Note H — PART I. WINES AND SPIRITS.

To produce the dilapidations of “Father Time” on wine corks, the dry rot, however injurious to others, is of great advantage to wine-dealers, as it soon covers the bottles with its mouldy appearance, and consumes the external part of the cork; so that with a trifling operation on the bottles after they are filled, and then deposited in cellars pretty strongly affected with the dry rot, they can furnish the admirers of “aged wine” with liquor having the appearance of having been bottled seven or eight years, though it has not in reality been there so many months. The staining of the lower extremities of the corks with a fine red colour, produced from a strong decoction of Brazil wood and alum, to make them appear “aged,” or as if they had been long in contact with the wine, is another of the devices of the factitious wine-trade, and forms a distinct branch of its operations.