The sharp taste which it then acquires makes it all the more acceptable to many palates, and the user is loath to admit that it has become hard, or fermented. There is danger to health in the use of even sweet cider as ordinarily produced. If people could see what the microscope reveals in regard to the cider they buy, few would be willing to drink it. Often those who manufacture cider for the market are not careful as to the condition of the fruit used, and the juice of wormy and decayed apples is expressed. Today, in places where the purity of foods is not controlled, apple cider may still be made the same way.
Intoxication is just as really produced by wine, beer, and cider as by stronger drinks.
The use of these drinks awakens the taste for those that are stronger, and thus the liquor habit is established. Moderate drinking is the school in which men are educated for the drunkard's career. Yet so insidious is the work of these milder stimulants that the highway to drunkenness is entered before the victim suspects his danger. Some who are never considered really drunk are always under the influence of mild intoxicants. They are feverish, unstable in mind, unbalanced.