BEE 412 BEH
at home; instead of carrying, perhaps, one-half of their weeklye- 1 -Mngs to the next ale-house, and debarring their helpless chil-dren from tliat necessary assistance, for want of which, they areoften doomed to become additional burthens on the parish. InBritain , malt liquors are generally fined with ground-ivy, the Gle-conva hederacea ; which plant, however, will not produce thedesired effect, if the beer has been brewed of .bad malt, or other-wise mismanaged during the different processes of boiling and fer-menting the wort. The following method of clarifying beer de-serves notice :—After the beer is properly fermented, and a fewdays old, take one gallon out of every barrel, and add two ouncesof hartshorn-shavings (or filings which are still better) to everygallon. Place the liquor over a moderate tire, till it boils, andrises to the top ; let the decoction stand for an hour or two, and,when milk-warm, pour the clear part of it into the bairels, accord-ing to tire proportion before specified. In this state, the casksmust be left undisturbed for twenty-four hours, and then thebeer should either be bottled, or drawn off into other vessels.—This easy and cheap process, not only has the effect of completelyclarifying the beer, but iikewise preventing it from turning sour,especially if it be laid up in bottles properly corked, and securedwith a cement of nearly equal parts ot melted bees’-wax, resin, andturpentine. Considerable damage is to be apprehended fromtheef-fects of a thunder-storm, which may be effectually prevented bylaying a solid piece of iron on each cask. Sour beer may be re-stored various ways; as by salt made of the ashes of barley-straw,put into the vessel, and stirred ; or by three or four handfuls ofbeech-ashes thrown into the vessel, and stirred ; or, where the li-quor is not very sour, by a little put in a bag without stirring;chalk calcined, oyster-shells, egg-shells, burnt sea-shells, crabs-eyes, alkalized coral, &c. do the same, as they imbibe the acidity,and unite with it into a sweetness. Laurel-berries, their skin beingjjeeled off, will keep beer from deadness ; and beer already deadmay be restored by impregnating it with fixed air. An excellentremedy for recovering tart or insipid beer is the following : addto every pint of such beer, from twenty to thirty drops of what iscommonly called oil of tartar (salt of tartar, or pure pot-ash, re-duced to a liquid state, by exposing it to the influence of the air ina cellar or other damp situation ;) then mix it in the vessel, and theacidity will be quickly neutralized. Those who live at a distancefrom the apothecaries’ shops, or wish to prepare this liquid tartar,for occasional use on journeys, especially in summer, may easilymake it, by dissolving two ounces of fine pearl-ashes in eightounces, or half a pint of pure water, frequently shaking.the bo'-tle, then suffering it to stand for twenty-four hours, and afterwardsfiltering the solution through a fine cloth. In this state it maybepreserved for one year; but beer thus restored ought to be drunksoon after it has recovered its briskness, or at least on the sameday ; and this small addition of vegetable alkali is, in warm sea-sons, rather conducive, than detrimental,to health. When beerkas acquired a peculiar taste of the cask, either from an uncleanstate of the vessel, or, by long keeping, from the astringency ofthe oak, it is adviseable to suspend in it a handful of wheat tiednp in a bag; which generally removes the disagreeable taste. Withrespect to the physical properties of malt-liquors, we shall observe,that they are possessed of various degrees of salubrity, accordingto the proportion and nature of their ingredients, and to the man-ner in which they have been brewed. If, a large proportion ofwater has been used, the beerwill.be more proper for quenchingthirst, than if it were strongly impregnated with the mealy and spi-rituous particles of the malt. Hence strong and sweet beer is themost nourishing and beneficial to thin and emaciated personsstaleand bitter ale, the most intoxicating; and weak, half-fermentedporter, the most flatulent, and letKt serviceable to nervous, debi-litated, hysteric, or asthmatic constitutions. Beer always containsa portion of fixed air, which being disengaged within the humanbody, is apt to occasion flatulency and looseness. To the mariner,however, and those who arc subject to scorbutic complaints, it is,in general, a wholesome beverage, though we cannot refrain fromanimadverting upon the prevailing, erroneous notion, that ale orporter promote digestion: this is refuted by the uniform evidenceof experience, whence it clearly appears that, of all liquids what-ever, pure water is the most beneficial solvent of animal and ve-getable substances. Beer of every kind is improper for the hyste-ric, the hypochondriac, and all. those who are already of a full ha-bit, or manifest a thick, atra-'oilious blood ; but it is of peculiar
service to the laborious, the lean, emaciated, and all such consti-tutions as are not liable to flatulency, or any organic diseases ofthe breast.
