Life’s Luxuries
I like the detailed engravings that you find in so many 19th-century books and periodicals. The complicated machine shown here is from the Historical and Descriptive Review of the State of North Carolina, a business directory published in Charleston in 1885. The engraving appeared in an ad for James Redmond of New Bern, a “wholesale liquor dealer, and manufacturer of ginger ale, sarsaparilla, lemon soda, buffalo mead, California pear cider, &c.” Apparently this is some sort of bottling contraption. The entry for Redmond in the book describes his business as furnishing “one of the staple luxuries of life, lager beer.”
