The Democratic advocate., 1878-07-27
BY DIR. PRIME.

taken pains to 60, where men would be
likely to get drunk, If anywhere. IF a
fair, or ont-of-door show, review, national
games or play were going on, it has been
E.y practice to mingle with the common
people and see how they spend their time
when not at work. The habits of the
masses of mankind are a study far more
to me, than the manners and
customs of the rich and the great. They
who have money and time to spend as they
please, live substantially the same every
where. But the poor must live as they
can, and their manner Of life varies with
the climate and soil, and therefore the
products of the land they live in Nor is
it possible to know the habits of people,
the working people especially, by simply
riding through country on the railway
and lodging at hotels. Many writer's make
profound observations on the state of NOR
ais and religion, and on domestic life and
habits of country of which they have
seen nothing except through the windows
of carriage.
To say that this is the first drunken
man I have seen in ten months of travel
on the Continent, amounts to nothing un
less one has been among the people, in
their places Of entertainment and refresh
ment 1t would be impossible in Doblin,
Edinburgh, London or New York, to make
an evening tour of the dram-shops and
and gardens Of amusement without seeing
many people intoxicated. The saloons
would be scenes Of riot and drunkenness,
from which such as could 60 at all would
90 home and beat their wives and children.
Punch recently had this terrible satire ::
two men are pounding one another in the
street: another rushes between them and
cries out What do you mean by beating
one another have you no wives at homer
Perhaps there is no worse place than
Naples in Italy or France. 1t has bad
reputation for morals, and if there is one
place where there would be more intem-
perance than another, we would expect it
to be at Naples. When / was there last
winter saw it outside and in. The streets
were like a long holiday. The people
we're as lively as if they we're all on spree.
I sometimes thought they were. One
evening l was passing wine-shop. The
door was open, as the shop doors are open
at all times. We would call it saloon: a
drinking saloon. A score Of men and
women were sitting at little tables drink
ing and smoking, and all talking in the
iolliest fashion. It was not place that
quiet stranger would care to enter. In
Water street or Baxter in New York it
would not be safe to go in. But | was
disposed to see just how they managed
such places in Naples, and walking in, l
took a seat by one of the tables, at which
two or three men were sitting with their
wine before them. They asked me to
drink, but l declined. A waiter came to
me and asked me what l would have. /
said that 1 merely wished to sit for mo-
ment, and giving him more than any one
in the room would probably pay for wine,
1 sat and looked on. No one took any
notice of me, though | was certainly dress
ed very unlike the motley company.
They were of the lower class of people,
such as we at home would call the lowest.
They we're very lively. Laughing and
talking gaily, not nOisily, smoking and
drinking cheap and poor wine, they seemed
to enjoy themselves intheir way, and that
way was to please one another. Not an
angry word, not dispute of any sort, dis
turbed the general jollity of the hour.
The worst feature of the place is its smell.
What with poor tobacco and the garlic
that pervades their persons, dress and
breath, and the unspeakable dirt in which
they have their being, these low Italians
are to my senses intolerable. / sat in the
midst Of them as long as my stomach and
nose would permit, and left them as
quietly as 1 entered. Probably none Of
those people would go away tipsy, but all
were drinking freely, and I supposed they
we're having frolic.
Another and q better way of learning
the effects of intoxicating liquors on the
people is to read the police reports in the
daily local newspapers. This do every
day. They are substantially the same as
in the English and American papers, with
this grand difference, there are no arrests
or very few, Of persons intoxicated, or who
have committed offences in consequence
of intoxieation. l will now take up the
daily paper of this morning in a city oi
So, 600 inhabitants, where many kinds o.
vice, including gambling and licentiOus
ness, abound. do not yet know whai
win be the police returns of yesterday, bu
1 viii see, and report exactly the facts
Only four arrests are mentioned. Thes'
were for, l. Highway robbery. 2 Thief
Of watch. 3. Injury to trees in the park
4. Begging. have read the reports 70
forty days in this same city, and have no
seen one, no not one instance such as vi
see daily in the New York papers and tn
London papers of men arrested for out
RACES upon their families or companion
committed while under the influence o
liquor. / do not say such things neverOc
eur. But they must be very rare, for the.
do not come to public notice, and there ism
motive for concealing them. They woul