e-merchants may imitate any other wine that is in demand. What is
the consequence? that Madeira, not being any longer in request as
Madeira, now that sherry is the "correct thing," and there not being
sufficient of the latter to meet the increased demand, most of the wine
vended as sherry is made from the inferior Madeira wines. Reader, if
you have ever been in Spain, you may have seen the Xerez or sherry wine
brought from the mountains to be put into the cask. A raw goat-skin,
with the neck-part and the four legs sewed up, forms a leathern bag,
containing perhaps from fifteen to twenty gallons. This is the load of
one man, who brings it down on his shoulder exposed to the burning rays
of the sun. When it arrives, it is thrown down on the sand, to swelter
in the heat with the rest and remains there probably for days before it
is transferred into the cask. It is this proceeding which gives to
sherry that peculiar leather twang which distinguishes it from other
wines--a twang easy to imitate by throwing into a cask of Cape wine a
pair of old boots, and allowing them to remain a proper time. Although
the public refuse to drink Madeira, as Madeira, they are in fact
drinking it in every way disguised--as port, as sherry, etcetera; and it
is a well-known fact that the poorer wines from the north side of the
island are landed in the London Docks, and shipped off to the Continent,
from whence they reappear in bottles as "peculiarly fine flavoured
hock!"

Now, as it is only the indifferent wines which are thus turned into
sherry,--and the more inferior the wine, the more acid it contains,--I
think I have made out a clear case that people are drinking more acid
than they did before this wonderful discovery of the medical gentlemen,
who have for some years led the public by the nose.

There are, however, some elderly persons of my acquaintance who are not
to be dissuaded from drinking Madeira, but who continue to destroy
themselves by the use of this acid, which perfumes the room when the
cork is extracted. I did represent to one of them, that it was a
species of suicide, after what the doctors had discovered; but he
replied, in a very gruff tone of voice, "May be, sir; but you can't
teach an old dog new tricks!"

I consider that the public ought to feel very much indebted to me for
this _expose_. Madeira wine is very low, while sherry is high in price.
They have only to purchase a cask of Madeira and flavour it with
W