A curious ease, illustrating the numberless wine swindles, was tried
last week at Westminster before Mr. Justine Mellor. A Hartlepool wine merchant, Mr. Lockwood, bought four hogsheads of wine as good port at the price of 45/. the pipe, from a Mr. Simons, a London wine merchant. The wine was really a red Guernsey wine, and worth at most about 14/. or 15/. the pipe, though described in the invoice as "four hogsheads port, rich old 1858." Mr. Justice Mellor, who declined to have any discussion as to warranty, said that he had had it proved in a case before him that on one occasion "bad cider was turned into excellent port wine." It appears that the Hartlepool wine mer- chant did taste the wine, but found it very hard to judge, as "the samples had been so often opened." We doubt whether that was the real difficulty. The responsibility of tasting, except with very experienced persons, spoils the perception. It is just the same with other things—cheese, for instance. It requires leisure, an accidental kind of perception, and no eye to consequences, in order to taste. You cannot surprise the true taste of anything while you are intending to taste it. Of nothing is it truer than of testing, that yen do in haste whot you repent at leisure,
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