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If they are paid extra beer-money and oatmeal water is made for them gratis, some will, of course, imbibe it, especially if they see that thereby they may obtain little favours from their employer by yielding to his fad. By drinking the crotchet perhaps they may get a present now and then-food for themselves, cast-off clothes for their families, and so on.
"Oh! as for that," said Lord Marney; "they get more than that, because there is beer-money allowed, at least to a great extent among us, though I for one do not approve of the practice, and that makes nearly a shilling per week additional; and then some of them have potatoe grounds, though I am entirely opposed to that system.
Thus, after all, put the English laborer in the position suggested; give him such a three-pound cottage and garden as Lord Overstone provides; give his children free and convenient schooling; then let him exchange his ale for nutritious and almost costless drinks, and if he is still able to live for a few years on his old food-fare, he may work his way up to a very comfortable condition with his twelve shillings a week, besides his beer-money.
Beer is the chloroform that enables the laborer to endure the severe operation of living; that is why we can always assure one another over our wine that the rascal's misery is due to his habit of drinking. We are down on him for it, because, if he could bear his life without beer, we should save his beer-money get him for lower wages. In short, we should be richer and he soberer.
These savings were made out of a daily pay of one and threepence and a penny for beer-money, or equal to about nine and sixpence a week, subject to sundry deductions for extra clothing. Again, the men of the Royal Engineers mostly drawn from the skilled mechanical class had saved nearly twelve thousand pounds, or an average of about twenty pounds for each depositor.
Jones, R.H.A., should have a pair of new breeches at the public expense or pay for them out of his beer-money. All were very necessary tasks, no doubt, but requiring the right men to do them; and the engineers very urgently wanted the right men, too, not merely for making the docks, but for their multifarious activities in the field.
Item, she praised the good cheer they had there, and the handsome beer-money that the great lords who often lay there gave the servants which waited upon them; that she herself had more than once received a rose-noble from his Princely Highness Duke Ernest Ludewig; moreover, many pretty fellows came there, which might make her fortune, inasmuch as she was a fair woman, and might take her choice of a husband; whereas here in Coserow, where nobody ever came, she might wait till she was old and ugly before she got a curch on her head, etc.
On Monday I left my bed betimes, and as I felt in passable good case, I went up to the castle to see whether I might peradventure get to my daughter, but I could not find either constable, albeit I had brought a few groats with me to give them as beer-money; neither would the folks that I met tell me where they were; item, the impudent constable his wife, who was in the kitchen making brimstone matches.
Old Mat paid out five sovereigns into the other's outstretched paw. "Four sovereigns for the mare and a half for the halter, and a little bit o' beer-money." The crowd cheered and the gypsy danced a jig. "You're a gentleman, Mr. Woodburn," he cried. "Now I'll tell you somefin for yourself." He drew the old man aside and whispered in his ear, ending with an emphatic: "S'truth, sir!"
Directly we cease to drink directly we become good boys on your precious terms the standard of life falls, down come wages, and you sweep off our beer-money to spend on your champagne. Thank you, Sir George! but we're not such fools as we look and that don't suit us! Good-day to you." And he haughtily touched his hat in response to George's movement, and walked quickly away.
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