Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-09-11
RoLLICKfNG DAYS.
ConvIvial Customs OF the English
- ~ Two Centuries Ago.

| -, Two Centuries Ago. .-,y 4
An English author writes: Our grand
fathers, or perhaps it would be better to
say our great grandfathers, were rollick-
| ing boys in their times. They were good
good at hunting, good a fighting, and
more than good at drinking. They lived
much in the open air, did not smoke to
excess, and were rough, ready, honest
people, who despised effeminacy, scorned
the milksops, or as they sometimes called
| them, the Jenny Jessemies, for preferriDg
the ladies' chamber to the fields of Di-
ana or Mars, or the festivals OF Bacchus.
Even so recently as fifty years ago, hard
drinking was the rule, and abstinence the
exception. Not that our grandfathers got
very drunk; it was a point of honor with
them to drink great deal without be-
coming intoxicated, and to ''carry their
winen like gentlemen, none the worse for
the extra bottle. IN ..---,
| ID But our great-grandfathers hundred
years ago, drank harder than their sons
who followed after them, and thought it
the test of good fellow to be what is
called ''three-bottle man," to '9eave no
heel-taps, ,, never to shirk the liquor; or
to be the first to propose joining the
ladies. In the words of Robert Burns,
he was considered a coward loon who set
the example of breaking up the party;
and he who would imbibe the most liquor,
and remain on his chair after all the rest
had fallen helpless under the table, was
king among them a." In those days,
in default of conversation, which was too
apt to degenerate into qusrrelsomeness
and unpleasant personalities, song was
found extremely useful to keep the COM
pany in good humor. He who could
sing, and would not contribute in this
way to the conviviallty of the company,
had TO drink glass of salt and water as
penalty for contumacy or was expected
to give toast or sentiment.
This ultra bacchanaliau period of Eng
lish social history may be said to have
commenced with the Cavaliers during the
revolution, and to have been continued
by them during the Protector&te-no
only because it was the fashion, out be-
cause it was opposed to the prac-
tice and the preaching of the Puritans
and the Roundheads. 1t remained the
fashion of the upper and middle classes
for the whole of the eighteenth century,
and so late as the Regency and the close
of the reign of George III, when the first
symptoms of much needed reform be-
came visible. How long the fashion
lasted, and how hard it was to uproot,
appears from references and illusions in
the literature of the time. Dean Ram
says amusing "reminiscences of Scot
fish Life and Character are full of it.
Nothing, says the dean, Scan more
powerfully illustrate the deep rooted char
scter of Incorporate habits in some fami-
hes than an anecdote which was related TO
me as coming from the late Mr. Macken-
zie, author of the Man of Feeling He
had been involved in a regular drinking
party. He was keeping as free from the
usual excuses as he was able, and as he
marked companions around him falling
victims to the power of drink, he himself
dropped off under the table among the
slain, as measure of precautioh. Living
there, his attention was called to small
pair of hands working at his throat On
asking what il was, a voice replied: 'Sir,
I'm the lad that's to loosen, the neck
cloths. ;" "
"There was" added the dean in another
portion of his little book, "a sort of
fascination in the supposed dignity and
manliness attached to powers of deep po-
,ation, and the fatal effects of drinking
were spoken of in q manner both reckless
and unfeeling. A well known laird of
the old school expressed himself with
great Indignation against the charge that
hard drink actually killed people. Ma,
IA! never knew anybody that was
killed with drinking, though have known
some that have died in the training"