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Thirsty? . This article from Kemp's West London Sketcher and Theleme of 1888, price twopence, should have a health warning attached.
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Thames Water an Intoxicant !
We have heard of butter being manufactured from Thames mud, but it needs a strong stomach to swallow either that or the beverage of which the following is an old recipe contained in a book called "England's Interest," published in the year seventeen hundred and three, in which Sir Jonas More says, that "Thames water taken up about Greenwich, at low water, where it is free from all brackishness of the sea, and has in it all the fat and sullage from the great city of London, makes very strong drink.
It will of itself alone, being carried to sea, ferment wonderfully; and after its due purgations and three times stinking (after which it continues sweet), it will be so strong that several sea-commanders have told me it would burn, and has often fuddled their mariners." Sir Jonas was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Surveyor of Ordnance during the time of Charles the Second.
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Theleme, Chiwick 1888 |
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Introduction
Strong brew
