Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-09-13
A W0MAN'S VIEW OF IN
TEMPERANCE.


A WOMAN'S VIEW OF IN
TEMPERANCE.
CDR. HoLBRooK-Dedr Sir: You
ask me to write of Temperance from
woman's standpoint. | consider
the influence woman can exert against
intemperance a more powerful one
than that of all organizations that can
be formed to combat it. In the Guilt
waited circles of American society,
woman orders the arrangements, and
she has it in her power to make in
temperance disreputable. | do not
believe that woman's Influence alone
can kill out war, as some enthusiasts
do, for while dynasties exist, and
men alone rule the nations, there will
be wars; but in reference TO this evil,
which is the next in Importance to
political oppression, woman is all
powerful, if she will but rise in her
Legitimate might. BY excluding from
her charmed circle all who indulge in
intemperance, by driving it from her
presence into the purlieus where men
congregate alone, she can Danish it
from good society. Instead of doing
this, she garnishes her dinner-table
with every variety of wine she can
collect, and adds beauty to the sense
of taste by the exquisiteness by her
wares thus often tempting those to
partake of the cup who would else,
perhaps, never meet with it in win
ming form, because the style of their
culture would naturally exclude them
from the grosser haunts of intempe-
rance In past times brandy and
wines stood upon every ones side
board, and courtesy required them to
be offered to every visitor. Modern
practices are less gross, but quite as
pernicious.
eff young women will refuse the
glass of champagne, and look coldly
on the young men who take it, the
custom of social drinking will pass
away forever from polite circles,
which are.now often disfgured by ex.
hibitions Of folly consequent upon the
practice Grave charges are made
against women, both here and in En-
gland, and are sustained by the most
respectable testimony. | know half
dozen instances Of Incorporate
women, some of which are fragrant
ones, in my own narrow
sphere and | fear my knowledge
might easily be multiplied in a wider
circle. Whoever is conversant with
city life knows the exhaustion insep-
arabic from continual appearance in
company, night after night, prolonged
to late period, makes demand
upon the powers of life that must be
met in some way ; and physicians,
who are not always Psychologists, and
even when they are, have not always
the moral courage to assert and per-
sist in their principles, are surely
guilty of what is commonly called
the whisky cure 1t is the readiest
temporary restorative, and once in
dulged in is too easy remedy to be
resisted by those who are educated
to think fashionable life the most de-
sirable aim, even if the physician does
not in every instance sanction it Do
we not know mothers who are obliged
to watch their daughters closets, lest
the indulgence be carried too far?
zone young lady told me that for
two years she took, by order of her
physician, claret with her breakfast
and lunch, and whisky at night, to
counteract the exhaustion produced
by assiduous teaching, but at last be-
came so Disguised with the remedy,
which afforded her no permanent
benefit, that she refused to take it
longer, and substituted a simple diet
and horseback exercise, which had re-
stored her health.
"But worse than this, mothers, du
ring the period when the substance of
their bodies goes to form the sub
stance of their children's bodies,
strengthen themselves with wines and
other alcoholic liquors, thus laying
the foundation of intemperance in the
very germs of being. Such congo
NAL intemperance can hardly be i'm.
puted as sin in the victim. II IN
temperance was vice that could be
cured by a crisis of conscience, or
even by an occasional lealization of
its disastrous consequences, as the
vices of lying or stealing can be, be-
cause they have no necessary physlc
al accompaniment, it would be quite
another question but this vice has
fearful effects upon the health and the
organization, creating cravings that
few natures so disordered have the
strength to resist, making such in,
roads upon vitality and so disorder
ing the nervous system, that its vic
TINS become objects of the most pro.
found pity, and make demands upon
our sympathies that 60 far to excuse
the deplorable weakness And not
only is the evil thus frequently made
congenital. but the alcoholic regimen
is often continued through the period
of nursing-ale and porter being
constantly recommended to moth
ers by physicians at that time.
Add to this the habit in which
nursery-maids are known to indulge,
and which the too frequent habit of
leaving them all sway in the nursery
gives them an opportunity to practice,
of giving paregoric, and even laada-
nun, TO infants, to keep them quiet.