I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos'd,
to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored
to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could
only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved
in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a
pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint
of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay
out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor;
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep
themselves always under.
Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left
the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings,
was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition,
as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbad my paying it.
I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as
an excommunicate, and bad so many little pieces of private mischief
done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter,
etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all
ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not
regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection,
I found myself oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of the
folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually.
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