Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-02-07
The Use OF Wine im America.

Henry Ward Beecher addressed large
temperance meeting in Brooklyn on We'd
nesday evening" during which he referred
to the use of wine as follows: "Fellow-citi-
zens, the use of wine in America is an af-
fectation. 1t is an imitation of fashion. 1t
is not home-bred. Rum drinking is Ame-
rican, | will admit Laughter Whisky
is indigenous. Laughter But as to
wine, it is new-fangled and imported no.
tion-the drinking of it here. There is an
impression that when man has got to
that state when he is able to put decanter
or bottle of wine on his table he has adj
vanced above the vulgar To offer swig
of brandy or rum ANY body can do that
laughter but to put glasses for wine on
the table-that looks like gentility Laugh
ter. And so there is an impression when
men are going to give party to entertain
their friends that to do the genteel thing
| they must have wine This is merely the
aping of foreign fashion In Italy, where
they have been brought up to it all their
lives; in France, where for 500 years it has
been the common drink, and the very per-
sons who set wine now upon their tables
probably twenty five years ago never had
seen drop, except at the communion
table. The probability is, those persons
most flushed with wine to-day are those
who were brought up in honorable poverty,
and knew nothing about it until they grew
to manhood and became wealthy, and,
having acquired money, did not know ex-
actly what to do with it. They first built
a house, furnished it with sofas, sideboards,
fine chairs, easy chair, settees ottomans,
and any other furniture. ooh! yes, pic
lures; we must have pictures laughter
and wine, for wine about that time is reck-
oned as the passing point; for when man
has luis house, fine furniture, pictures that
he don't understand all round his walls
laughter then if he can also turn his
key upon wine cellar-if he can clinch
his glass and look through it as though he
was always in the habit of looking through
Il laughter The thinks he has passed the
line and is genteel. 1t is miserable aping
OF foreign fashion. / don't believe, in gen
| eral, that our American palate is fond of
wine. Here and there there there is an
| exception to the rule; but wine is set on
tables merely for the sake of the effect. 1t
looks about the right thing Laughter
Now, wine is good for nothing for our pur-
poses You might as web undertake to run
steamboat across the Atlantic ocean on
pine shavings as to run New York mer-
chant. on wine. Laughter.] A man who
is going to do two days work in one
Laughter. He wants more than that.
What he wants is something that will fire
him up. Well, why don't he take his
whisky or brandy and be done with it?
Laughter. He does take it, but he is not
done with it. 1t sticks by him great deal
longer than he wishes it did. Laughter.
But | say the use of wine here, for the
most part, is miserable affectation, poor
imitation of foreign customs; it is not
American. You may say it will be as soon
as the Ohio, Pleasant Valley and Califor-
mia vineyards pour their tributes of wine
upon us; but there is not such an album
dance of our home-bred wines yet, and
they, too, are beginning to be adulterated
so that no man knows what he drinks
when he drinks American wine, for there
is more wine in the vineyards of New York
city than was ever made in the vineyards
of France or California. Laughter.