Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 1).djvu/22

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INTRODUCTION.

Again, the Exciseman pretended, that my deceased Landlord did encourage that species of manufacture called distillation, without having an especial permission from the Great, technically called a licence, for doing so. Now I stand up to confront this falsehood; and, in defiance of him, his: gauging-stick, and pen and inkhorn, I tell him, that I never saw, or tasted, a glass of unlawful aqua vitæ in the house of my Landlord; nay, that, on the contrary, we needed not such devices in respect of a pleasing and somewhat seductive liquor, which was vended and consumed at the Wallace Inn, under the name of mountain dew. If there is a penalty against manufacturing such a liquor, let him show me