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