The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1871-01-12
WOMEN AND WINE.


Woman has never been associated with
wine without disgrace and disaster. The
feast and the baccanal that, with musical
alteration, couple these two words,
spring from the hot lips of sensuality and
are burdened with shame. A man who,
sings of wine and women in the same
breath, is one whose presenceis disgrace,
and whose touch is pollution. A man
who can forget mother and sister, or wife
and daughter, and wantonly engage in
revel in which the name Of woman is in
voked to heighten the pleasures Of the
intoxicating cup, is beyond controversy
and without mitigation, beast. ''Dost
thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
Ay, cakes and ale, and if you will, bat
let ir be cakes and ale. Let not the
name by which we call the pure and pre-
cious ones at home be brought in to lila
minste degrading feast.
Of the worst foes that wemen has ever
had to encounter, wine stands at the
head. The appetite for strcng drink has
in man spoiled the lives Of more women,
ruined more hopes for them, scattered
more fortunes for them, brought to them
more shame, sorrow, and hardship-than
any other evil that lives. The country
numbers tens OF thousands-nay hun
dreds Of thousands-of women who are
widows to-day, and sit In hopeless weeds,
because their husbands have been slain
by strong drink. There are hundreds of
thousands of homes, scattered all over
the land, in which women live lives of
torture, going through all the changes
of suffering that lie between the extremes
offear and despair, because those whom
they love, love wine better than they do
the women they have sworn to love.
There are women by thousads who dread
to hear at the door the step that once
thrilled them with pleasure, because that
step has learned to reel under the influ-
ence of the seductive poison. There are
women groaning with pain, while we
write these words, from bruises and hru-
talities by husbands made by drink.
There can be no exaggeraton in any
statement made in regard to this matter,
because no human Imagination can create
anything worse than the truth, and no
pen is capable Of portraying the truth.
The sorrows and the horrors of a wife
with drunken husband, or a mother
with drunken son, are as near the re-
alization of hell as can be reached in this
world, at least. The shame, the indig-
ration, the sorrow, the sense Of disgrace
for herself and her children, the poverty,
and not unfrequently the beggary,-
the fear and the fact Of violence, the lin
gering, life long struggle and despair of
countless women with drunk en- husbands,
are enough to make all women curse
wine, and engage nnitedly to oppose it
everywhere as the worst enemy Of their
sex.
And now what shall we see on the New
Years Day, 1871? Women all over the
city of New York-women here and there
all over the country, where like social
customs prevail-setting out upon their
tables the well filled decanters which,
before night shall close down, will be
emptied into the brains Of young men
and old men, who will go reelng to dark
er orgies, or to homes that will feel
ashamed of them. Woman's lips will
give the invitation, woman's hand will
fill and present the. glass, woman's care
less voice will laugh at the effects Of the mis-
chievous draught upon their friends and,
having done all this, woman will retire to
'balmy rest, previously having reckoned
the number of those to whom she has,
during the day, presented dangerous
temptation. and rejoiced over it in the
degree Of its magnitude.
o woman woman Is it not about
time that this thing were stopped ?
Have you husband, brother, son ?
Are they stronger than their neighbors
who have, one after another, dropped
into the graves Of drunkards? Look
around you, and see the desolations that
drink has wrought among your acquaiu
tanees. and then decide whether you
have right to place temptation IN any
man Eay, or do ought to make a social
custom respectable which loads hundreds
of thousands of men into bondage and
death. Why must the bottle come out
everywhere? Why can there not be a
festal occasion without this vulgar guz-
zling of strong drink?
Woman, there are some things that
you can do, and this is one /: you can
make drinking unpopular and disgrace
full among the young. You can utterly
discountenance all drinking in your own
house, and you can hold in suspicion