The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1869-01-29
THE VINE QUESTION--.DR. HOL.
LAND'S VIEWS.

DR.. J. G. Holland CTimothy Titcomb)
who is visiting Switzerland, does not
agree with those who claim that the sub
stitution of light wines for whisky will
prove . panacea for intemperance. He
writes from Lucanne to the Springfield
Republican:
For the last three weeks, the whole
working population. men and women.
have been in these vineyards gathering
the crops The teams are employed in
Transporting the immensely large casks
of new wine from the presses to the cell
lars of their owners, to the vaults of the
dealers who have purchased it. and to
the railroad depot for transportation to
the store houses of spectators in other
quarters There is an endeavor on the
part of these people to throw romantic
interest around their vintage. The casks
go through the streets with gay boquets
of flowers in their bungholes, but from
what have seen of the effect of wine
here. the show is all sorry farce. There
is no Question that the people would be
better healthier, happier, and much
more prosperous II tfere was not a
vineyard in the Canto. We have all
been told in America, and I fully be-
lieve it, that, if people could be sup
piled with cheap wine, they would not
get drunk-that the natural desire for
some sort of stimulant would be graft
fed in way that would be not only
harmless to morals, but conductive to
health. / am thoroughly undeceived.
The people drink their cheap white wine
here to drunkenness. A boozier set
than hang around the multitudinous
cafes here it would be hard to find in
any American city, even when they en-
inxy fha or Iay- ho
grand difference in the drunkenness of
an American end Swiss city is found in
the fact that the man who has wine in
him is good natured, and the man who
is equally charged with wisky is dem
on. There is no numbering, no fighting,
no wrangling. The excitement is work
ed off in singing, shouting and all sorts
of insane jabber. Then the steady old
white wine topers come into blossom.
If you can imagine cauliflower of the
color of the ordinary red cabbage, you
can achieve very adequate conception
of faces that are not uncommon in all
this wine growing region. So this ques-
ton is settled in my mind. Cheap wine
is not the cure of intemperance. The
people here are just as Incorporate as
they are in America, and, what is more,
there is no public sentiment that checks
intemperance in the least. The wine is
fed freeley to children, and by all classes
is regarded as a perfectly legitimate
drink. Failing to find the solution of
the temperance question in the Maine
law. falling to perceive it in the various
modes and movements of the reform,
[, with many others, have looked with
hope to find it in cheap and compare
lively harmless wine but, for one, can
look in this direction hopefully-no lon
ger. l firmly believe that the wines of
Switzerland are of no use except to
keep out wisky, and that the advanta-
ges of the wine over the whisky are not
very obvious. 1t is the testimony of
the best men in SwitZerland-those who
have the highest good of the people at
heart-that the increased growth of the
grape has been steadily and correspond
ingly attended by the increase of drunk
enness. They lament the planting of a
new vineyard as we, at home, regret the
opening of new grog shop. They
know, and deeply feel, that the whole
wine-producing enterprise is charged
with degradation to their country.