St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-02-04
Beer a Temperance Drink.
BY HON. NEAL DOW.

A great many respectable people,
some of them friends of temperance in
their way, insist that the adoption of
beer in this country, in is various forms
as common beverage, would be help
to the temperance cause. Some promi-
nent pulplts speak out boldly and de-
cidedly in this way; one of them in
New York, very prominent one, not
long ago, insisted that no one was fit to
be a worker in the temperance cause,
'unless he knows the difference between
fiery liquors and malt beer; indulging
in the latter and kindred tipples, while
eschewing the former.
The brewing business in this country
is comparatively of recent origin, but it
has already reached immense proper
tons, and is growing rapidly i'll every
part of the Northern States, except in
Maine, where it is forbidden by law,
and has been suppressed by the strong
hand. This trade is enormously profit
able more so than any other business
in this country. AS DR.. johnson puts
it, it has the power of ''producIng
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice."
The brewers hold congress" annual
", to consider the ''interests of the
trade" and at all of them they lay es-
pecial stress upon the assertion that
beer is a temperance drink, and that
brewers are great workers IN the tenn
perance cause.
| have been surprised to hear intelli
gent men, some of them educated men,
insisting upon what they say is the pro-
verbal temperance of the people in
beer-drinking countries, and that indul
gence in beer is really good thing.
They forget, or perhaps they do not
know, that drink taken properly, is
merely help to digestion, that for this
purpose only small quantity is requir-
ed, and that all beyond this, even of
water, is an interruption of the process
of digestion, and therefore a mischief.
1t is not true that the people of beer
drinking countries ale temperate; the
exact opposite is the fact. England is
the most drunken country in the world,
as EngliShmeu acknowledge, and its
shocking, brutal drunkenness is chiefly
produced by beer, of which they con-
sumo enormous quantities. Beer drink
ing in England as a national habit. goes
back only TO 1898, when the Beer Bill
gave encouragement to brewers to eX-
tend their trade. and 10 the people to
consume its products. Within the first
year Of its enactment, Sidney Smith,
speaking of its effects, said: The Ma
ton is staggering drunk" Under the
operation of that Bill, it was supposed
tLat the malt liquors would take the
place of distilled liquors and supplant
them in the market; but the effect real
| ! e, i-l, IF
whisky, brandy and gin consumed, but
to supplement it with the enormous
products of the breweries.
The original Maine Law had a sweep
ing prohibition of the sale of ''intOXi-
eating liquors. without specifying any
of them. AT the first prosecution of a
beer seller, he denied that beer was
Intoxicating" within the meaning of
the law, and it was necessary to prove
that it was Intoxicating. For this pur-
pose some reformed drunkards were
called as witnesses, and they testified
| that malt liquors were not only intOXi-
eating, but that the drunkenness pro-
| duced by that was worse than that pro-
duced by distilled liquors; that it was
more brutal, continued for a longer
| time, and was much worse to recover
from, as they knew by long and bitter
experience.
Advocates of beer drinking refer to
| the fact, that those addicted to the habit
consume great quantities of their ia
vOrite beverage, without apparent III
| toXicatiOn. 1t is true that beer drink
ers are always thirsty; they are always
ready for a drink; that they do not
know what the sensation is, not to be
| thirsty. One of them said to me not
long ago, as he was praising beer, and
insisting that it ought to be exempt
from the prohibition of the law: Il
would give a quarter of a dollar now,
for glass of good lager" and | asked
"Wha makes the end of your nose so
red and your eyes SO weak and wa
terry ~
Beer is doctored in its manufacture
expressly to produce thirst in those who
drink it. Rosin in large quantities is
used for that purpose, which effects the
| kidneys and produces constant thirst
In North Carolina, two years ago. a
manufacturer of spirits of turpentine
and rosin, a Northern man, whose guest
was, told me that he sold large guam
titles of IOsin to brewers, and had in a
single year sold ten thousand barrels to
one of them. The beer-drinker is mere
ly a candidate for the product of the
mash tub. He is as simple, and more
of fool, than the Irishman who work
ed his passage on a canal boat by walk
ing Gu the tow path and driving the
mules. He did not pay and work too,
as the besotted beer-drinker does
Beer has the effect to produce that pc
culiar disease of the kidneys, of which
an eminent American died a little while
ago in Europe, victim to the brewer
les.
Portland, Ne.