...
. . ¦ ¦ . : WINE . . . v : .. :. ¦ I T would be a wanton waste of revenue and a gross imposition upon a credulous public to reduce the duty upon wine , if , as has been stoutly contended , the wine-producing countries are not on y unable at present to supply any increased demand , but cannot , so limited is the extent of soiladapted to the cultivation of the vine , au-ment thenproduction in any sufficient measure by planting fresh vineyards . It would be almost as idle to make the sacrifice involved in this reduction of duty if the statements ^ -brbught forward to sustain ^ and cover this broad assertion—that France alone can be looked to for a STipphVbut that such a supply , if obtained , must consist entirely of thin light wines , quite unsuited to English tastes , were correct . These objections , however , are quite untenable . The supply of wine is practically unlimited , and the qualify of the greater part of -that annually produced in Europe is of the ; strong , full-bodied kind
assumed to be irrevocably selected by Englishmen . We shall not now discuss the question whether English taste is so fixed—we do not believe that it is , not only because the original taste of the nation was for a lighter kind of wine , as is evidenced by the great , consumption of . claret two hundred years ago , but from the fact that the importation of French wines has been gradually but Purely increasing of late years , whilst it is within the knowledge of all that the consumption of Bourdeaux is fast gaining ground . It is however a matter of little importance , except so tar as sobriety and health are likely to be promoted by the preference for light wines , since , assuming the taste to be for wines of a port or sherry character , it can be gratified to almost any extent ; We will now give the reader some , idea of the Capabilities of Europe ' for the production of wine , requesting him always to bear in mind that the . English- consumption has , during the last few years , averaged from six to seven million gallons .
We could obtain a supply sufficient for tenfold our present consumption from Portugal alone . The whole soil of that country is stated ¦ to be peculiarly adapted to the production of the grape . With even the present cultivation / of tlie Alto Douro , we might , have three tunes as inu <; h srood port as we now get , if the monopolising restrictions of the Oporto Wine Company did not prevent its exportation . Only an arbitrarily determined quantity is allowed to be shipped to Europe each year , and that not the purer pert — ' such of which ¦ as- " we do get being smuggled by the large wine houses —Ibut-. Ji strong sweet wine , full . of spirit . But a small quantity is allowed to come , and the price of that is augmented by fees and dues . A wine merchant of great experience ^ no advocate for the remission of the duty , stated , before the Wine Committee of 1852—and lie was confirmed even by the representatives of the great wine houses , ' Who fear an interference with their own monopoly from the to two
reduction of duty , that if the duty were reduced shillings the trail-on , and the control of the Oporto Wine Company got rid of , first " class young , port might be sold in London at twenty-four shillings the dozen , and a very good wine at fourteen shillings . Of the- ' abolition . of the Company there can be little doubt . Without it Portugal must ? ee her wines entirely excluded from the English market , to the advantage of other countries which produce what may be termed port wine , inasmuch , as , although not coming from Oporto , it has all the characteristics of the wine shipped from that 'place . Port wine , however , is not the only product of Portugal . To pass over Colares and other wines of a claret character , highly praised by those who have drunk thorn , it yields Lisbon and Bucellas , both well known in this country , although Hie former has gone much out of use , and several other delicious wines of a sherry description , the supply of which is illimitable , and the price so low , that , at a two shilling 1 duty , they
could bo sold in London at ninepenco the bottle . Spain is a very El Dorado of wines , and , for the most part , yet un . worked . It produces annually millions of gallons of most ^ oiidous wines , which arc comparatively unknown even to Spaniards themselves , and arc sold at prices which appoir to us ridiculous . The great causo of this state of things hns been the deficiency in means of transit ; it has been impossible to carry the wine nny distance , and often it has been so plentiful , that , Mr . JLumley tells ¦ us , iifc has been used to mix mortar and water the vineyards . At any rato , it has been purchasable at one halfpenny thu gallon , and that wine of a strong , sound character . The wino-growcra . of Spain have been stirred up by the demand for Franco during its years of intheir manufacture
bnd vintages , and have began , to take more care - , and something has been done within , the hist few yours to make the interior more accessible . Spain may bo tukon to produce oven now two hundred and fifty million of gallons every your , and that ctunntity , tho most experienced obsorvors tell us , might easily bo doubled or tripled . Spanish wines aro nearly all full-bodied and highly alcoholized , some partaking of tho port wine character , as IJeni Carlos , which , although at present badly made , hns found ita way into the English market , others being of tho sherry description . Tho district <> f Xores , which yields tho wines from which sherry ought tp bo compounded , could produce a much larger quantity than it does ; and most reliable witnesses before the Wino Duties ' Committee of 1852 stated what Mr . Lumley ' s report fully boors out , that Spai n could immediately supply any possible demand from England lor strong , full-bodied wines .