BEER-SHEBA , [from " 1 X 3 , a well, and y3W, lie sware, ornjris&y an oath,] a city to the S. of the tribe of Judah, adjoining toIdumea .
BEES, St. a town in the county of Cumberland.
BEESTINGS, BREASTJNGS, or perhaps more properly
Beastings, a term used by country people for the first milk takenfrom a cow after calving.
BEET, in botany. See Beta.
BEETLE , in entomology. See Attf.tabus, and Scara-b.bus.
Beetle, in mechanics, is likewise called a Stamper, and bvpaviors a Hammer.
BEFORT, a town and district of France , on the frontiers ofSwitzerland .
BEG, or BEY. See Bf.y.
BEGA, St. an Irish virgin, who is said to have lived a solitarylife of devotion at the spot in the county of Cumberland, wherethe town of St. Bees was afterwards built, and thus named after her.
BEGLERBEG, a governor of one of the principal governmentsin the Turkish empire, and next in dignity to the grand vizier. Toevery beglerbeg the grand signior gives three ensigns or staves,trimmed with a horse-tail ; to distinguish them from the bashaws,who have but two ; and from simple begs, or zangiac begs, whohave but one. Five of the beglerbegs have the title of viziers,viz. those of Anatolia, Babylon, Cairo, Romania , and Buda. Thebeglerbegs appear with great state, and a large retinue, especiallyin the camp, being obliged to bring a soldier for every 5000 aspersof rent which they enjoy. Those of Romania brought 10,060 ef-fective men into the field.
BEGONIA, in botany, a genus of the monoecia polyandriaclass and order. Natural order, Iloloraceie. Male calyx none ;corolla many-petaled ; stamens numerous. Female calyx none ;corolla many-petaled, superior; capsule winged, many-seeded.There are 23 species. The plant is fleshy, and stem in most of thespecies is herbaceous ; but some of them are stemless. They arenatives of Asia and America within tire Tropics..
BEGUARDS, or BEGUARDS , religious of the 3d order ofSt. Francis in Flanders. They were established at Antwerp in theyear 1228, and took St. Begghe for their patroness, whence theyhad their name. From their first institution they employed them-selves in making linen cloth, each supporting himself by his ownlabour, and united only by the bonds of the charity without havingany particular rule. But pope Nicholas IV . having confirmedthat of the third order of St. Francis in 1289, they embraced it in1290.
BEGUINES , a congregation of nuns founded either bv St.Begghe, or by Lambert le Begue . They were established firstat Leige , and afterwards at Neville, in 1207 ; and from this lastsettlement sprang the great number of Brguinages, which arespread over all. Flanders, and which har e passed from Flanders into Germany .
BEHEADING, a capital punishment,, wherein the head is se-vered from the hotly by the stroke of an axe, sword, or other cut-ting instrument. Decollatio, or beheading, was a military pu-nishment among the Romans. Among them the head was laid onaxippus or block placed in a pit dug for the purpose ; in the army,without the vallum ; in the city, without the walls, at a place nearthe porta decumana. Preparatory to the stroke, the criminal wastied to a stake, and whipped with rods. In the early ages theblow was given with an axe, and was but clumsily performed ; butin after-times with a sword, which was thought the more reputablemanner of dying; when the executioners grew more expert, andtook off the head with one circular stroke. In England, behead-ing is the punishment of nobles ; being reputed not to derogatefrom nobility as hanging does. In France during the revolutionarygovernment, the practice of beheading by an instrument called aGuillotine , (so denominated from its inventor, I)r. Gmllot,) wasvery general. It resembles an Instrument long ago used tor thesame purpose in Scotland , railed the Maiden ; winch is still pre-served in the lower part of the parliament-house at Edinburgh .
BEHEMOTH is generally supposed by commentators, as wellas natural historians, to mean either the elephant or the river-horac. See Elepuas, and Hippopotamus.
A BEIIMENISTS*