Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1874-04-16
"Atter man has continued moderate

After man has continued moderate
drinking long enough, then comes
change demand for more drink. The
Old quantity does not suffice. The pow
ers which have been insensibly under
mined, clamor, under the pressure of
business, for increased stimulation. 1t
is applied, and the machine starts off
grandly; the man feels strong, his form
grows portly, and he works under con-
slant pressure. Now he is in a condi-
ton of great danger, but the delusion
is upon him that he is in no danger at
all. At last, however, drink begins to
take the place of food. His appetite
grows feeble and fitful. He lives on his
drink, and, of course, there is but one
end to this viz: death! 1t may come
suddenly, through the collapse of all his
powers, or through paralysis, or it may
come slowly through atrophy and en-
aciation. His friends see that he is
killing himself, but he cannot see it Fat.
all. He walks in delusion from his
early manhood to his death.
ga few weeks ago one of our city
physicians publicly read paper on the
drinking habits of women. 1t was a
thoughtful paper, based on a competent
knowledge of facts. 1t ought to have
been of grea. use to those women of the
city who are exposed to the dangers it
portrayed, and especially TO these who
have acquired the habits it condemned.
Soon afterward there appeared in the
columns Of daily paper protest from
writer who ought to be good deal
more intelligent than he is, against the
doctors conclusions. The health and
physique of the beer-drinking English
woman were placed over against the
health and physique of the water-drink-
ing American women, to the disadvan-
tage of the latter. The man is deluded.
The man is deluded. 1t is not year
since Sir Henry Thompson, one of the
most eminent medical men in England,
man notoriously beyond the reach of
any purely Christian considerations, de
clared against the beer-drinking of
England on strictly sanitary grounds,
Our iterateur declares that the Eng
lishwoman can outwalk her American
sister. That depends entirely upon the
period of life when the task is unjerta-
ken. The typical Englishweman who
has stood by the beer diet until she is
more than forty years old, is too fat to
walk anywhere easily out of doors, or
gracefully/within.
"During our fare civil war this mat
ter of drinking for health's sake was
thoroughly tried. A stock of exper-
ience and observation was acquired that
ought to have lasted for century,
Again and again, thousands and thsus-
ands of times, was it proved that the
man who drank nothing was the better
man. He endured more, he fought bet
ter, he came out of the war healthier
thin the man who drank. Nothing is
more easily demonstratable than that
the liquor used by the two armies, among
officers and men alike, was an unmiti-
gated curse to them. 1t disturbed the
brains and vitiated the councils of the
officers, and debilitated and demsraliz-
ed the men, Yet all the time the delu-
sion among officers and men was, that
there were both comfort and help in
whisky.
"The delusions of drink are number
less, but there is one of them which
stands in the way of reform so decided
ly that it calls for decided treatment
We allude to the notion that it is nice
thing to drink nice liquors or wines at
one's home, to offer them to ones friend
and to make them minister to good fell
lowship at every social gathering,while
it is very different thing to drink in bad
places, and in large quantities. A man
full of good wine feels that he has
right to look with contempt upon the
Irishman who is full of bad whisky. 1t
Is not a long time since the election ofa
professor in a British university was
opposed solely on the ground that he
neither drank wine nor offered it to his
friends; and when by small majority,
his election was effected, the other pro-
jessors decided not to recognize him So
tally. There are thus two men whom
;hese sticklers for wine despise-viz. ;the
nan who gets drunk on bad liquor, and
he man who drinks no liquor at ALL
indeed, they regard the latter with
hatred or contempt which they do not
eel for the poor drunkard. The abso-
ute animosity with which many men in
ociety regard one who is conscientious
Y opposed to wine-drinking, could only
pring from delusion in regard to the
,eal nature OF their own habits. The
ensitiveness of these people on this
ubiect, however, shows that they
the delusion of which they
ire the victims. They claim to be on
he side of temperance. They deprecate
and really don't see what is
o be done about 1t. They wish that
men would be mere rational In their en-
oymento of the good things of the world,
,tc., etc.; but their eyes see m blinded
% the fact that they stand in the way
# all reform. The horrible drunken
less of the larger cities Of Great Brit
i'm, with which no hell that America
lolds can compare for moment, can
,ever be reformed until the drinking
,abits of the English clergy and the
English gentry are reformed. With
of the British clergy
and water-drinkers ia
,ooed in society, and social drinking
he fashion in all the high life Of the
.ealm, the workman will stand BY his
rim, brutality will reign in its own
chosen centres undisturbed, and those
centres will increasingly become what,
o frightfal extent, they already arc
sores upon the body social
md stenches in the nostrils of the
world.
The habits, neither of Great Britain
lor America, will be improved until
men of influence in every walk Of liie
IRE willing to dispense with their
customs. Hundreds of thou
,ands of English speaking men &c toa
grave every wear. There IL