Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-08
SOCIAL DRINKING.

/
Whether it is the climate Or the tempera.
ture of our people to which the fact is due
it is generally conceded that the Americans
are, more than any other nationality, a drink
ing people. While the French and the Ger
mans, perhaps, drink greater quantities than
do we, they restrict themselves to beers and
| light wines, and as a consequence drunken
ness among them is exceptional. The Eng
lish and Scotch drink stronger liquors, but
do not appear to suffer as injurious effects
| from their ibations, and even among them
confirmed inebriety is rarity. In this coun-
try intemperance has become vice of giant
proportions which is fast sapping the founda-
| tons of society and giving us as a people a
very unenviable reputation abroad. We
drink strong liquors whisky, gin, rum and
brandy-to excess, and inebriate asylums are
almost as common as asylums for the insane.
Almost nightly the streets Of our cities are
thronged with noisy, staggering, besotted
wretches. Sometimes-unless they are Gre
spectacle '-they find their way to the sta
tion-house, and in the morning to the work
house, if they are unable to pay the fines i'm
posed by the police magistrate.
How to curb this growing evil has been a
question that has claimed the attention of
many of the best minds in the nation. It is
an evil Of no common magnitude, for its
baneful influence extends to all classes of
society. The rich and the poor, the high
and the low-born are alike under the malign
influence of the demon of drink. Sumptu-
airy laws have been tried in vain. While in
Maine and one or two other of the New
England States prohibitory laws have been
enacted, they seem to be of no avail in check
ing the consumption of liquor. In sec
tions where it's sale has been in a measure
suppressed, the consumption of opium has
largely increased, ard philanthropists are
alarmed lest, in depriving the people of one
stimulant, they have opened the way for the
consumption of another far worse and more
destructive, both morally and physically.
Wherever repressive measures have been
tried it has been remarked that there was
Immediately large increase of drunken
ness. Men who seldom INDUCED in the per-
nicious habit took to carrying pocket flask,
and the very fact that it was in their posses
sion was temptation to drink. AS con-
sequence all sensible men have come to the
conclusion that sumptuary laws are fail
ure as preventive of drunkenness,
besides being an infringement of the vested
rights of the citizen.
1t is very evident, therefore, that a resort
will have to be had to other means to check
the spread of drunkenness. The most sensi-
BILE course would appear to be to begin at the
foundation. Discourage the practice in the
young and instil in their minds a loathine
for the Intoxicating cup. Then go to work
to create public sentiment hostile to social
drinking. In this the great evil lies. Few
| men would ever drink to excess we're it not
for the fact that custom in manner COM
pels them to do SO. A man goes into a sa-
loon for drink. Perhaps he needs it, and
it would do him no harm. He there meets
two Or three friends and invites them to ioin
him. One of the others then proposes to
''repeat the dose;" then another, and anoth-
er, until, instead of having taken but one
drink and that a necessary one, he has
drank enough to make him hpsy and inca
pable of performing his duties in a
satisfactory manner. This occurring day
after day eventually becomes second nature.
The appetite for drink grows upon him I'M
| til he becomes sot, looses his position. the
respect of his fellows, and what is more i'm
portant, his own self-respect. Men who are
habitual though moderate drinkers see the
evil of this absurd custom, which is purely
American. It is a custom that prevails no.
where else than in the drinking places. A
mani who1 enters a restaurant flor a lunch
does not feel obliged to ask the acquaint.
ances he may meet there to join him, anc
yet, if he is about to drink glass of liquor
that he may need as much as he does his
lunch, he feels under an obligation to ask
all present, with whom he happens to be &C.
qrainted, to drink with him.
| All men who deprecate iHtemperance,
| though they may not be total abstainers
themselves, ought to do all in their power tc
abolish this custom. It is responsible fol
nine-tenths of the drunkenness that exists
We're it not for theisystem of treating and
being treated, excess of drinking would bt
as rare here as it is in any of the continental
countries. The overthrow of this custom