Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1892 — They Like Beer. [ARTICLE]

They Like Beer.

The taste for alcohol isnotconfined to human beings, as animals take very kindly to it, and a little practice makes them confirmed topers. We have never yet met a dog that could resist bread soaked in beer, and Richardson tells us of a cat that was taught by some children to drink wine. “She would amuse a company by taking her share of old port, and becoming first excited, and then very stupid, unsteady, and sleepy." The poor beast became dropsical, and died of liver disease, but then it had been drenched with drink far beyond the limits of moderation, and the usual results followed. Richardson also tells us of how be was driving near Canterbury, when the horse stopped short at a public house. “I asked the driver what that for ‘The horse,* said he, ‘always stops here for his beer. He wouldn’t go by on no account. You couldn’t whip him by, sir, until he has had his beer. His former master taught him to drink beer, and invariably treated him to it, and here he’ll stop till he gets it.’ It was the fact; a large tankard of beer was brought out to* that horse, and he disposed of the fluid with as much relish as his master, and then went his way.”—Blackwood’s Magazine.