ate fingers pressed down in the bowl,
As dripping and fresh as it came from the brook,
The herb whose aroma should flavour the whole.

The draught was delicious, each god did exclaim,
Though something yet wanting they all did bewail,
But Julep the drink of immortals became,
When Jove himself added a handful of hail.

I have mentioned the principal causes to which must be assigned the
propensity to drink, so universal in America. This is an undeniable
fact, asserted by every other writer, acknowledged by the Americans
themselves in print, and proved by the labours of their Temperance
Societies. It is not confined to the lower classes, but pervades the
whole mass: of course, where there is most refinement, there is less
intoxication, and in the Southern and Western States, it is that the
custom of drinking is most prevalent.

I have said that in the American hotels there is a parlour for the
ladies to retire to: there is not one for the gentlemen, who have only
the reading-room, where they stand and read the papers, which are laid
out on desks, or the bar.

The bar of an American hotel is generally a very large room on the
basement, fitted up very much like our gin palaces in London, not so
elegant in its decorations indeed, but on the same system. A long
counter runs across it, behind which stand two or three bar-keepers to
wait upon the customers, and distribute the various potations,
compounded from the contents of several rows of bottles behind them.
Here the eye reposes on masses of pure crystal ice, large bunches of
mint, decanters of every sort of wine, every variety of spirits, lemons,
sugar, bitters, cigars and tobacco; it really makes one feel thirsty,
even the going into a bar. [See Note 3.] Here you meet every body and
every body meets you. Here the senator, the member of Congress, the
merchant, the store-keeper, travellers from the Far West, and every
other part of the country, who have come to purchase goods, all
congregate.

Most of them have a cigar in their mouth, some are transacting business,
others conversing, some sitting down together whispering confidentially.
Here you obtain all the news, all the scandal, all the politics, and
all the fun; it is this dangerous propinquity, which occasions so much
intemperance. Mr Head has no bar at the Mansion-house in Philadelphia,
and the consequence is, that there is no drinking, except wine at
dinner; but in all the other hotels, it wou