Advertisement for Excise on Liquors found in the New Hampshire Gazette, 6 May 1757, Portsmouth NH, Issue 31, page 2.
ON EXCISES
Excise, a Monster, worse than e’er before
Frighted the Midwife, and the Mother tore;
A thousands Hands she has, a thousand Eyes,
Breaks into Shops and into Cellars pries;
With hundred Rows of Teeth the Shark exceeds,
And on all Trades, like Casawar, she feeds;
Chops off the Piece, where’er she close the Jaw,
Else swallows all down her indented Maw;
She stalks all Day in the Streets conceal’d from Sight,
And flies, like Bats, with Leathern Wings by Night;
She wastes the Country, and on Cities preys;
Her of a female Harpy, in Dog-Days,
Black Birch, of all the Earth-born Race most hot,
And most rapacious, like Himself begot,
And of his Brat enamor’d as she increast,
Revel’d in Incest with the Mongrel Beast.
–From Weekly Rehearsal, May 14, 1733 Boston MA
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