Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-09-24

The Englishman, and particularly the Eng
lishman of the laboring class, is welded TO his
beer. He feels that it is the great comfort,
and one of the very few enjoyments, of his
life. And not only is the chocolate room or
any other like contrivance SLOW" but there
is about it an implication that he is taken in
in hand and managed by his betters, like n
child, which he not unnaturally resents.
Rightly or wrongly, he feels more ashamed of
being treated in this way than he does of be-
ing drunk once week-once, however, being
here word of wide Specification. For in
these cases "the same drunk" often extends
from Saturday night to Monday and not un-
frequently into Tuesday. The result of this
habit, which may almost be called custom,
is deplorable and socially injurious to a degree
of which We in America have a very imperfect
idea The beer of England is not like the
light German beer which has come so much
into vogue here of late years under the name
of lager" and of which man Of any sta
bilty of brain and knee might drink enough
to swim in without feeling any other effect
than that of unpleasant distention it is
heady, strongly narcotic, and apparently not
exhilarating but depressing. Drunk in large
quantities, after a short period of excitement
it dulls the brain and fills the drinkers whole
bulk with liquid stupefaction. He becomes
not intoxicated but besotted Not only labor
not, give themselves up to this debasing hab-
it of beer-drunkenness through two or three
days of the week, but skilled artisans-men
whose work is of q kind aud of an excellence
which is worthy of respect and admiration. l
was more than once told in regard to an arti-
san Of this class, whose work was always in
demand at the highest price, and who could
with ease have kept himself and his family in
perfect comfort and have laid up money, that
haxt tr1,,1A Y,,nkv rorlrf TO-
price more than four days in the week. Blue
Monday is a recognized institution" in Eng
land, and, as have intimated, the blueness
of it extends not unfrequently into Tuesday
and this among the very best of the skilled
artisans. One bookbinder told me that his
two best men, ''fnishers" to whom he gave
his finest work in perfect confidence that it
would be done unexceptionably both in work
manship and in style, never made any time
that is, never got really at work-before We'd
nesday. Like stories were told me of other
equally accomplished workmen. This is not
only ruinous to the men and to their families,
but the aggregate industrial loss to England
must be very great And this steady, besot-
ted drunkenness seems to be at the bottom of
most of the distress and crime of England
clergyman whose work lies much among
the laboring classes told me that he felt utter
ly powerless before this vice, which was a
constant quantity III the problem that he was
called upon to solve. knew a lady who was
a district visitor in a suburb of London-one
of those minstering angels who in England,
more, it seems to me, than in any other coun-
try in the world, give themselves up to the
work of helping and bettering the most
wretched and degraded of their kind, and
who carry Christian love and purity and grace
into dens of filth and sin and suffering which,
if they did not sec them, would be beyond
their chaste imaginations and l asked her
one day il she met with any encouragement,
and if she thought she had been able to do
much real good With sad, sweet smile she
answered, Every little. The condition of
these people seems hopeless and they are
hopeless. All that we can do is to help them
from time TO time and we find them always
where we left them, or if possible yet lower,
more degraded more wretched. And at the
bottom of it all is drunkenness The men
are always more or less drunk, and the women
are almost as bad. They earn little money,
and they get drunk. Husband and wife get
drunk together; they quarrel; they fight
and the children grow up with this before
them. They are never really quite sober un-
less they are starving or ILL., What can be
done for such people? How can they or their
condition be made better p The tears gush-
ed from her eyes as she spoke. knew that
it was so. My own observation, very small
and of little worth as compared with hers, had
yet shown me this. And was struck with