Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 00:09:03 -0700

From: Kim & Rima McKinzey rkm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SLIP.NET

Subject: Re: "Here's looking at you"



The Negro woman who

now shows visitors utensils of Colonial Virginia holds up a drinking vessel

of metal with a glass bottom. According to her, after the drinkers had

finished they looked at each other through the glasses and said, "here's

looking at you." In this context, the toast would mean, "Let's drain the

glasses to the last drop."



I had heard that those mugs with a glass bottom originated because of the

sneaky practice of throwing a few coins in a drink when the law said that

if one were paid by the (British?)government, one worked for the

government, and could therefore be conscripted. If you drank the drink,

you had (albeit unwittingly) accepted the government's money and were

therefore conscripted into the military. With a mug with a glass bottom,

you could hold it up and see immediately whether or not there were coins in

it. This is supposedly where the toast "Bottoms up" came from.



Rima