The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1884-03-13
THE USE OF STIMULANTS BY
WOMEN.

lhb tDE VT btimULANI . DI
WOMEN.
The now common custom of reSortinp
to the Use of spirits in times of pleasure,
as we'll as for the relief of pain and de-
spondency, is fraught with dangers but
little appreciated by the average indi-
vidual. That the custom of the free use
of stimulantS is upon the increase
amongst women, especially in our lar
ger cite, is easily demonstrated. A
cursory visit to any popular restaurant
will result in the visitors seeing ladies
both alone, in parties, and with and
without escorts, who ten years ago
would not have tasted an alcoholic bev-
erage tf any kind. even in their own
homes. taking beer, wine or spirits
with their meals, almost as a matter of
course, and apparently with no idea
that they are doing anything unlady-
like or unusual.
Beer. and especially bottled beer, has
of late years become immensely popular
with all classes. Ladies stop at restau-
rants often with the sole purpose of hav-
ing bottle of beer to refresh and in
vigorate them after long walk, or
when tired from shopping; families take
it regularly by the box; boarderS have
it privately at table or in their rooms;
and servants. pitcher or pail in hand, no
longer make a secret of their trips to
the corner groggery or the avenue beer
saloon. Grocers keep it, and sell it to
families by the bottle or box. The same
sentiment that has made the German
style of open-air concert so popular in
this country seems at the same time to
have brought with it love for convivi-
ality, and to have pOpularized the Gus
tom of beer-d linking.
Beer has been the entering wedge,
and following close upon it has come
the more or less free use of spirits
And this was natural and to be expect
| ed. One thing almost un consciously
! leads to another in matters of this kind,
and beer has proved itself stepping
stone to the use of strong liquors.
Women who formerly would have used
spirits only under medical advice, and
even then reluctantly, now resort to
them without objection and upon the
slightest grounds, simply because their
previous use of beer seems TO have
broken the ice. To many poor
wreck, the first glass of beer has
proven a costly experiment, and will be
looked back to as the first step in a
career the incidents of which make her
shudder.
1t has been urged by some that the
Germans, than whom there is not a
more hard-working, frugal and studi-
Gus people, are nation of beer-drink-
ers, and that the introduction of their
amusements. social customs and the
like, would prove not only not a mis-
fortune, but a positive boon to Amer
cans. The fact, however, that for
many reasons Americans differ from
Germans in point of nervous organiza-
ton, or rather lack of nervous equili-
bration, if we may be permitted to. use
the term, makes that which would
prove of signal benefit to the latter ex-
tremely dangerous for the former.
That American women are placing
themselves in position of peculiar
danger by admitting beer. and later
wine and spirits, to their homes and
tables, as well as indulging in them
VIII lie away from home, is "A fact beyond
que ,tion. the peculiar satisfaction with
which a tired. exhausted or unstrung
nervous system receives the stimulation
thus derivable leads almost invariably
to further resort to it. The fact that
woman's bodily or mental condition
is such that the slightest effort causes
exhaustion and calls for stimulation be-
speaks. as forcibly as nature can posi-
bly, express it. a very unhealthy, not to
say dangerous, state of affairs, for
which physician should be consulted
without delay. In such conditions the
chances are in favor of the woman's be-
coming, after time, wholly dependent
upon alcoholics. We have known such
women to become in time the veriest
sots through this same originally oc-
casional resort to stimulants. Others
of the same class are known to us to-
day who are fast travelling the danger
Gus incline. To some the consequences
of the course they are pursuing are evil
dent; but the craving which has become
firmly established seems to be too great
for their unaided powers of resistance.
They cry, wiring their hands in agony,
and bemoan their cruel fate in their in
tervals of sobriety. make rash promises
to their husbands, and fondly caress
their little children that alcohol
is fast robbing of mothers love and
care, and whom she is daily robbing of
their birthright of a good name and
responsibility. How many poor
wretch of this class curses the first swal-
low that ever passed her lips! Confine-
ment and close surveillance in some of
these cases seem to do good for time,
but the old craving appears never to be
thoroughly crushed out, for it keeps
cropping up every little while. some
times in its old fury. sometimes modi-
fed. Not few of these unfortunates
take to opium, or chloral, or both, and
while using them manage TO abstain
from liquor. They are content to do
this, aud their friends, hopeless of
radical cure, are willing TO allow them
the narcotics, on the ground that though
one form of inebriety is virtually as bad
as the other. still that from the habitual
use OF narcotics is less painful to the
view. and not nearly so prone to result
in open disgrace as that from alcohol
Some. however. after acquiring crav-
ing for narcotics, relapse into the old