Litchfield enquirer., 1868-08-06
AlcnohoIic Beverages.

cle in the last Atlantic entitled, "Will the Coming Man Drink Wine," in which he maintains that, although the teetotalers have, as yet, totally failed, the weight of argument, and, above all. the weight of scientific testimony, is overwhel- mingiy in their favor. He says:
 Taking tOaether all that science and observation teach and iHdicate We have one certainty That to a person in Eood health and of good life, alchohoi- ic liouors are not necessary bus always in degree hurtful. This truth becomes so clear. after few weeks investigation. that advise every person who means to keep on drinking such iq uors not to look into the facts.
 Regarding the use of alchohol in any form as medicine, Mr. Parton admits that there is great difference ofopinion among physicians. He arrives, however, at the following conclusions:
 The truth appears to be that in few instances, of IntermiItant disease, 8 small quantity of wine may sometimes enable patient who is at the low tide of vitality to anticipate the turn of the tide and borrow at four o'clock enough of five oclOck's strength to enable him to reach five o'clock. With regard to the daily use of wine and whiskey, by a dies and others were debility, it is a delusion.
 The impression is strong my mind, af- ter reading almost all there is in print the sub ject, and cOnversing with many physicians, that the Coming Doctor will give his patient flchoholic mixtures about as often as he will give them lau- danum and in doses of about the same magnitude reckOned by drops.
 There is a notion growing prevalent that mitigation of the evils arising from the use of alchoholic beverages is to be found in supplying the place of distilled liquors with cheap wines. Mr. Parton maintains 1111sa H<D 11 l,, that there is more drunkenness in France and Italy, where wine is cheap and plenty, than in England or the United States. No middle aged New Englander is excuseable for being.g deceived in this matter He has seen the last, we trust, of the race of cider topers, relics of the times when it was no uncommon thing for a single individual to guzzle his six or eight barrels of cider, annually. Of all alchoholic beverages this is, perhaps. the least noxious; yet no one who has ever seen it's effects would ever wish cider tippling revived.
 While MT. Parton supports most of the positions assumed by tho teetotalers, he attributes their failure to the fact Chat they cannot see that dram-drinking is not so much an evil cause as it is an evil result. Over-work, over-eating, and impure air, necessitate the use of stimulants Men out rage the laws of nature, and alchohol post pones the consequences. He sums up the matter as follows:-
 Drinking is but symptom which reveals the malady. Perhaps if we were all to stop OUT cuZ- Zling suddenly, sciltom disseminating our other bad habits, We should rather lose than gain AL cohol supports us in doing wrong It prevents our 3 ;i immediate destruction The thing for us to do ls to strike at the causes of drinking to cease the bad breathing, the bad eating, the bad read ing, the bad feeling and bad thinking, which, in sense, necessitate bad drinking. For some of the teetotal organizations might be substituted Physi- cal Welfare Societies.
 That there is much truth in MT. Parton's view of the total abstinence question, no reasonable man will deny. Alcoholic in- temperance is, certainly, the most disgust ing form of intemperance; but, after all, it is only one form of many. There are those who pass for reputable men and good christians, who are manifestly and confessedly working themselves to death. There are other and worse men, who have worked two wives into their graves apiece, with the third we'll on the way, but who would as soon drink a glass of corro- sive sublimate as glass of whiskey.
 The Teetotallers have proved that there is no evil so great that it cannot be over- stated, and the very language of their ad- dresses is often sin against the tempe rance they preach. We trust that the next school of reformers who attack the devils of intemperance will not seek to cast out one, but all.