As to tho qunntity of wino Franco can , supply , there must assuredly oea , sp to be , nny question alter th . o { hot vouched by official returns , that ' she yearly produces more than oight 'hundred million gallons . Assume that our demand augments immediately in a tenr . ibid ratio—and tho assumption is very oxtravagunt-rrwhat are seventy million gallons to such a harvest P Tho other quofition , however , Arses—ia tho wine suqh as Englishmen are likely to drink P A notion
prevails in this country that Prance can send us only light sour clarets and frothy champagnes , but it is one of those strange delusions about other countries which still linger amongst us . One third at least of the produce of France is strong , highly , alcoholised wine , most of it now used in the want of a market as wine for distillation : No better evidence can be given of its character than the fact , that a large quantity of the port drunk in England and South America comes from the South of France . The Roussillon . wines from the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees are allowed by wine merchants to be scarcely distinguishable from port , and some admitted
before the Wine Committee of 1852 that they were unable to detect Masrdeu when offered them as a high-class port . So much for the quality , now for the price . The wine-growers of the Herault would be amply satisfied with threepence a gallon , and M , Michee Chevalier calculates that a good wine could be delivered in London , free of every charge but duty , at Is . Id . . the gallon ; assume the duty at Is . 6 d . ( 2 s . 7 d . ) , and allow the large proportion . of Is-. Sd . for profit , good wine could be retailed at sixpence the pint . All persons acquainted with the French wine trade agree that with such a duty as is now determined upon , good claret can be sold at one shilling the bottle .
We have referred to three great sources to which we may look for our supply of wine , but we have by no means exhausted the fields open to us . Germany , for instance , yields an immense quantity of wine , and its capabilities are scarcely developed . The Austrian empire alone , it is calculated , could produce as much as France now does . But let tlint calculation be ever so much exaggerated , no doubt can exist that it is able to furnish an immense quantity . The-wines of Hungary are comparatively little known , but they have been sold in England under the . name of Port wine—a pretty good proof that they possess spirit and body ;—and those of Dalmatia and Lower Austria are highly praised by competent judges . It is more difficult to speak of the capabilities of Italy . . According to some , it can . supply any quantity of capital wine ; according to others , it yields none " that other countries would care to have ; and it is beyond question that the Oidium has , for the present , put it in the backhas alread the lish
ground . Sicily , however , y conquered Eng market for Marsala— -a wine the -demand for which steadily increases , niid . the red Marsala has made its way surreptitiously as port . The Greek wines , too , have many admirers , and an English market would lead to greater care in their ' production . Passing over Madeira and Teneriffe as wines that have -had . their day ,, and fondly trusting that South African has had-Us day , we may fairly assure our countrymen that the wine will always be ready , whenever they have the wish to drink it and the money-to pay for it . Such disappointment as may follow the reduction of the duty will ' rather full to the lot of the wine-growers . ' They will probably forgot that a nation cannot ' change Us tastes or habits in a few months , and , in the expectation of a brisk market , ship us quantities of wine which will prove absolutely , unsaleable at anything like a remunerative price . However cheap wine may be , it will be some years before the masses take kindly to it . ¦ '
T1ik W1i1tworth Guns. : Npiie Surprising...
T 1 IK W 1 I 1 TWORTH GUNS . : nPIIE surprising . success Of Mr . Wiiitwoutii ' s guns does not lead 1 to the conclusion that the money spent upon those of Sir William Armstrong has been , thrown away , or that the cannon of the hitter gentleman ' will have to be set aside to make'way for those of his triumphant competitor . It is , however , to be doubted , whether the Government exercised a wise discretion in expending all their energies upon one form of artillery , when there wore good reasons for believing that Mr . ¦ WiimvbitTii was acting upon sounder principles , and would obtain a more accurate result . N ' othin" - in the history of projectjlos is so astonishing as therecent iT \ rir at South and it is to be
performances of tho . Wj ; voj { guns port , remarked that , the means employed are precisely those which have been long known to be tho bust when ., adapted to small arms j althoiv h , ° perhaps from their merits , they have always been ignored and disliked by tho old fogey party which rules in our military affairs . Tho Swiss , the Americans , and ; tho late General Jacob , all arrived at tho same conclusion , that a rapid twist in vino-grooving was essential to long range shooting , smd accurate performance boyond trilling distances ; and when Mr . Wim'WOBTji produced his ri ' flo , ho adhered to this rule , not from any fancy for a particular theory , but because he wns led to jt from careful experim ents . Many yours ago tho Swiss proved that a hull-ounce ball fired from a ri ' llo with a twist about twice that adopted by our
Government , would penetrate 3 . } inches of deal at rather more than lnil-f a mile ;• while one hundred bulls in succession at that distance struck a target eight feet six inches square . ' Genoral— -tlien Miijor— - Jacob , with a projectile of rather different pattern , and a rifle which had four grooves , i-nstond oi ' tho sovon employed by tho bwiflp , nrrived at oqimlly important roaultH , but upon tho same principle ot ' n high twist , and obtained an effootivo range of two thousand yards with balls weighing about li ounce fired from u rifle which hud one ' turnih twenty-four iudnts . Jn all thoso oxpenmonts two things wore romarkublu—flrat , thy great range and penetrating power of thoHhot ; and secondly , tho small angle of elevation and the flatness of tho curve of tho line of fliffht—a- mutter oi . great practical imp < yrtauco , boonu . so . it makes slight miscalculations oi distunco of eonipnraUvuly . little eouNoqlionco , and materially udds to the doatruobivanow at projectiles HimhI , at a oonwdorublo nmtfo urapne a body of men . In conformity with tho mysterious constitutional red-tapeworm existence , our authorities decided to havoaritto with a small twist , and an uiineeessurj angle of elevation , gi vlntf to its pro-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03031860/page/9/
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