Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-12-19
DIPSOMANIA.


The Subject Scientifically and JocOseiy
Treated by Confirmed lnebriate-He
Eulosizes the Flowing Bowl.
Go Ii. Butler in Washington Sunday RepuD-
"'Tis but the fool who loves excess
Hast thou drunken soul?
The bane Is in thy shallow skull,
Not in my silver bowl"
DIR. Rolmes' Ode TO a Punch Boul.
Let me approach tie subject before me
in the manner you will all eat your Christ
mas dinners next week, with light hearts
and good digestion only pleasant fool
ing with AmOntillado, suspicion of soup
and glance and taste of the decorated
salmon, then q business. like slashing right
| and left al the solids Of the feast. What
| though the turkeys wings and legs fly
into ladies' laps and tho cranberry sauce
pales as it passes redder lips? What
though an adroit twist of the carver's
| wrist sends the gravy flying over several
| suits of holiday clothes? Because George
William Curtis is dyspeptic and Senator
George Hoar iaundiced shall there be no
more cakes and ale? Go to! Ode to
punch bowl. Well, I should smile-at
| least should if it were nearer the twenty
| fifth. But what does not lot of us owe
to punch bowl? Headaches, hiccups,
| lost canes and umbrellas, ssoaked"
watches, soiled clothes and government
places. 1t will be noticed By the analyti
cal reader, and those of the Republic are
analytical, that DR.. Oliver Wendell
Holmes, in his laudation of tho splendid
silver bowl presented by his friends on one
Of the good (and hearty, honest, healthy
toned. not ''high toned ~ old poets birth
days, said the fools loved excess. Just
so! Only fool could love ercess. It's
the pleasant starting-in, the transition
from bile to bubbling good humor, the
quickening of the faculties, the flash of
repartee and rattle of retort, the forget
iuiness of debts, and corns, and Potomac
flats, and the prevalent biped flat that
makes the puDch-bowl tho magnet of the
social circle. But, all, doctor, that pleas
ant starting-in has led many a wise man
to that excess without loving it as the fool
does, but who got there as Hayes got into
the white hOuse-a fool if he didn't know
how he got there and villain if lie did.
| However, Christmas is the season of
mistletoe, holly berries, fun, frOlic and
feasting, sleigh bells, wedding bells
(mighty good season, AN told, for thin
people to get married), society bellies and
dinner bells, that blessedest bell, which
WILL ring many poor man, woman and
child into probably the only good dinner
of their work-a-day year. feel at home
writing for the best people and was born
for society, or society was born for me,
I've never fully decided which, so if I
relax editorial reserve little attribute it,
| pray you, to the glamor of the season.
In 1888 I'll be as dignified and look as
stupidity conscious as thirty dollar drug
clerk when lie is called =" Doctor"
/ Fnnr moro limos IF OOOI vorcoc fo hraoo
up some tired fellow who hasn't my in
diarubber elasticity and buffalo bull con-
stitution and I'll quit moralizing and 60
on with the music:
~ hold it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones
| That men may rise on stepping stones
| Ut their dead selves to happier things"
More thought than jingle in that stanza.
That reminds me of a good definition the
Hon. Martin Maginnis, of Montana, made
when asken by constituent the difference
between able and capable. The ready and
ruddy delegate replied A: Well, for
instance, man may be able to hold a
great deal of whisky, but not capable of
paying for a drink"
AS drinking man myself, unfortu-
rately better known for that one failing
| than for my many virtues, let mo say
L
thought, their habits, the causes of the
disease, habit or vice, rs the reader
chooses to call it. l am not believer in
the theory of dipsomania. know that it
has few eminent advocates among med
ical men, DR.. CrOwther, DR.. George N.
Beard, of New York, DR.. Spitzka (of
coursc) and others. have sought infor-
nation from the doctors of several ine-
briato asylums and hospitals, and have
had the privilege of consulting the dis.
| tiDguished superintendendent of one in
sane asylum upon whom inebriates are
forced by the certificates of convenient
physicians (sigEed, patient unseen, as
carelessly as a recommendation for Ot1ice),
DIR. w. w. Godding, and have read
good deal on the, to NE, interesting SUBJ
.jcct. II l was the victim of an uncon.
trollable appetite l wanted to know it. 1t
was 4 curious mental problem to me.
Perhaps, thought, if and lot of other
apparently pretty good fellows l have
been cloistered with are dipsomaniacs,
some of US may next develop hOmicidal
tendency or desire to burn barns. MIR.
| George Bliss once stated in the Star
! Route trial that l had been in all the
| inebriate asylums in the United States.
! Mr.. Bliss, i'll accordance with that class of
lawyers to which he belongs, perverted
the facts to vent his spleen. have been
in some of them, but not all. Well, the
result of my observation and reading
| is that there is no such thing as dipso-;
| mania. 1t is nothing hut plain, old
fashioned drunk. The ,!runkard ninety
| nine times in a hundred is as much rc-
| sponsible for what he does when he is
| drunk as the man is who kills another
| through anger. The so called dipsomaniac
| gets drunk because he wants to, lie likes
the effect of whisky. He may have any
one of dozen reasons for it, poverty, dis
| appointment, toothache; family Difficult
| ties, idleness, but none Of them should
! excuse him if under the influence of liquor
| he commits crime. have known scores
| of ard-drinking men, many of them now
dead, and never saw one believed to be
| a dipsomaniac. Like the victims of opium
the habit is carried to an extent that
sudden cessation of stimulants Is almost
certain death. To quit drinking "short
| off" is question of physical constitution
more than of will. Some men, after years
| of hard drinking, can do it and live
there are majority who cannot, because
there are majority of damaged constitu-
tions in the world. Again, If dipsomania
! is disease of the brain, why is it that
men on parole in the spacious grounds of
the government insane asylum do not
scale the wall far in the rear and hidden
in the woods to reach gin mill hard by L?
lit has been done, but not by dipsomani.
acs) or rush out of one of tho two wide
open gates on the main road and fight
their way with cobblestones to the race
track, where fair article of whisky is