Sadness reigns with the tragic news that I read this evening:

In a new report on bottled water consumption, the industry newsletter Beverage Digest said in its latest issue that per-person consumption of bottled water has now outpaced that of beer and is second only to carbonated soft drinks in that category, according to an April 28 report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The report said per-capita consumption of bottled water in 2007 compared with 2006 was up 7.1 percent, to 22.5 gallons, with beer rising by 1.4 percent, to 22.2 gallons per person last year, the report said...It said that per-person consumption of bottled water has doubled in the past 10 years.

Don't people know that water drinking can lead to "an enjoyable altered state of consciousness" or praise from the Welsh or worse - temperence? Water drinking? Do as you are implored in The New Testament: "drink no longer water." Why? I would think G.K. Chesterton was suggesting madness goes along with water if I am reading this passage correctly:

The enthusiastic water drinker must regard a rainstorm as a sort of universal banquet and debauch of his own favourite beverage. Think of the imaginative intoxication of the wine drinker if the crimson clouds sent down claret or the golden clouds hock. Paint upon primitive darkness some such scenes of apocalypse, towering and gorgeous skyscapes in which champagne falls like fire from heaven or the dark skies grow purple and tawny with the terrible colours of port. All this must the wild abstainer feel, as he rolls in the long soaking grass, kicks his ecstatic heels to heaven, and listens to the roaring rain.

And if you find yourself accosted by one of these water drinkers, do remember the words one of then Prince Victoria's uncles said to another:

"What's that you're drinking, sir?" he asked him one day at dinner. "Water, sir." "God damn it, sir!" was the rejoinder. "Why don't you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water at my table."

To gird ourselves for the coming war brought by the water lovers, we need to remind ourselves to remind ourselves of the immortal words of Dr. Thos. Dunn English from 1881:

The assumption by extremists that beer represses the finer emotions, retards intellectual activity, destroys the physical power of the race, leads to crime and pauperism, and does many other terrible things, is simply absurd...The Anglo-Saxon race rose to greatness under the consumption of vast amounts of ale, and with indulgence in that stimulant kept up the steady vigor and intellectual power of a race that has imposed its ideas and language over a larger share of earth than any other people.

Say you all "Huzzah!" and go have a beer.