The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-02-03
THE "BRANDY WAR"
! NOVEL TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT II

NONEL TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN
SWEDEN.
A Stockholm letter to the London Stand
ard tells OF the remarkable temperance
movement in Sweden: The town of
Gothenburg is able to boast Of having car
ried on the war against drunkenness with
the greatest success. Since 1865 the whole
spirit trade of the community has been
transferred to a philantrophical company.
which has undertaken to pay over to the
town the whole profits of the business, and
thus is working merely for the cause of
temperance. The company, which disposes
Of all the licenses, forty-three in number,
acts on the principle that no manager OF its
public houses shall derive any profit from
the sale of liquors. All the employees OF the
company have fixed salaries, and the only
extra profits they derive is from the sale of
food, which Is always to be provided on the
premises. It thus becomes their interest to
promote the consumption of food rather
than of drink, and gradually to transform
the public house from mere drinking shop
to kind of a restaurant. No sales on
credit are allowed. The results have proved
very satisfactory. Not only have the public
houses been transformed from dark and
dirty holes TO clean and well lighted houses,
where unadulterated goods are supplied, but
at the Same time drunkenness has fallen off
to a remarkable degree. While in 1865
there We're 2O7O cases OF drunkenness re.
ported in Gothenburg, in 1871 there were
only 1,533-a reduction of about twenty five
per cent in town whose population
Is rapidly increasing and rising in
prosperity. The example set by Gothenburg
has been followed by several other commu-
mites, and the system has everywhere been
found to work exceedingly well. But it is
not the only enemy against which drunken
ness has to contend. A movement
has recently sprung up among the
working classes themselves which promises
] to be more formidable foe to the public
houses than the old Temperance societies.
Some time ago the workmen of Messrs.
Bartle & Warburg, large firm in Gothen-
burg, made an agreement between them
selves by which no married man should be
allowed to go into the public house, and the
single men only at meal times They, at
| the same time, agreed never to treat each
| other TO glass Of brandy, and imposed a
fine on the transgression of this rule. They,
however, did not pledge themselves to total
abstinence. Married men were free to keep
spirits at home, and the unmarried to have
their glass of brandy at tueir meals. They
did not wish altogether to prescribe the use
of spirits, moderate quantity of which is in
our cold climate rather useful than detri-
mental to the constitution. A wide pub
| LEFTY has been given to the resolution, and
an urgent appeal made to their brother
| workmen in all parts of Sweden to join in
| the movement, which now appears to be
rapidly gaining ground. Nearly every
morning have found in one of your Stock
holm contemporaries notice headed 1.-THE
Brandy War;" and announcing that some
body of workmen have sent in their adhe
sion to the new program. To the fanatics
of teetotalism, a movement which tolerates
the consumption of spirits at home vii
probably seem to deserve but little success
but it will meet with the hearty co-opera
ton of the many who consider total absti
hence TO be the remedy of those only tina
despair of attaining moderation, and to in
dictate weakness rather than strength.